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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tell Me How It Ends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Migration and Personal Sacrifice
Language and Storytelling
International Relations and Political Responsibility
Gang Life vs. Community Engagement
Summary
Analysis
In March of 2015, Luiselli begins work as an interpreter. She has encouraged her nineteen-year-old niece to join her, since she has just moved to New York and is living with Luiselli and her family until she hears back from colleges. On their first day, they go to lower Manhattan and meet a group of lawyers from a nonprofit organization called The Door, which “provides kids and teenagers with services ranging from legal assistance to counseling to English and hip-hop classes.” Luiselli and her niece undergo some cursory training, and although the plan is for them to “shadow” the lawyers until they understand the interview process, they’re immediately put to work because there are so many children to talk to and not enough people to conduct the interviews.
The Door’s urgent need for people to interview undocumented minors reveals the magnitude of the immigration crisis. With hardly any training, Luiselli and her niece are thrown into conversations with these children, a fact that underlines just how badly nonprofit organizations advocating for immigrants need help from volunteers to address the vast numbers of children requiring legal assistance.
Themes
Most of the children Luiselli and other workers at The Door speak to are from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, which are the countries that comprise what’s known as the Northern Triangle. Between 2013 and 2014, the number of child migrants coming to the United States from these countries was 80,000, a “sudden increase [that] set off alarms in the United States and provoked the declaration of the crisis.” The interviews, Luiselli explains, take place in a large room, where the children sit at a table with Crayons and paper for them to play with if they want. As the interview commences, the children’s relatives sit on the other side of a large “balustrade” in the room, since they’re not allowed to be with the children during the questioning.
Although Central American immigrants come to the United States through Mexico, it’s a misconception to think that Mexicans are the only people leaving their country. In fact, the countries that make up the Northern Triangle produce many migrants, though this isn’t necessarily apparent to everyone because of the way people in the United States talk about the crisis, often framing it as a problem confined to Mexico.
Themes
On her first day, Luiselli and her niece are mainly “providing backup” for The Door as it scrambles to address the “emergency” created by the governmental “decision to create a priority juvenile docket.” Luiselli notes that undocumented migrants used to have a year to find legal representation before attending their immigration hearing. Since the Obama administration created the priority juvenile docket, though, they’ve had only 21 days to appear in court. “Being moved to the top of a list, in this context, was the least desirable thing,” Luiselli writes, “at least from the point of view of the children involved.” She adds that the priority juvenile docket has meant that “proceedings against” child migrants have “accelerated” by 94%. This, in turn, means that any organization seeking to represent undocumented minors has significantly less time to prepare a defense.
The Obama administration’s decision to prioritize child deportation cases might seem at first glance like a reasonable way to address the sudden crisis, but Luiselli shows in this section that it is simply a way to deport large numbers of undocumented minors. Without sufficient time to find legal representation, these children stand no chance against the legal system. Because of this, it’s clear that the government’s solution to the crisis isn’t actually a solution at all, as the United States simply sends children back to the homes they fled from, doing nothing to address the conditions that motivated them to leave in the first place.
Themes
Since the creation of the priority juvenile docket, a number of nonprofits have made enormous efforts to represent undocumented minors. Luiselli lists a handful of New York organizations, such as Make the Road New York, the Legal Aid Society, and Safe Passage, all of which have tried to “respond quickly and well to the docket.” This is important, since the result of the docket is that minors are deported “in much greater numbers and at a much faster rate.” Although the migrants “should be given an equal right to due process,” they are frequently deported because they can’t find lawyers to represent them in the short window of 21 days. “What child can find a lawyer in twenty-one days?” Luiselli writes. Given this situation, she believes the docket was a “cruel” measure, one that simply allowed the government to “avoid dealing” with the reality of the crisis.
In this moment, it becomes clear why the priority juvenile docket is so harmful to child migrants, as it makes it nearly impossible for them to undergo “due process” before getting deported. Luiselli’s assertion that this policy is merely a way to “avoid dealing” with the crisis is an important point, as she will continue throughout the book to call attention to the ways in which none of the countries involved in the problem want to properly address its underlying factors.
