The Undocumented Americans

Villavicencio and the people she interviews regularly reference “coyotes” who assist in border crossings. Coyotes act as guides through perilous terrain and to sites where people can leave and enter bordering countries with a low threat of surveillance. They require payment, and as surveillance along the US-Mexico border has increased in the 21st century, immigrants have become heavily reliant on guides for successful and secret travel. Villavicencio references some of the tasks that coyotes perform, including delivering passwords throughout an extensive transportation network to collect or drop off groups of migrants (20). For example, they might work with drug cartels (people the author refers to as “narcos”) who can transport migrants in trucks through cartel strongholds, possibly severely exploiting them along the way. The stories in the book remind the reader that border crossing is extremely dangerous, risky, and difficult, but people do it, sometimes repeatedly, to support and visit their families.

DACA stands for “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.” It refers to a US immigration policy enacted in 2012 that allows undocumented immigrants who arrived as children to avoid deportation in certain circumstances. The policy allows these immigrants to reside in the US, obtain work permits, and receive educations but does not include a path to citizenship.