Border Vigils Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World

We are living in the great age of human migration. Some 200 million people alive today have moved from their countries of origin and, according to a recent international survey, as many as 700 million more would migrate if they could. The political reaction-in Europe no less than in the United States-has been to batten down the hatches. More than a million migrants have been expelled from the US during Barack Obama's administration, a record rate. Jeremy Harding's evocative reporting across Europe and on the USMexican border provides fascinating, haunting portraits of migrants, as well as the less inspiring and sometimes frightening profiles of the anti-immigrant zealots who oppose them. Equally unparalleled is Harding's comparative analysis of the failure, indeed, mirage of exclusionary policy in both Europe and the US.

Jeremy Harding is a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. His books include The Uninvited: Refugees at the Rich Man’s Gate, Small Wars, Small Mercies, and Mother Country.