The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum and the Us-Mexican Border and Beyond

by John Washington Verso 4/3/2020, hardcover SKU: 9781788734721   The first comprehensive, in-depth book on the Trump administration's assault on asylum protections Arnovis couldn't stay in El Salvador. If he didn't leave, a local gangster promised that his family would dress in mourning--that he would wake up with flies in his mouth. "It was like a bomb exploded in my life," Arnovis said. The Dispossessed tells the story of a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran man, Arnovis, whose family's search for safety shows how the United States--in concert with other Western nations--has gutted asylum protections for the world's most vulnerable. Crisscrossing the border and Central America, John Washington traces one man's quest for asylum. Arnovis is separated from his daughter by US Border Patrol agents and struggles to find security after being repeatedly deported to a gang-ruled community in El Salvador, traumatic experiences relayed by Washington with vivid intensity. Adding historical, liter