PDF Summary:Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, by Jonathan Blitzer

The migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border didn't emerge overnight—it has deep roots in Central American history and decades of U.S. policy decisions. In Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, Jonathan Blitzer traces how U.S. involvement in Central America, from Cold War interventions to deportation policies, helped create the conditions that forced people to flee their homes. He examines how drug trafficking networks took hold in Guatemala, how deported gang members spread violence across the region, and how U.S. officials systematically denied asylum claims from Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

Blitzer shows how immigration policy evolved from Cold War concerns to border enforcement, creating programs like Temporary Protected Status that were meant to be temporary but became permanent. He explores the legal battles fought by lawyers and activists on behalf of asylum seekers and describes how policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols left vulnerable people stranded in dangerous conditions.

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The goal was to force government officials to sit for depositions, where they admitted they were unable to identify the basis in asylum law. In 1985, a coalition of eighty religious, refugee, and legal assistance groups sued Reagan’s attorney general, the INS commissioner, and the secretary of state in a case called American Baptist Churches in the USA v. Meese. The lawsuit argued that offering sanctuary to refugees was protected by the First Amendment and claimed the government was biased against Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum applications.

(Shortform note: Lawyers in the 1980s could look to the NAACP’s school desegregation strategy for inspiration. In the 1950s, the NAACP deliberately combined multiple local plaintiffs into a national class action lawsuit, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. This approach allowed them to attack a pervasive government practice in one sweeping suit. The NAACP’s legal team, led by Thurgood Marshall, carefully selected cases from different regions to demonstrate the widespread nature of segregation, setting a precedent for how civil rights organizations could use coordinated litigation to challenge systemic injustices.)

The INS's own data showed that asylum seekers from El Salvador and Guatemala were turned down at a significantly greater frequency than those from other countries. The government tried to get the lawsuit thrown out, but the allegations of discrimination were allowed to proceed. In 1991, a resolution permitted 300,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans to stay in the U.S. and seek asylum again.

(Shortform note: The INS’s own data was used to show that the agency was discriminating against Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum seekers. This was a key factor in the later relief that was granted to these asylum seekers. By showing that the discrimination was not just a few isolated incidents but a systemic problem, the lawsuit increased the government’s litigation risk and made it more likely that the government would agree to a settlement.)

Blitzer explains that US officials resisted asylum claims from Salvadorans and Guatemalans, turning them down much more frequently than applicants of different nationalities. The Immigration and Naturalization Service denied many asylum applications from Salvadorans using template responses. INS officers rarely inquired if the newcomers were afraid of being deported and wished to seek refuge in the US. Instead, they claimed that right didn't exist and warned objectors they'd be held indefinitely or in isolation. They gave them a document in English filled with compact, tiny text and a signature line at the bottom. The paper was an administrative trick known as a "voluntary departure" that quickly led to their removal to their homeland with no immigration hearing.

(Shortform note: In Administrative Burden, Pamela Herd and Donald P. Moynihan explain how the “voluntary departure” form worked to get so many people deported so quickly. They argue that policymakers can use administrative burdens to exclude people from the benefits of a policy. By making it difficult, time-consuming, and stressful to access a right, they can ensure that many people will simply give up and not pursue it. In this case, the form created a psychological burden that made the alternative—fighting for asylum—seem too costly and uncertain. The form shifted the costs of the policy onto the individuals who were supposed to be protected by it.)

Unaware they were forfeiting their rights, numerous individuals signed the papers. A few hours after, they were flying to San Salvador. Between 1980 and 1981, this happened to more than 10,000 of the 13,000 Salvadorans caught at the border. The INS was unfamiliar with judicial oversight and delayed compliance.

(Shortform note: The INS’s unfamiliarity with judicial oversight was the result of a long history of Supreme Court decisions that shielded immigration enforcement from judicial review. In the late nineteenth century, the Supreme Court established the “plenary power” doctrine, which held that the federal government had absolute authority over immigration matters, including the exclusion, detention, and removal of noncitizens.)

Evolution of American Strategies and Their Consequences

Blitzer notes that U.S. immigration policy evolved from addressing Cold War concerns to managing migration from Central American countries. In the 1980s, the U.S. government saw Central America from a Cold War perspective, supporting right-wing governments to prevent the proliferation of communism. This involvement contributed to civil wars and instability in the region, leading to waves of refugees looking for safety in America. Over time, the focus shifted from concerns about communism to fears of large-scale migration, resulting in policies aimed at deterring migrants and tightening border security.

The Symbolic Politics of Border Enforcement

Political scientist Peter Andreas, in his book Border Games, explores the evolution of U.S. border enforcement, particularly at the U.S.-Mexico border, in the post-Cold War era. He argues that border enforcement is best understood as a form of symbolic politics in which officials stage highly visible “border games”—dramatic crackdowns, wall-building, and the deployment of policing and military technologies—that are aimed less at actually stopping illicit cross-border flows than at advertising state power, dramatizing territorial sovereignty, and reassuring anxious domestic audiences, even though these spectacles often leave underlying patterns of cross-border movement largely intact and may simply divert or rechannel them in unintended ways.

