TRYING TO MAKE IT

Gundur observes that Americans’ perceptions of the illicit drug trade in their country are in many respects deeply inconsistent with the available evidence. While they often assume that it is driven by “members of a nefarious underworld far from the lives of decent people,” drug trafficking in American cities is largely run locally, either by gangs or various subcontractors, with little knowledge or contact with foreign cartels. Moreover, most of those gangs that facilitate the drug trade do not comprise immigrants, illegal or otherwise, but are groups forged in the violent crucible of the American prison system. Contrary to popular misconception, most immigrants are law-abiding and have no connection to the drug trade, and cities like El Paso, Texas, that share a border with Mexico are not engulfed in violent crime, but are among the safest in the U.S. Gundur meticulously unpacks the entangled underworld of drug trafficking, one he convincingly argues has only been strengthened by America’s irrational war on drugs. In addition, he limns a remarkable firsthand account of the immigration process, one that unfairly disadvantages those genuinely seeking asylum in the country from extraordinary dangers.  

The author’s overview relies heavily on what he calls “gonzo research,” a process whereby he embeds himself in cities like Phoenix and Chicago in order to gain intimate knowledge by virtue of spontaneous conversations and unplanned experiences. The result of his 10 years of work is a vivid tableau of life in places like Juárez, Mexico, a needful corrective to the cinematic caricatures that present only the squalor of criminal enterprises. But Gundur’s depiction still struggles from internal contradictions. For example, on the one hand, he portrays Juárez as a “city of opportunity” where most families can lead normal lives. But he also criticizes the U.S. for failing to recognize how deeply the gang violence in Juárez has affected those attempting to escape to America. Similarly, he downplays the effect of drug trafficking on El Paso, but concedes: “In El Paso, you are never too far away from someone involved in the drug trade if you know where to look.” While the author is correct that the cartels have little presence in these cities and that the violence produced by the drug trade in places like El Paso is routinely overstated, he admits that El Paso is a “prime transshipment point” for drugs, the vast majority of which comes from Mexico. Moreover, the entire book rests on a clumsy caricature of those concerned with border security as bearers of “anti-immigrant sentiment,” precisely the kind of sweeping generalization he aims to undermine. The author also sometimes indulges in overstatement—one can reasonably criticize Donald Trump’s immigration policy as profoundly misguided and even ultimately inhumane, but Gundur never presents a compelling argument that its explicit design was to inflict cruelty. Despite these flaws, this book is an illuminating study and a valuable contribution to an issue shrouded in misconceptions.