Showdown in the Sonoran Desert

The U.S. immigration debate has raised some of the most difficult questions our nation has ever faced: How can we preserve the integrity of sovereign borders while also respecting the dignity of human beings? How should a border--that imaginary line in the sand--be humanely and effectively maintained? And how should we regard "the stranger" in our midst? To understand the experience of those directly impacted by the immigration crisis, Ananda Rose traveled to the Sonoran desert, a border region where the remains of some 2,000 migrants have been recovered over the past decade. There she interviewed Minutemen, Border Patrol agents, Catholic nuns, humanitarian aid workers, left-wing protestors, ranchers, and many other ordinary citizens of southern Arizona. She discovers two starkly opposed ideological perspectives: that of religious activists who embrace a biblically inspired hospitality that stresses love of strangers and a "borderless" compassion; and that of law enforcement, which insists on safety, security, and strict respect for international borders. But by embracing the stories these people tell about their lived experience--whether the rancher angered over seeing his property damaged by trespassing migrants, or the migrant who has left three children behind in a violent shantytown in the hope of providing them a better life through southbound remittances, or the Border Patrol agent stuck between his loyalty to law and the pain of finding a baby girl dead in the desert--Rose takes readers beyond predictable and entrenched partisan views to offer a more nuanced portrait of the conflict on the border. Ultimately, she argues, the immigration question turns on how we choose to view "the other"--with compassion or with fear. In writing that is intimate, insightful, even-handed, and often gut-wrenchingly vivid, Showdown in the Sonoran Desert offers a fresh new way to frame one of the most important debates of our time.
"With a poet's knack for words, a journalist's observational skills and a theologian's insights into religion's moving force even if it pushes people in opposite directions, Ananda Rose humanizes the complexities and controversies of the U.S. immigration debate." --Catholic News Service

"In Ananda Rose's work, the human face of immigration includes American citizens in Tucson on both sides of the issue - those who stand in solidarity with migrants, and those who defend the integrity of the border. The result is a wide range of emotions and opinions that reflects the complexity on the ground throughout Arizona. ... Rose writes well, and the mix of personal stories and commentary makes for an attractive read. ... An irenic, evenhanded work that gets the conversation going in the right direction." -- Christianity Today

"There is no better time to read this groundbreaking book than right now. Showdown in the Sonoran Desert offers a powerful, nuanced ethnographic analysis of a seemingly irresolvable problem in contemporary U.S. society: immigration, and all of the urgent moral and political dilemmas it embodies. This study is unflinching in its exploration of the central question of social, and governmental, responsibility for the suffering and death that continues to mark the terrain of the US/Mexico borderland in southern Arizona. Author Ananda Rose shows us that a meaningful response to this human rights crisis is possible, but it requires genuine dialogue and the hard work of listening carefully to a multiplicity of voices--especially those that are least likely to be heard above the din of combative rhetoric."-- Amy E. Den Ouden, author of Beyond Conquest: Native Peoples and the Strugglefor History in New England

"A profound, poetic and passionate work of scholarship, this is one of the best books I have read on religion and migration. Thoroughly research, yet engaging and illuminating, Ananda Rose gives a rich, ethnographic account andINTRODUCTION. THE IMMIGRATION CONTROVERSY: RELIGION AND LAW IN COLLISION ; PART I. GOD IN THE DESERT: MIGRANT DEATHS AND THE RISE OF BORDER MINISTRIES ; 1. A WINDOW INTO THE CRISIS: THREE NUNS AND A SOUP KITCHEN ; 2. SANCTUARY OLD AND NEW: THE BIBLICAL TRADITION OF RADICAL HOSPITALITY ; 3. A THEOLOGY OF WATER: HUMANE BORDERS AND THE REVEREND ROBIN HOOVER ; 4. TRANSCENDING BORDERS: NO MORE DEATHS AND A HIGHER MORAL LAW ; 5. POSTSCRIPT: RIDING WITH THE SAMARITANS ; PART II. LAW IN THE DESERT: SECURITY, SOVEREIGNTY AND THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF THE STATE ; 6. FENCING ARIZONA: MEDITATIONS ON A WALL ; 7. INVASIONS, FLOODS, AND BARBARIANS: WHAT'S TO BE AFRAID OF? ; 8. SENATE BILL-1070: WAGERS OF LOVE AND FEAR AT THE BORDER ; 9. POSTSCRIPT: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? ; CONCLUSION. AND THE DEATHS GO ON...