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Julia Preston

Julia Preston is a contributing writer at the Marshall Project. From 2006 until 2016 she was the National Immigration Correspondent for The New York Times.
 (May 2017)

IN THE REVIEW

Trump: The New Deportation Threat

Catalino Guerrero (center), a New Jersey resident who is facing possible deportation to Mexico, with Senator Robert Menendez and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, at a rally before an immigration hearing, Newark, March 2017

Forgotten Citizens: Deportation, Children, and the Making of American Exiles and Orphans

by Luis H. Zayas

Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America

by Roberto G. Gonzales, with a foreword by Jose Antonio Vargas
Since the first days of the Trump administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been conducting what it calls targeted enforcement operations around the country. About 680 people were picked up during five days in February in coordinated actions in five cities. In March ICE announced at least 729 arrests in operations ranging from Virginia and Delaware to Oklahoma, Nevada, and the Pacific Northwest. Local news reports of smaller actions appear daily. The agency said that those detained included many immigrants convicted of serious crimes, such as aggravated assault, spousal battery, and sex offenses with minors. However, many of the people who have been rounded up do not appear to fit into the categories of malicious lawbreakers described by Trump and his homeland security secretary.

The Truth About Mexican-Americans

Mexicans in the Making of America

by Neil Foley

A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story

by Tom Gjelten
The tenor of the national debate over immigration changed from the first minutes of Donald Trump’s speech in New York City on June 16 announcing that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination. “The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” the real estate magnate said. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you,” he said, gesturing to the crowd. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Looking Back at the Revolution

Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua

by Stephen Kinzer

Inside Central America: Its People, Politics, and History

by Clifford Krauss
Stephen Kinzer and Clifford Krauss both covered Central America as news correspondents for thirteen years. This is a long time for an American correspondent to stay in one region, and it is especially long in Central America, where throughout the 1980s the pace of news and bloodletting was relentlessly exhausting.

The Defeat of the Sandinistas

I finally understood that the Sandinista National Liberation Front was likely to lose the national elections in Nicaragua to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s opposition coalition after I talked to a young Sandinista policeman on February 24, the night before the balloting. The policeman, in his beige shirt with the red and black Sandinista arm patch, was standing at a large intersection on the southern side of Managua at about 10:30 at night, trying to hitch a ride, and I picked him up in my rental car.

The Battle for San Salvador

On the night of Friday, November 10, several unusual parties took place in the neighborhood of Santa Marta, which clings to the sides of a jagged ravine on the outskirts of San Salvador. Residents were invited to a wedding celebration, though they were never quite sure when the couple had …

The Trial that Shook Cuba

Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, one of Cuba’s most distinguished generals and the former commander of the Cuban forces in Angola, was arrested last June 12 in Havana and shortly afterward accused of corruption and drug trafficking. He appeared before an honor tribunal only thirteen days later, and in his opening statement …

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