Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders by Darrell Ankarlo

A thorough discussion of the topic, from a stop-the-bleeding perspective

Published in 2010 by Thomas Nelson.

Mark Twain once noted that, "Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. I was reminded of this quote while reading Darrell Ankarlo's Illegals: The Unacceptable Cost of America's Failure to Control Its Borders. Everyone has an opinion about illegal immigration, but precious few people have even seen the border, let alone know anything about the high cost of illegal immigration, the physical danger it creates, how it is done and the long-term damage it does to the United States.

This is an eye-opening, scary look at the world of illegal immigrants - the dangers of crossing the border, the coyotes who guide them across, the drug gangs, and the U.S. Border Patrol. The first half of the  book is a powerful and consuming introduction to how immigrants cross the border, how the Border Patrol pursues its policy of "catch and release" and the extreme poverty of parts of Mexico that induces so many to try to come to El Norte.

Ankarlo is not anti-Mexican or anti-Hispanic. He is anti-illegal immigrant. He correctly notes that several of the 9/11 hijackers were a different kind of illegal alien - the kind that comes on a work or student visa (or something of that nature) and just does not leave. Ankarlo claims that 40% of all illegal aliens are that type.

Darrell Ankarlo

The first half of the book is just riveting, which overcomes the rat-a-tat writing style. The second half bogs down in too many statistics interspersed with long word-for-word interviews with immigration experts and both of Arizona's senators, John Kyl and John McCain. Neither Kyl nor McCain have much to say and the point of the interviews was to show that the whole topic is being dodged by politicians, I suppose. Everyone knows that already - most are too scared of being called "racist" or "nativist", the rest think it's good for business to have a steady stream of cheap labor.

True life tales, first-hand experiences and an eye onto a world unknown by most of us make the book worth your time to read, no matter your views on immigration. Combine this book with Geraldo Rivera's The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity and you might get a fairly balanced view of the issue (even though Geraldo's book is not nearly as well-researched or thought-out)

Note: this book appears to be a re-working of another Ankarlo book: Another Man's Sombrero: A Conservative Broadcaster's Undercover Journey Across the Mexican Border.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Illegals.

Reviewed on November 5, 2010.

Note: More than 14 years later and I have to note that the politics of Trump/MAGA has really skewed all discussion on this topic. There is no discussion of people coming legally on a work or student visa and then staying illegally are about 40% of the illegal immigrants. If you listened to MAGA you'd think they were all in immigrant caravans. I don't know if I still agree with this author's points as much as I did before (probably not), but at least there is some nuance. We've lost nuance in our politics.
DWD. January 15, 2025.