Ethical issues in Jason De Leon's Land of the Open Graves

Review of Land of the Open Graves by Jason De Leon (2015)

Even as President Donald J. Trump and his legion of nervous followers chant their emotion-charged demands to “Build the Wall!,” tens of thousands of desperate Latin Americans continue to struggle to attain a better life for themselves and their families by crossing the Mexican border into the United States. Although the president’s rhetoric receives a great deal of attention from the mainstream media, the stories about the suffering endured by many illegal immigrants in their attempts to enter the United States remain untold. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of De Leon’s Land of the Open Graves to identify the ethical issues he raises and confronts from an anthropological perspective. In addition, an examination of the choices he makes concerning optimal strategies for handling these ethical issues is followed by an analysis concerning the rationale in support of these choices. Finally, a summary of the ethical issues identified by De Leon and the key findings that emerged from the research are presented in the conclusion.
Review and Analysis
In reality, any country’s choices concerning immigration are limited to a few alternatives. On the one hand, countries can elect to adopt policies that are similar to those in place in the European Union (EU) where citizens are free to travel across national borders without restriction. Although visas are not required to cross national borders, residency requirements differ among EU member-states but it is clear that once people actually reach a foreign destination, half their battle to stay there is won. The same mentality is applicable to the tens of thousands of undocumented migrants who risk life and limb in their efforts to reach and remain in the United States today.
On the other hand, countries can elect to implement and administer highly selective immigration policies such as those that are in place in the United States or choose to prohibit immigration altogether such as the policies that are followed in North Korea. Against this backdrop, it is also clear that there are different ethical issues involved with each strategy, but the focus of this discussion is on De Leon’s perspectives about those that are associated with the immigration policies of the United States.
The thousands of Latin Americans undocumented migrants who trek through Arizona’s hostile Sonoran Desert literally risk their live in an attempt to just enter the United States. Moreover, De Leon maintains that the American government intentionally channels undocumented migrants through this arduous route of entry so that they will stand a far greater chance of succumbing to the natural elements rather than successfully making their way into the United States. In other words, by creating a seemingly viable pathway into the United States for undocumented migrants, the American government is essentially dooming thousands of these individuals to an untimely death.
This purely pragmatic threat is significantly compounded for the vast majority of these undocumented migrants who are predominantly Roman Catholic because the potential for the destruction of their corpses if they should is violative of two of their fundamental religious beliefs. For instance, according to De Leon, the first reason is a pragmatic consideration: “An absent body makes it virtually impossible to have a wake for the deceased and prevents the family from constructing a grave where they may visit the dead and pray for his or her soul” (p. 83). There is an even more important factor involved in the destruction of a corpse in this fashion, though, that raises serious ethical issues. In this regard, De Leon (2105) adds that, “On an ideological level, a destroyed or incomplete corpse is seen as a threat to the afterlife in that it may stop people from rising from the dead to be judged at the end of time” (p. 83).
A less apparent ethical issue involved in the destruction of undocumented migrant corpses in the Sonoran Desert is the fact that these outcomes mean that the true extent of the problem remains unknown since these bodies are not counted in official estimates by the U.S. government. As De Leon (2015) points out, “This (mis)treatment of bodies is an ethical concern, but the physical destruction by the environment has other implications. The remote locations where people die, the rapid scavenging of corpses, and the destruction of clothes, personal effects, and bones by various processes mean that the current death tally for the desert undercounts the actual number of people who die out there” (p. 83).
More troubling still, perhaps, is the manner in which these needless deaths are an extension of American immigration policy. By not having to count these anonymous corpses, the true scope of the adverse effects of U.S. immigration policies are hidden while simultaneously communicating a shocking message to the families left behind that they may never learn the true fate of their loved ones who set out for a better life in America. This policy means that the channeling of undocumented migrants through the Sonoran Desert operates on two unethical levels, both of which exact enormous human tolls. In this regard, De Leon emphasizes that, “The Border Patrol [has] intentionally set the stage so that other actants can do most of the brutal work. Despite the claim by some that the desert has become uncontrollable, even from the perspective of federal law enforcement officers who find themselves at risk while patrolling this great expanse” (p. 61).
Other ethical issues identified by De Leon include the cozy arrangements between the U.S. government’s immigration policies and the private sector which is increasingly benefiting from these draconian policies. For instance, De Leon notes that, “The escalating war on immigration has become a profitable business over the past decade. Private corporations that specialize in detaining nonviolent immigration offenders at high costs to American tax payers now report annual revenues in the billions” (p. 113). This aspect of America’s "Prevention through Deterrence” policy has other ethical implications as well since it highlights the “good old boy” network that has contributed to its existence and perpetuation.
The high-profile photographs of hundreds of migrant children confined in U.S. Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) “cages” along the U.S.-Mexican border in recent months are therefore just part of this ugly picture, and tens of thousands of other adult undocumented migrants find themselves detained in private sector for-profit correctional facilities that have been built specifically for the purpose. As De Leon points out, “This rise in profits is partly thanks to the unethical business relationships that these corporations have with anti-immigrant legislators across the country. Both parties seem to have agreed that if one builds more detention centers the other will find ways to fill them” (p. 113).
It is reasonable to suggest that many of these adult undocumented migrant detainees would willingly accept their detainment if it meant that they would eventually be granted asylum and gain legal entry into the United States, but the harsh reality remains that the vast majority of these detainees are eventually returned to their countries of origin, primarily Mexico, and their entire exercise in attempting entry into the country has been for naught. Given the current scenario, however, wherein the private sector is being enriched at the expense of tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, it is also reasonable to posit that there is little incentive on the part of the current public-private sector cabal to make meaningful changes to these immigration policies.
Concluding that there is no simple solution to these ethical issues, De Leon believes that the only viable strategy for addressing these problems is to raise the American public’s awareness of the underlying factors that serve to sustain immigration policies and practices. At present, though, not only are thousands of undocumented migrant deaths in the Sonoran Desert virtually invisible to the American public, the pain and suffering that these unfortunate individuals endured in their attempts to carve out a better life for themselves and their families are also largely unknown. Therefore, the first step in resolving these ethical issues is to ensure that the reality of the current situation is made abundantly clear to the American public so that they can make substantive changes through the political process. In this regard, De Leon (2015) stresses that, “The American public has to first recognize and resolve this fundamental socioeconomic conundrum before any serious immigration policy reform can take place” (p. 284).
In sum, by ensuring that the plight of undocumented migrants is fully communicated to the American, De Leon maintains that the sheer goodness and positive values of the American people will help reverse these ugly trends and help the United States live up to its commitment enshrined on the Statue of Liberty which states, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Nothing that his book was not intended to solve the problem, De Leon does conclude that, “If we can publicly grieve for the thousands who suffer and die as the result of a cruel border policy and a globalized economy that continuously pushes and pulls people to seek work in the United States, we might better understand how our worlds are intertwined and the ethical responsibility we have to one another as humans” (pp. 284-285).
Conclusion
To his credit, De Leon (2015) makes a number of timely and salient points concerning the ethical issues that are involved with current American immigration policies and how these ethical issues actually affect undocumented migrants in the real world. Unless and until the countries of Latin America receive the developmental assistance they need to bring their economies in line with the United States, however, it is reasonable to conclude that tens of thousands of men, women and children will continue to pursue a better life by taking their lives in their hands to reach the “Land of Opportunity.” In the meantime, the American public needs to know how and why these policies are really in place rather than reverting to a post-9/11 mindset in which the entire world is arrayed against them.

References De Leon, J. The land of open graves: Living and dying on the migrant trail. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015.