John Washington

Våra öden förändrades 2015. Vi stod på gator, på tågstationer, i föreningslokaler och fanns där för våra medmänniskor. Vi kom från olika bakgrunder och politiska läger men förenades av en tro på ett bättre Sverige och på rätten att söka en fristad från förtryck, förföljelse och krig. Och det gör vi fortfarande. Den här antologin samlar olika sorters röster aktivister, flyktingar, jurister och forskare som genom personliga berättelser och analyser vill erbjuda ett försvar för medmänsklighet och solidaritet. Medverkande: Ulf Bjereld , Malin Björk, Noam Chomsky, Torun Elsrud, Gustav Fridolin, Sabine Gruber, KG Hammar, Agnes Hellström, Anders Hellström, Behrang Kianzad, Christina Höj Larsen, Vladan Lausevic, Mikael Mery Karlsson, Alen Musaefendic, Anna Lundberg, Patricia Lorenzoni, Micke Kinning, Navid Modiri, Stina Nilss, Hynek Pallas, Sanjin Pejkovic, Carlos Rojas, Gudrun Schyman, Admir Skodo, Kinna Skoglund, Sanna Vestin, John Washington, Julia Wiklander, Ali Zardadi, Linda ÅkerströmRedaktörer: Kamal El Salim och Maria Padrón Hernández

A call to action to defend immigrants and push back against the unprecedented rise of migrant incarceration How to Close a Camp is a polemic and political field guide for dismantling the immigrant detention system in the United States. Grounded in concrete victories of local communities and directly impacted people and drawing on interviews with dozens of veterans of the immigrant rights movement, award-winning journalist and translator John Washington distills strategies from successful campaigns that have closed camps, blocked or slowed new ones from opening, and chipped away at the carceral infrastructure. The stakes couldn’t be higher: through conversations with the most impacted—the people currently or historically caged in the camps—Washington describes the cruel impacts of the exploding budget for ICE, the rapid militarization of American streets under the guise of immigration enforcement, and the surge in detention beds. But since the inception of immigrant detention in the United States, there has always been a line of resistance: from the early Chinese targeted and detained in the 19th century, the Mexicans and Japanese rounded up in the mid-20th century, and the rise of family detention under Obama, those inside and out have coalesced, stood up, fought back, and often won their freedom. Despite the decades-long growth of immigrant detention, victories have been won in individual cases, as well as at the municipal, state, and national levels. Recognizing and learning from these victories is the only way to stave off increasing xenophobic and authoritarian violence. How to Close a Camp outlines how to confront the current wave of oppression. It is a call not only to combat the camp, but to build something better in its place.

Arnovis couldn't stay in El Salvador. If he didn't leave, a local gangster promised that his family would dress in mourning, that he would wake up with flies in his mouth. "It was like a bomb exploded in my life," Arnovis said. The Dispossessed tells the story of a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran man, Arnovis, whose family's search for safety shows how the United States - in concert with other Western nations - has gutted asylum protections for the world's most vulnerable. Crisscrossing the border and Central America, John Washington traces one man's quest for asylum. Arnovis is separated from his daughter by US Border Patrol agents and struggles to find security after being repeatedly deported to a gang-ruled community in El Salvador, traumatic experiences relayed by Washington with vivid intensity. Adding historical, literary, and current political context to the discussion of migration today, Washington tells the history of asylum law and practice through ages to the present day. Packed with information and reflection, The Dispossessed is more than a human portrait of those who cross borders - it is an urgent and persuasive case for sharing the country we call home.