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

by Jonathan Blitzer

A dozen federal officers from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Border Patrol, and the US Attorney’s office had just arrived at the Manzo Area Council’s office, a single-floor stucco building that used to be a grocery store on Tucson’s west side. “Some of the guys here are wearing suits,” she said. They were carting off ten boxes of documents. Inside were nearly eight hundred client files, including five hundred immigration applications. The assistant US attorney was accusing the council of harboring undocumented immigrants and helping them sign up for welfare. A few of the agents had taken brooms and were sweeping stray papers off the floor, to be sure that nothing had escaped their attention.