Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

In January 1984, Rayburn’s new boss in Phoenix brought orders from the powerful director of the INS’s western district, Harold Ezell, a Reagan donor who had previously been the vice president of a California hot-dog chain called Wienerschnitzel International. On the Hill, testifying before Congress, Ezell described his enforcement agenda as “catch ’em . . . clean ’em, and fry ’em.”