The Dangerous Divide: Peril and Promise on the US-Mexico Border

2015 International Latino Book Awards Winner for Best Political / Current Affairs Book

How do we balance border security and America’s need for a vital workforce while continuing to provide access to the American dream? Since the attacks of 9/11, the United States has steadily ramped up security along the US-Mexico border, transforming America’s legendary Southwest into a frontier of fear. Veteran journalist Peter Eichstaedt roams this fabled region from Tucson, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, meeting with migrants, border security advocates, and communities ravaged by cross-border crime. Eichstaedt finds that despite tens of thousands of border agents and the expenditure of billions of dollars, an estimated one million Mexicans and Central Americans continue to cross the border each year. These migrants fill jobs that have become the underpinnings of the US economy. Rather than building a wall, or more and better barricades, Eichstaedt argues that the United States must reform its immigration and drug laws and acknowledge that costly, counterproductive, and antiquated policies have created deadly circumstances on both sides of the border.

Peter Eichstaedt is a veteran journalist who has reported from locations worldwide, including Afghanistan, Albania, Somalia, the Sudans, Uganda, Kenya, eastern DR Congo, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus. He is the author of Above the Din of War, Consuming the Congo, Pirate State, First Kill Your Family, winner of the 2009 Colorado Book Award; and If You Poison Us. He lives in Denver, Colorado.