Themes
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The first interview Luiselli ever conducts with an undocumented minor is quite memorable, she writes. Over the course of the conversation, the boy takes a worn piece of paper from his pocket. Luiselli reads it and sees that it is a copy of a police report. The boy had filed a complaint in his home country of Honduras, telling the police that gang members had made a habit of waiting for him outside school every day. They would often follow him home, and even started “threatening to kill him.” The report itself ends with a “vague promise to ‘investigate’ the situation.” Later that night, Luiselli thinks about this piece of paper, realizing that it began as a “legal document” but has now become “a historical document that disclose[s] the failure of the document’s original purpose” and, in turn, justifies the boy’s reason for leaving home.
The police report that Luiselli refers to in this scene is the exact kind of evidence that she and her colleagues are looking for when they speak to undocumented minors. Since this boy has a “historical document” of his attempt to protect himself from gang violence in Honduras, it will be easier for lawyers to prove that it’s unsafe for him to return. Because of this story, in other words, there’s a good chance that he’ll be able to avoid deportation.
Themes
Luiselli once again considers the media coverage of the “immigration crisis,” illustrating that the predominant narrative fails to take the actual origins of the situation into account. Instead of interrogating why this problem has arisen, she says, Americans have fixated on the following question: “What do we do with all these children now?” Putting this in even simpler terms, Luiselli admits that the prevailing question is actually closer to the following: “How do we get rid of them or dissuade them from coming?”
Unlike Luiselli, who wants to hear the stories that undocumented minors have to tell, the majority of people in the United States are focused only on how the sudden influx of child migrants might affect their own lives. Consequently, they pay attention only to how they might “get rid of” them, refusing to consider the fact that deporting them means sending them back into dangerous circumstances. This is why it’s so important to share the immigrant narrative, which might help people empathize with the life-threatening circumstances of their decision to leave home.
Themes
Luiselli turns her attention to the ninth, tenth, and eleventh questions on the intake questionnaire. These are, “How do you like where you’re living now?”, “Are you happy here?”, and “Do you feel safe?” Luiselli points out that child migrants are frequently called “illegal” in the media, arguing that it’s obvious that the United States sees them as “a hindrance.” “How would anyone who is stigmatized as an ‘illegal immigrant’ feel ‘safe’ and ‘happy’?” she wonders.
Once more, Luiselli suggests that the language people use to talk about the immigration crisis has a direct effect on child migrants. “Stigmatized” as “illegal immigrants,” she argues, it’s unlikely that these children would ever feel at ease in the United States. By spotlighting this dynamic, Luiselli urges readers to reconsider the discourse surrounding immigration.
Themes
As a way of examining the underlying causes of the refugee crisis, Luiselli considers the violent history of countries like El Salvador. The Salvadoran Civil War, she explains, took place between 1979 and 1992, when the country’s militaristic government “relentlessly massacred left-wing opposition groups.” During this time, the United States allied with the Salvadoran government, giving it money and “military resources.” As a result, roughly one-fifth of the population fled, mostly to the United States, where approximately 300,000 refugees sought safety in Los Angeles. However, Los Angeles was full of gangs like Barrio 18 during that period (along with the Bloods, Crips, Nazi Low Riders, and Aryan Brotherhood). Accordingly, Salvadoran migrants—many of whom fought the government as guerilla soldiers in El Salvador—formed MS-13 to protect themselves. Then, in the 1990s, the United States mass deported “thousands” of gang members, which is how MS-13 spread to Central America.
In this section, Luiselli underlines the historical roots of the immigration crisis. Most importantly, she makes it clear that the United States has played a large role in creating the conditions that are now forcing Central Americans from their homes. After all, the United States helped El Salvador’s government use violent measures to maintain its power and control, thereby creating a reason for Salvadorans to seek refuge. Then, when these migrants reached the United States, they encountered gang violence that made it necessary for them to create their own gang, which the government subsequently deported back to Central America, ultimately facilitating its spread. By outlining this information, Luiselli challenges the idea that the United States has nothing to do with the crisis. In turn, she makes it harder for people to argue that the government has the right to simply deport undocumented migrants and wash its hands of the entire ordeal, since the crisis has arisen in part because of the United States’ various policies.
