American Gulag

"This readable and well documented book takes its audience inside the cells and behind the scenes of immigration detention. . . . This book is a significant work of investigative journalism that deserves credit as a scholarly contribution toward understanding the inner workings of immigration detention and the pain and suffering it produces on a daily basis."—Michael Welsh, Intl Migration Review

"An articulate call for public scrutiny. . . . Probably the most thorough and comprehensive account of immigration detention in the United States available, American Gulag is an accessible treatise, a tremendous source of information. . . . Dow provides information necessary for those who want to rise to the occasion of promoting transparency in the U.S. immigration detention system."—Prison Legal News

"A piercing insight into the workings of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service... a highly critical portrait of an organisation that he suggests is both secretive and excessively powerful."—The Times

"Dow's stories of brutality towards immigrants are recounted in 14 lively chapters in which the victims themselves make a powerful case for the American justice system to answer. The book has been upstaged by the dramatic illustrations of similar behaviour leaking out of Iraq, but its value, nonetheless, is to underline the continuity of the behaviour in Iraq with a longer history."—Irish Times

"Mark Dow's compelling book is a voyage into the heart of darkness that is the U.S. immigration prison system. American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons reveals everything that the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- doesn't want you to know. . . . Rather than sermons or rants, Dow tells the stories of the systems' victims, immigrants and jailers alike."—Miami Herald

"The stories he tells make for a stunning indictment of a system that has until now largely avoided public scrutiny. . . . Dow's efforts to expose its civil and human rights abuses should be applauded."—Newsday

"American Gulag stands in the best tradition of muckraking journalism. . . . Dow traveled from Bakersfield to Houston to Brooklyn to hear the stories of detainees and concerned BICE employees. He points to our government's failure to practice its most basic values, such as the presumption of innocence, the right of habeas corpus and the right to decent treatment. . . . Dow shows us that what we are discovering to our horror and shame in Iraq, our government has built right here at home."—San Diego Union-tribune

"Long before Abu Ghraib, and even before September 11th, detainees in America's immigration prisons were being stripped, beaten, and sexually abused. [Mark] Dow has spent years interviewing inmates, guards, and officials, and he gives a jarring account of a dangerously arbitrary system."—New Yorker

"An eye-opening resource, and a must-read for activists working to reform the system or to assist its victims or their families. Recommended."—Bill of Rights Defense Committee (http://www.bordc.org)