Show Trials: How Property Gets More Legal Protection than People in Our Failed Immigration System

Article first published as Book Review: Show Trials by Peter Afrasiabi on Blogcritics.
Immigration is certainly one of the hottest topics out there, and a truly divisive one most of the time. It seems that everybody has an opinion on it, but very few of us could truthfully say that we really understand it completely, or even that we are familiar with all of the necessary facets of it. “Show Trials” by Peter Afrasiabi definitely brings a lot of clarity to the legal side of this issue, as well as many needed insights into the human and emotional side of it.
The author begins with an introduction identifying the problems of the failed immigration system, and continues with a slew of examples of legal proceedings against immigrants, explaining the inner workings of the system and pointing out where its major weaknesses or oversights actually are to be found. The reader is brought face to face with real cases dealing with real people, and it soon becomes evident that immigration is truly an immensely complex issue, and that no matter how much one might have thought of it and the possible consequences of some of the legal proceedings against the illegal immigrants, one could not have ever envisioned all of the complicated issues properly. What those cases demonstrated very clearly to me was the fact that the people are not as protected in this country as one would have thought, and the author’s comparisons of with the cases involving intellectual property were absolutely astonishing - even more astonishing were the hard numbers quoted. Let me focus on just two of the statistics, one about the lack of attorneys for immigrants and the other on how much the cost is of detaining those immigrants. According to Mr. Afrasiabi, there are over 350,000 immigration cases each year, and around 60% of the immigrants in those cases do not have an attorney. Can you imagine dealing with the judicial system without an attorney? What if one does not speak the language very well, and comes from a very different cultural environment? The challenges there should be quite evident to everybody. Even more shocking is the fact that, as of 2010, our government has been spending $1.77 billion annually on jailing immigrants, which makes this the largest and the most expensive detention program in the U.S.
The heartbreaking stories and the shocking stats in the book were very well balanced by Mr. Afrasiabi’s possible solutions for many of the problems plaguing the system. I found his proposals very common sense and practical, and quite doable. It was very clear to me that Mr. Afrasiabi was both compassionate and extremely well versed on this topic, and I was very impressed with the way he managed to write about this matter in a way that is completely accessible to any reader, even those of us who have absolutely no previous knowledge of the legal system. I am truly glad that I took the time to read “Show Trials” and I feel I understand this issue much better now. This is a book that should truly be read by anybody who would like to get a more comprehensive and better balanced picture of the immigration issues in the U.S. today.


Show Trials: How Property Gets More Legal Protection than People in Our Failed Immigration System Peter Afrasiabi
Envelope Books (2012)
ISBN 9780984791521
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (3/12)