Crossing Borders: The Reconciliation of a Nation of Immigrants

by Ali Noorani

Overview

Advance praise from public figures José Andrés, Al Franken, Jonathan Blitzer of The New Yorker, and Russell Moore of Christianity Today. Find the moving stories of American immigrants and their journeys in Ali Noorani’s chronicle.
In an era when immigration on a global scale defines the fears and aspirations of Americans, Crossing Borders presents the complexities of migration through the stories of families fleeing violence and poverty, the government and nongovernmental organizations helping or hindering their progress, and the American communities receiving them. Ali Noorani, who has spent years building bridges between immigrants and their often conservative communities, takes readers on a journey to Honduras, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, and Texas, meeting migrants and the organizations and people that help them on both sides of the border. He reports from the inside on why families make the heart-wrenching decision to leave home. Going beyond the polemical, partisan debate, Noorani offers sensitive insights and real solutions. Crossing Borders will appeal to a broad audience of concerned citizens across the political spectrum, faith communities, policymakers, and immigrants themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538143506
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/28/2022
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ali Noorani, President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy organization promoting the value of immigrants and immigration, is the author of There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration.

Noorani is a sought-after commentator, and has been interviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, the Associated Press, and by several other national, regional, and international media. He is also a frequent guest on a range of television and radio shows, including MSNBC, the Lou Dobbs Show, the Bill O'Reilly Show, the Sean Hannity Show, Washington Journal, PBS Newshour, Fusion, NPR (the Diane Rehm Show, On Point, and Marketplace), and is an op-ed contributor to CNN.com, FoxNewsLatino.com, among others. Noorani is a regular guest on local talk radio shows across the country. He resides in Washington, DC.
www.alinoorani.org
Twitter: @anoorani
Instagram: @alinoorani

Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Carlos
Chapter 2: Tough, Strong, Mean
Chapter 3: Their Dignity is Robbed
Chapter 4: Caught in the Middle
Chapter 5: Fear
Chapter 6: From Within
Chapter 7: The Path to Unity
Chapter 8: Confidence
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

In their efforts to flee violence, natural disaster, or to seek a warm meal to feed their family, I have seen how immigrants and refugees are pinned against borders around the world. Wrapped around stories of those who would scale any obstacle in search of a better future for their children, Ali Noorani unpacks the ugliness of the politics and policies of immigration, charting a path forward that serves the national interest and helps all of us become our better selves.” —José Andrés

“A new book on immigration appeals to Americans’ hearts. A book by Ali Noorani, president & CEO of the National Immigration Forum, uses stories, history and the unsettling present to convince Americans that enacting humane immigration reform would be in line with the best traditions of America.... Nearly everything Ali Noorani writes about in his new bookdescribes a place he visited personally, giving the book a journalistic sensibility and the benefit of a longtime observer’s touch.” —Forbes

“The anecdotes that may most pique the interest of Harvard Business Review readers appear in Crossing Borders by Ali Noorani. One details how the Idaho dairy industry, originally built by Dutch settlers, thrives today thanks to Latino workers and the yogurt company Chobani, founded by the Turkish-born Hamdi Ulukaya. As a result, dairy owners are partnering with the company and local labor groups to lobby for laws that will make it easier to gain legal entry to and citizenship in the United States. Noorani shows how a similar scenario played out in an Iowa pork-processing town and how immigrant medical and food workers carried the country and its businesses through the worst of the pandemic.” —Harvard Business Review

“Perhaps no issue at this moment is so filled with passion and rage as immigration. I do not know of anyone alive more knowledgeable on the legal, moral, and cultural aspects of immigration than Ali Noorani. This book, a combination of memoir and analysis, frames how we arrived at this crisis, and how to go forward. The book never exchanges utopianism for realism nor does it ever exchange despair for hope. In this way, this book can help anyone to think through how to build coalitions, how to seek to persuade skeptics, and how to press on against daunting odds.” —Russell Moore, Christianity Today

“Immigration policy is complex and endlessly challenging on a good day. And the politics, always dicey, have become toxic. Fortunately for all of us, Ali Noorani has dedicated his life to bringing humanity and thoughtfulness to the issue. His moral clarity and searching intelligence are more important than ever. His is truly a voice we should all heed.” —Jonathan Blitzer, staff writer, The New Yorker

“CROSSING BORDERS chronicles how politicians and pundits manipulate our fear of outsiders, encircling us in fear and blame, like coils of razor wire. But every so often, as Ali Noorani captures in vivid detail, there are mayors, police chiefs and business people who decline to be used in this way. Indispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand how Americans can reclaim our own basic decency.” —Amanda Ripley, journalist and best-selling author of The Smartest Kids in the World and HighConflict

“In an era of symbolic politics, when borders have become the organizing principle for how we legitimize disputes, resolve our own questions of identity and even contrive a sense of meaning and purpose, Ali Noorani steps into their manifestation in the U.S. immigration debate and powerfully disentangles their hold. Crossing Borders is a moving portrait of a country confused and contorted by caricature, even as it invites fresh courage for all who feel and are displaced.” —Anne Snyder, editor-in-chief, Comment Magazine

