Nicola Moscelli

[we are] neither villains nor illegals, we are international workers

All the time they swore at us, slapped us, pushed and kicked us all over and hit us with a whip, they covered our eyes and mouths […] they killed my friend because she didn’t have any [relative] to help her and she couldn’t give them a [phone] number, so they shot her twice in the head and they left her bleeding in front of me for three hours to intimidate me […] The place they held me captive is a big, dark, filthy house that smelled bad. The two days I was there I slept on the ground, there were no blankets, and they gave me something to eat only once, hard bread and a bit of water. The men who kidnapped me also stripped me naked and raped me. In that place, I heard the whole time moans, cries and groans of other people. — Salvadoran woman quoted in the 2009 CNDH special report on kidnapping

All kinds go there, and so many that you have to put up with an old drunk who's falling all over himself and tells you things and you have to put up with it because you're there. You aren't going to slap his face, oh no, how would that look? everyone would throw you out. You put up with it and you just move from that spot […] You are getting out of here, you think, to breathe fresh air. That is what I am telling you. I arrive home and I wish […] but I arrive so tired, in such a bad mood, sometimes disgusted. I sleep, I rest, and on my day off the first thing I do is I get up, I take a shower, and I go for a walk in the park. — anonymous sex worker in Tijuana

We were eating at Los Compadres, and two guys came in. We could tell they weren’t from here. They looked different. They were kids — 18 to 20 years old. They ordered fifty hamburgers to go. That’s when we figured something was going on, and we decided we’d better get home. — Guadalupe García, retired government worker • Things began to happen in the afternoon. Armed men arrived. They went house to house, looking for the people who had betrayed them. By 11:00 at night there was no movement of cars on the streets. There was no movement of any kind. — Martín Márquez, hot dog vendor

For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war [with Mexico] which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. — Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), 18th President of the United States

Chapter 1 - Persons To Be Excluded: The following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, deeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopatic inferiority, […] persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, […] — “Regulations Governing the Medical Inspection of Aliens” by United States Public Health Service, August 1917

To me, the spiraling tire tracks on the Arizona desert resemble the ancient symbols inscribed into the deserts of Peru and Chile by people of the Nazca culture, more than a thousand years ago. The Nazca likely created their giant geometric shapes for religious purposes. But these Border Patrol designs, which will also persist for a long time, symbolize something darker: our 21st century fear and anger, and a burst of US government lawlessness. — Ray Ring, American novelist and journalist

I feel sad that our graduation is coming up and my dad isn’t going to be able to come. — JoAnna Rodriguez, transborder student whose father was kicked out of the US in 2007 after being caught crossing the border illegally several times

I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. — from Donald Trump's speech in which he announced his candidacy for President of the United States (June 16, 2015)

They were sprayed in the face, they were sprayed in their private parts. They were stripped naked and inspected, and sometimes they’re inspected like you would inspect livestock […] So they talk about how humiliating it was, about "why do they think we’re so dirty." […] I don’t know if they necessarily were told "we’re spraying you with DDT," but they all call it "el polvo", the powder. — Yolanda Chavez Leyva, Associate Professor at CIBS El Paso, interviewed about the Mexican workers entering USA under the Bracero program (1942-1964)