This SDG will examine undocumented immigrants in the United States, who they are, where they came from, how they got here, and how they work and live. It will also examine the Trump Administration's immigration policy. The first of the core books is UCLA Law Professor Hiroshi Motomura's Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy which offers a complex and fair-minded account of immigration, its root causes and varying responses to it. We will also read Javier Zamora's Solito: A Memoir. This best seller and much honored memoir tells the inspiring story of the author's migration from El Salvador to the United States. We will then turn to Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's The Undocumented Americans, a finalist for the National Book Award which describes migrants in all their complexity, messiness, humanity, and beauty. We will also view three films examining the issue, including, El Norte, A Better Life, and The Visitor. Finally we will turn to an examination of the latest materials concerning the current undocumented population, Trump's policy of mass deportations, the tactics and strategies inherent in the policy and the practical and political difficulties of such a policy.
1.Borders, Introduction.
Solito, Chapters One and Two.
2. Borders, Part I Borders and Claims, 1. Why National Borders and Why Not?, 2. What Are Better Responses to Forced Immigration?
Solito, Chapters Three and Four.
3. Borders, 3. Who Can Say That They Belong?
Solito, Chapters Five and Six.
4. Borders, Part II Admission, Exclusion and Time, 4. Who Should Get In, or Be Kept Out?
Solito, Chapters Seven and Eight.
El Norte, Director Gregory Nava, An Independent Productions Film, 1984.
5. Borders, 5. Should Newcomers Stay Temporarily or Indefinitely?
Solito, Chapter Nine, Epigraph and April 5, 2021.
Undocumented, Introduction and Chapter 1: Staten Island.
6. Borders, Part III Immigration Outside the Law and Enforcement, 6. What About People Without Lawful Status?
Undocumented, Chapter 2: Ground Zero, Chapter 3: Miami and Chapter 4: Flint.
A Better Life, Director Chris Weitz, Summit Entertainment, 2011.
7. Borders, 7. What Should Enforcement Do, and Not Do?
Undocumented, Chapter 5: Cleveland and Chapter 6: New Haven.
Pew Research, What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/.
8. Borders, Part IV Delving Deeper, 8. How Can We Take Skeptics Seriously, and Why?
The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/opinion/stephen-miller.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare.
9. New York City Bar REPORT ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S 2025 CHANGES TO IMMIGRATION LAW Chapters I., II., III., IV., V., Subchapters A-G. https://www.nycbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20221419-TrumpAdminChangesImmigrationLaw.pdf.
Borders, 9. What Does It Mean to Address Migration's Root Causes?
The Visitor, Director Tom McCarthy, Groundswell Productions, 2008.
10. New York City Bar,Chapter V.,Subchapter H-Q., Chapters VI., VII., VII., IX., X.
Borders, 10. What's the Big Picture?, Conclusion.
Hiroshi Motomura, Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy, New York, Oxford University Press, 2025.
Javier Zamora, Solito: A Memoir, New York, Hogarth, 2022.
El Norte, Director Gregory Nava, An Independent Productions Film, 1984.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans, New York, One World, 2020.
A Better Life, Director Chris Weitz, Summit Entertainment, 2011.
Pew Research, What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/.
The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/opinion/stephen-miller.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare.
New York City Bar REPORT ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S 2025 CHANGES TO IMMIGRATION LAW https://www.nycbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20221419-TrumpAdminChangesImmigrationLaw.pdf.
The Visitor, Director Tom McCarthy, Groundswell Productions, 2008.