“Ali Noorani knows immigration. Crossing Borders is authoritative and objective—passionate, yet surprisingly hopeful. This book is crucial to our understanding of American immigration and therefore of America.” —Al Franken

“Ali Noorani gently helps those of us who have been too blind or too busy to see what we have missed in our responsibilities to offer all people dignity, love our neighbor, and care for the stranger. He helps us see that the stories we've been told by our "community" about immigrants are grounded in fear, not fact; hate, not love. And he gives us hope through examples of unlikely alliances among by small groups of people with the courage to step outside of their community's norms and offer dignity to fellow human beings.” —Elizabeth Neumann, former DHS assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention

From the Publisher

A new book on immigration appeals to Americans’ hearts. A book by Ali Noorani, president & CEO of the National Immigration Forum, uses stories, history and the unsettling present to convince Americans that enacting humane immigration reform would be in line with the best traditions of America.... Nearly everything Ali Noorani writes about in his new bookdescribes a place he visited personally, giving the book a journalistic sensibility and the benefit of a longtime observer’s touch.

Forbes

Ali Noorani gently helps those of us who have been too blind or too busy to see what we have missed in our responsibilities to offer all people dignity, love our neighbor, and care for the stranger. He helps us see that the stories we've been told by our "community" about immigrants are grounded in fear, not fact; hate, not love. And he gives us hope through examples of unlikely alliances among by small groups of people with the courage to step outside of their community's norms and offer dignity to fellow human beings.

Elizabeth Neumann

CROSSING BORDERS chronicles how politicians and pundits manipulate our fear of outsiders, encircling us in fear and blame, like coils of razor wire. But every so often, as Ali Noorani captures in vivid detail, there are mayors, police chiefs and business people who decline to be used in this way. Indispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand how Americans can reclaim our own basic decency.

Amanda Ripley

In an era of symbolic politics, when borders have become the organizing principle for how we legitimize disputes, resolve our own questions of identity and even contrive a sense of meaning and purpose, Ali Noorani steps into their manifestation in the U.S. immigration debate and powerfully disentangles their hold. Crossing Borders is a moving portrait of a country confused and contorted by caricature, even as it invites fresh courage for all who feel and are displaced.

Anne Snyder

The anecdotes that may most pique the interest of Harvard Business Review readers appear in Crossing Borders by Ali Noorani. One details how the Idaho dairy industry, originally built by Dutch settlers, thrives today thanks to Latino workers and the yogurt company Chobani, founded by the Turkish-born Hamdi Ulukaya. As a result, dairy owners are partnering with the company and local labor groups to lobby for laws that will make it easier to gain legal entry to and citizenship in the United States. Noorani shows how a similar scenario played out in an Iowa pork-processing town and how immigrant medical and food workers carried the country and its businesses through the worst of the pandemic.

Harvard Business Review

Perhaps no issue at this moment is so filled with passion and rage as immigration. I do not know of anyone alive more knowledgeable on the legal, moral, and cultural aspects of immigration than Ali Noorani. This book, a combination of memoir and analysis, frames how we arrived at this crisis, and how to go forward. The book never exchanges utopianism for realism nor does it ever exchange despair for hope. In this way, this book can help anyone to think through how to build coalitions, how to seek to persuade skeptics, and how to press on against daunting odds.

Russell Moore

In their efforts to flee violence, natural disaster, or to seek a warm meal to feed their family, I have seen how immigrants and refugees are pinned against borders around the world. Wrapped around stories of those who would scale any obstacle in search of a better future for their children, Ali Noorani unpacks the ugliness of the politics and policies of immigration, charting a path forward that serves the national interest and helps all of us become our better selves.

José Andrés

Immigration policy is complex and endlessly challenging on a good day. And the politics, always dicey, have become toxic. Fortunately for all of us, Ali Noorani has dedicated his life to bringing humanity and thoughtfulness to the issue. His moral clarity and searching intelligence are more important than ever. His is truly a voice we should all heed.

Jonathan Blitzer

Ali Noorani knows immigration. Crossing Borders is authoritative and objective—passionate, yet surprisingly hopeful. This book is crucial to our understanding of American immigration and therefore of America.

Al Franken

In their efforts to flee violence, natural disaster, or poverty…to seek a warm meal to feed their family…I have seen how immigrants and refugees are pinned against borders around the world. Wrapped around stories of those who would scale any obstacle in search of a better future for their children, Ali Noorani unpacks the ugliness of the politics and policies of immigration, charting a path forward that serves the national interest and helps all of us, conservative or liberal, become our better selves.

José Andrés

Perhaps no issue at this moment is so filled with passion and rage as immigration. I do not know of anyone alive more knowledgeable on the legal, moral, and cultural aspects of immigration than Ali Noorani. This book, a combination of memoir and analysis, frames how we arrived at this crisis, and how to go forward. The book never exchanges utopianism for realism nor does it ever exchange despair for hope. In this way, this book can help anyone to think through how to build coalitions, how to seek to persuade skeptics, and how to press on against daunting odds.

Dr. Russell Moore