Washington, DC – A new book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition, by Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, dives into US immigration policy and its relationship to mass incarceration, from the last 40 years to the present, showing how the prison-industrial complex and immigration enforcement are intertwined systems of repression. Shah’s book is a timely intervention as anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by fear-mongering, a scarcity mindset, and racist rhetoric has reached a dangerous fever pitch in today’s political discourse.
The book outlines how the US remains entrenched in a circular discourse regarding migrant justice, as evidenced by post-9/11 xenophobia, Obama’s record-level deportations, Trump’s immigration policies, and the 2020 uprisings for racial justice.. Shah argues in Unbuild Walls, that we must move beyond building nicer cages or advocating for comprehensive immigration reform and instead embrace abolition.
Buy Unbuild Walls and Join Silky on her 2024 Unbuild Walls Book Tour
“Abolition is not only a vision, but a guide and theory of change that helps us get closer to racial and migrant justice,” says Shah. “ The dehumanization of communities of color and immigrants not only results in more detention, incarceration, and deportation, it prevents us from addressing the real issues facing communities across the US, especially social and economic inequality.”
Silky has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigrant detention in the United States, and now serves as its executive director. Her writing on immigration policy and organizing has been published in Truthout, Teen Vogue, Inquest, and The Forge and in the edited volumes, The Jail is Everywhere (Verso, 2024), Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence (Haymarket Books, 2024), and Transformative Planning (Black Rose Books, 2020). She has also appeared in numerous national and local media outlets including The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC.
Reviews for Unbuild Walls are in, more here.
“Shah’s intersectional approach to the immigrant justice struggle will interest those interested in immigration reform as well as individuals working on behalf of any marginalized community disproportionately affected by the current carceral system. Informative reading for activists and policymakers.”
—Kirkus Reviews, read more
“This illuminating and eloquent book illustrates the connections between injustices in the U.S. immigration system and prison-industrial complex while advocating for the abolition of both.”
—Booklist
“Unbuild Walls is a vital intervention! The freedom to move around and the freedom to stay put are central to abolitionist vision. Silky Shah shows, with lively detail, how abolitionist political analysis is both preparation for and guidance through complex, difficult struggles.”
—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation
“Silky Shah has written a crucial history of the nexus between draconian immigration enforcement and the criminal legal system. Rather than framing the cruelties of the Trump administration as the result of a single man’s nativist designs, Shah exposes the decades-long bipartisan project to quickly incarcerate and deport immigrants. Shah avoids the all-too easy claim that these two systems should be disentangled, arguing that this narrative pits immigrants against other marginalized groups—including people affected by the prison-industrial complex—and instead deftly argues for abolition.”
—Gaby Del Valle, cofounder of BORDER/LINES
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.