Open Borders, Open Wounds: What America Needs to Know about Illegal Immigration

by Congressman Tom Tancredo

At the opening of this book, Congressman Tom Tancredo is standing on a hilltop not far from the Arizona-Mexico border watching a long line of illegal aliens following the “coyote” they have paid to bring them into the U.S. An average of 1500 illegals are apprehended every day here as they try to make the crossing. Three will make it for every one stopped.

The scene is a vantage point for a story of the hidden costs and growing dangers of our open borders. As Tancredo shows, several hundred illegals from the Middle East pass into the U.S. every year through Mexico, bringing with them the threat of terrorism. We don’t know who they are or where they are heading.

But there are human as well as security costs. Some are paid by the Mexican illegals themselves, whose government cynically exports its human problems to avoid necessary economic reforms at home. Others are borne by the understaffed Border Patrol which, in addition to facing an unstoppable human tide, is endangered by armed escorts who accompany the drug and people smugglers. But the American citizens living near the border are most affected. Open Borders, Open Wounds takes us into the world of the ranchers and farmers who have to deal daily with the consequences of illegal immigration and how if affects their land, their livestock, their water and crops and the lives and dreams of their families.

Tom Tancredo has come back from the U.S.-Mexico border communities he calls a “warzone” with a disturbing picture of “our most pressing issue of national security and social disruption.”

Congressman Tom Tancredo represents the Sixth District of Colorado. He has spoken frequently about immigration on The O’Reilly Factor and other television news programs.