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Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States 2023 Southwest History Book of the Year
Published with Counterpoint Press 2022
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An urgent look at the US Border Patrol from its xenophobic founding to its assault on the Fourth Amendment in its quest to become a national police force
In the Media:
In conversation: Reece Jones on the U.S. Border Patrol's History of Impunity 2023 The Long Road Magazine
Is it time to increase accountability for the US Border Patrol? Interview on Al Jazeera
Is the US Border Patrol overstepping its boundaries? Interview on KERA Think
Author details how the Border Patrol is the 'most dangerous police force' in the US in new book, Interview on The Show, KJZZ Phoenix
The modern US Border Patrol is a national police force with dangerous capabilities, author warns, Interview with the American Bar Association's Modern Law Library Podcast
Interview about Nobody is Protected, This Is Hell Radio
Interview with Zach Roberts, Visu.News Podcast
Interview about Nobody is Protected, Redirect Podcast
The Best Books on the US Border Patrol, Shepherd
The Biden Administration Must Ban Racial Profiling, 2022, Texas Observer.
The Long, Deep Reach of the US Border Patrol, 2022, The Los Angeles Times.
Expansion of the Border Patrol is Worrisome, 2022, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
It's Premature to Assume Roe v. Wade is Dead, 2022, The Washington Post.
Reviews:
“It is a dark portrait, but hopefully, by Jones shining some light on it, changes might be prompted that can rein in the beast before it devours what rights we have left.” — Coot's Reviews
“This eye-opening read concludes with signs of hope and suggestions for change.” — Booklist
A “troubling look at what Americans have sacrificed in the name of border security.” An “incisive legal history” ... “Enriched by the author’s brisk prose and lucid analysis of complex legal matters.” — Publishers Weekly
“A provocative, necessary book about an ongoing hot-button topic” that “examines how the U.S. Border Patrol developed into an organization with powers that supersede the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Jones summons readers concerned about abust of authority, accountability, human rights, and establishing justice to demand rethinking and revising the USBP’s expansive reach.” — Library Journal
Endorsements:
“If you wondered how it could be possible for the U.S. Border Patrol to pull activists off the streets in Portland, Oregon, during the summer of 2020, Nobody Is Protected is the book for you. Reece Jones’s rigorously researched book analyzes the Border Patrol’s extraconstitutional powers and explains the legal precedents behind them. It’s also one hell of a page-turner that twists and turns from the ‘Wild West’ to the modern halls of power. It is a book with a purpose: always seeking to answer how the United States’ ‘most dangerous police force’ presently operates and how it impacts us all.” —TODD MILLER, journalist and author of Build Bridges, Not Walls
“Reece Jones has done something here surprising, illuminating, and, frankly, terrifying. By diving deeper into an issue that has received much attention but lacked a more critical eye, he has presented us with a portrait of how our fears and prejudices about immigration have metastasized into a pressing situation that demands redress. A harrowing, necessary read.” —JARED YATES SEXTON, author of American Rule
“For decades, the U.S. Border Patrol has been violating people’s civil rights in the name of national security, including implementing security policies that have been responsible for the deaths of thousands. Nobody Is Protected is a page-turning deep dive into the history of America’s largest police force. In riveting prose, Jones sheds an important light on just how vulnerable citizens and noncitizens alike are to federal overreach and law enforcement abuse.” —JASON DE LEÓN, MacArthur Fellow and author of The Land of Open Graves
Description:
Late one July night in 2020, armed men, identified only by the word POLICE written across their uniforms, began snatching Black Lives Matter protestors off the street in Portland, Oregon and placing them in unmarked vans. These mysterious actions were not carried out by local law enforcement or even right-wing terrorists, but by the US Border Patrol. Why was the Border Patrol operating so far from the borderlines of the United States? What were they doing at a protest that had nothing to do with immigration or the border?
Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States is the untold story of how, through a series of landmark but largely unknown decisions, the Supreme Court has dramatically curtailed the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution in service of policing borders. The Border Patrol exercises exceptional powers to conduct warrantless stops and interrogations within one hundred miles of land borders or coastlines, an area that includes nine of the ten largest cities and two thirds of the American population.
Guggenheim Fellow and border expert Reece Jones maps the Border Patrol’s history from its bigoted and violent Wild West beginnings through the legal precedents that have unleashed today’s militarized force, revealing the shocking true stories and characters behind its most dangerous policies. With the Border Patrol intent on exploiting current laws to transform itself into a national police force, the truth behind their influence and history has never been more important.