Blitzer explains that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was created to prevent the deportation of Salvadorans amid the civil war. TPS was a temporary status that shielded Salvadorans from deportation, created because the US government felt responsible for the Salvadoran refugees, since it was US weapons that had made them refugees. TPS was included in the 1990 Immigration Act, the last comprehensive immigration reform passed by the US Congress. The act was designed as a broad measure to address lawful and unlawful immigration to America. It legalized 2.8 million people living in the U.S. without documentation, along with stricter enforcement policies.

(Shortform note: The 1990 Immigration Act didn’t legalize 2.8 million people living in the U.S. without documentation. That was the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The 1990 act was the last comprehensive immigration reform passed by the US Congress.)

It also broadened lawful means of accessing the U.S., developing a number of fresh visa types, adjusting green card accessibility, and increasing immigration limits overall. In principle, TPS could be available to immigrants from any country who were stuck in the US when turmoil hit their homelands, but it was created specifically for Salvadorans. In spring 1980, 92,000 people from El Salvador were residing in the US; by 1990, there were 459,000. TPS holders couldn't gain permanent residency. The shield against deportation let them reside and be employed in the U.S., though it needed renewal twice a year.

(Shortform note: Jorge Loweree and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, immigration policy experts, note that federal law has always allowed some people with TPS to later obtain permanent residence through separate family- or employment-based immigration processes. This means that while TPS itself doesn’t provide a direct path to permanent residency, it doesn’t prevent people from becoming permanent residents through other legal channels.)

In the next two decades, the only other substantial measures to pass were related to enforcement: resources to boost deportations, budgetary bills to bolster border security, and legislation to reform the Immigration and Naturalization Service. TPS holders became stuck in a status intended to be temporary, but it became permanent. For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations opted to extend TPS status every two years rather than establish a real path to citizenship for people who had settled in the US.

(Shortform note: This matters because the US’s approach to immigration has created a “shadow population” of people who are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and violence. This population is large enough to have a significant impact on the US economy, crime rates, and political representation. For example, undocumented immigrants make up a significant portion of the US workforce, particularly in industries like agriculture, construction, and hospitality. They also contribute to local economies through taxes and consumer spending. However, their lack of legal status makes them vulnerable to wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and exploitation by employers. Additionally, undocumented immigrants are often reluctant to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement, which can make communities less safe.)

Paradoxically, it wasn't the Salvadoran civil conflict that directly led to Salvadorans ultimately gaining TPS, but rather the series of earthquakes that hit the country in 2001. Numerous individuals whose asylum applications were either rejected or postponed sought legal remedies via the ABC lawsuit; some went into hiding, while others ultimately took advantage of TPS once it was an option. Eventually, a fourth of Salvadorans residing in America received TPS.

The Politics of Humanitarian Protection

The fact that a seismic disaster, rather than the armed turmoil that preceded it, became the pathway for many Salvadorans to obtain TPS is significant. It reflects a broader global pattern in which states are more willing to offer short-term humanitarian protection to people displaced by sudden environmental events than to recognize displacement linked to persecution, structural violence, or political repression as engaging full refugee or human-rights obligations. This tendency to frame protection as a matter of compassion for victims of “natural” misfortune, rather than as a consequence of human-made policies or injustices, enables states to appear generous while avoiding politically contentious debates about responsibility.

Next, Blitzer examines the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and their impact on asylum seekers.

The Evolving Crisis of Access and Processing

Blitzer explains that the MPP policy created a crisis for asylum seekers, leaving them stranded in Mexico and vulnerable to violence. The MPP required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases were processed in the U.S., which could take months. Initially, the policy was applied to people from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, but in 2019, it was expanded to include people from Spanish-speaking countries.

This expansion resulted from an agreement in which the U.S. and Mexico arranged for Mexico to increase its military presence to monitor the boundary and alter the conditions of the MPP in exchange for the U.S. not imposing tariffs on Mexican goods. The policy created a crisis for those seeking asylum, leaving them stranded in Mexico, vulnerable to violence. Many were kidnapped or killed by criminal groups, and Mexican authorities often turned a blind eye to their plight.

Off-Shore Detention

In Offshore, Madeline Gleeson describes how Australia’s off-shore detention regime on Nauru and Manus Island was designed to move people seeking protection outside the Australian migration zone and into the formal jurisdiction of other states. This created a legal and moral fiction that responsibility had been outsourced, even though the policy’s central purpose was to deter boat arrivals by making the process of seeking asylum through these routes as difficult, protracted, and punitive as possible. The Australian government’s approach was to create a system that would be so unappealing that it would deter people from attempting to reach Australia by boat. The system was designed to be as difficult and unpleasant as possible, with the aim of discouraging people from seeking asylum in Australia. This approach was based on the belief that if the process of seeking asylum was made difficult enough, people would be less likely to attempt it.