Themes
“The whole story is an absurd, circular nightmare,” Luiselli writes, referring to the fact that the United States government is now trying to keep Central Americans out of the country after having played a part in MS-13’s proliferation in the Northern Triangle. Luiselli upholds that nothing will be solved until “all the governments involved,” including the United States, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, “acknowledge their shared accountability in the roots and causes of the children’s exodus.”
As made evident by the priority juvenile docket and its decision to hear all child migrant cases within 21 days of a child’s arrival, the United States is eager to send migrants away without further examination. This, Luiselli argues, is not a productive way to address the crisis. Instead, she believes that the United States and the other countries involved should work together, all of them accepting political responsibility for the problem and trying to fix its underlying causes.
Themes
The twelfth and thirteenth questions on the intake questionnaire ask child migrants to indicate whether or not they’ve been victims of a crime since entering the United States and whether or not that crime has been reported. Luiselli explains that victims of “certain crimes” are eligible for something known as the U visa, which provides “a path to lawful permanent residency for both the victims and their families.” There is, however, one catch: the victim must help the government “in the prosecution of the crime in question.”
Luiselli demonstrates in this section that the immigration system in the United States is especially interested in helping migrants when they can provide something in return. Rather than simply empathizing with children who have experienced trauma, the government is eager to use them for its own benefit.
Themes
Once more, Luiselli outlines the steps of the journey most child migrants make. However, not all stories are the same, especially if a child is from Mexico. This is because Border Patrol officers in the United States can make an on-the-spot decision to deport Mexican migrants. “They don’t have to be given temporary shelter, are not allowed to attempt contact with parents or relatives in the U.S., and are certainly not granted a right to a formal hearing in court where they could defend themselves, legally, against a deportation order,” Luiselli writes. All a Border Patrol officer needs to do to deport an undocumented Mexican child is decide that the child hasn’t been the victim of trafficking, isn’t “at risk of trafficking upon return,” doesn’t have a “credible fear” driving them from their home country, and “is able to make an independent decision about returning.”
The fact that Border Patrol officers can deport Mexican children without going through the normal proceedings is significant, since the decision to do this is rather subjective. Indeed, an officer only needs to decide for him- or herself whether or not the child qualifies for this kind of immediate deportation, meaning that he or she has the final say in that child’s future. This is troubling, since Border Control officers aren’t part of the judicial branch of government, so their on-the-spot decisions might not be informed by objective interpretations of the law, but by their own opinions regarding the immigration crisis.
Themes
If a Border Patrol officer decides to deport an undocumented Mexican minor, the procedure is called “voluntary return.” “And, as unbelievable as it may seem, voluntary return is the most common verdict,” Luiselli writes, adding that an overwhelming majority of undocumented Mexican children are sent back to their homes because of this rule. The rule itself has arisen because of an amendment to George W. Bush’s Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, signed in 2008. According to this amendment, “children from countries that share borders with the U.S. can be deported without formal immigration proceedings.”
Tell Me How It Ends was written in 2015. This is important to keep in mind, since the debate surrounding immigration policy in the United States has flared up even more intensely after the election of Donald Trump. Though it’s certainly true that Trump’s approach to immigration is quite stringent, it’s clear that previous presidents have also done their share to make life for immigrants in the country difficult. Barack Obama’s creation of the priority juvenile docket resulted in mass deportations, just as George W. Bush’s policies under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act heavily contributed to the government’s legal ability to deprive thousands of undocumented minors of the right to due process. By acknowledging the history behind these decisions, Luiselli shows readers that anti-immigrant policies have been at work for a long time, and supported by both Democrats and Republicans.
Themes
