Review by Booklist Review
The average perception of a border patrol is that officials police the immediate land on either side of a line. Readers may be surprised to learn that the U.S. Border Patrol is allowed to travel up to 100 miles away and still be within their jurisdictional rights. This is just one of many examples in Jones' book that shows the way this government entity has become a law unto itself. In fact, Jones shows how Supreme Court cases have weakened the Fourth Amendment, inculcating an ethos that has overshadowed illegal immigration and morphed into anti-terrorist activities and "unbridled surveillance" that are clearly cases of overreach. Two cases in point: Border Patrol's authorized presence at George Floyd's funeral, and their kidnapping of a Black Lives Matter protester in front of a Portland Starbucks in the summer of 2020. Jones also provides a comprehensive history lesson in how the western U.S. was often settled by vigilante justice, and how today's Border Patrol retains that legacy. This eye-opening read concludes with signs of hope and suggestions for change.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Political geographer Jones (White Borders) examines in this incisive legal history how the U.S. Border Patrol became a "sophisticated paramilitary force... that claims the legal right to sweep people off the streets of an American city without a warrant or even probable cause that a crime was committed." Established in 1924, the Border Patrol's "zone of operations" went undefined until 1947, when the Department of Justice determined that the agency's "special authority" extended to within 100 miles of any "external boundary," including coastlines. Noting that this area includes "nine of the ten largest cities in the United States and two-thirds of the American population," Jones delves into the 1970s court cases that affirmed the Border Patrol's authority to set up interior checkpoints, conduct warrantless stops, and use racial profiling, in spite of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "unreasonable searches and seizures." According to Jones, these and other court rulings have fostered an air of impunity among Border Patrol agents, who "are arrested for criminal activity at a rate five times higher than regular police officers." Enriched by the author's brisk prose and lucid analysis of complex legal matters, this is a troubling look at what Americans have sacrificed in the name of border security. Agent: Julia Eagleton, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) must be reined in, argues Jones (White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States). Despite attention to the ongoing U.S.-Mexico border crisis and lingering outcries at the violence of the Trump administration's "no tolerance policy," with its separated families and "kids in cages," too few Americans understand what the USBP does or the extent of its authority as the largest law enforcement body in the U.S., Jones insists. Jones details the USBP's stealthy expansion from its "anything goes," underfunded, Wild West frontier origins to the present-day paramilitary force with more than 19,000 agents, a nearly $4 billion budget, and virtually unchecked authority. With individual stories illustrating the carnage of seemingly limitless USBP stops in light of the Fourth Amendment's prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, Jones documents beatings, sexual assaults, kidnappings, killings, unwanted medical procedures, and other outrageous, unrestrained USBP behavior. VERDICT Jones summons readers concerned about abuse of authority, accountability, human rights, and establishing justice to demand rethinking and revising the USBP's expansive reach, with its legalized racial profiling and carved out exceptions to constitutional protections, along with the implications of an unchecked, heavily militarized police force operating throughout the U.S.--Thomas J. Davis
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A geography professor examines how the U.S. Border Patrol developed into an organization with powers that supersede the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Officially established as a federal agency in 1924, the Border Patrol has its roots in the Texas Rangers. "Ostensibly, [the Rangers'] purpose was to protect citizens from attack by Mexican or Native American raids," writes Jones, "but in practice they often harassed and displaced Native Americans and Mexicans who lived in the region"--not to mention peaceful non-White residents and runaway slaves traveling on the Underground Railroad to Mexico. Jefferson Davis Milton, a former Ranger who was named after the president of the Confederacy, later became the first man hired as a federal officer to patrol the U.S. border, in 1904. But the background history of the Border Patrol accounts for only part of how it evolved from a tiny, underfunded agency with "loosely defined regulations" regarding how far from the border it could operate into a "sophisticated paramilitary force" that surreptitiously made its lethal presence felt during the mass demonstrations that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Jones argues that the agency's unprecedented expansion in the late 20th century was driven by two Supreme Court decisions in the mid-1970s. The first, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975), made racial profiling a legal factor for federal agents roving the border to consider when stopping drivers. The second, United States vs. Martinez-Fuerte, approved the use of interior checkpoints "on highways and interstates within one hundred miles of borders and coastlines." This well-researched account is disturbing in its demonstration of the unwitting complicity between the American justice system and an organization born of racist violence. Jones also clearly shows the specter of increased--and sanctioned--police power to transform all places within the U.S. into anti-democratic borderlands. A provocative, necessary book about an ongoing hot-button topic. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
