In her first book Migra! A History of the U., Kelly Lytle Hernández, describes the history and role of the U.S. BP in the borderlands from the 1920s until the end of the twentieth century. In particular, how the Border Patrol has changed its target from capturing Chinese and European immigrants, to its violent actions against undocumented Mexican people at their side of the border. Additionally, the author also analyses the cooperation between American employers and the enforcement agencies to control the work access to Mexican immigrants in the United States, especially when the unemployment rate was increasing in the country. Besides this, the social impact of this discrimination in both: the USA and Mexico and how it allowed a new concept of immigration and even the emergence of a new racial profiling. Consequently, her argument is based on the idea that the US Border Patrol often recurred to the violence as the main tool to control the immigration. Also, individual interests of the Border Patrol officers justify their rise in the US-Mexico borderlands, which means that not only the Government's concern with the immigrants explains their attitudes.
The book is divided into three parts: Formation, Transformation and Operation wetback and beyond. The first one especially covers the 1920s, from the BP's creation in 1924, to the World War II, but highlighting the first decade mentioned. Also, Hernandez includes in her narratives the lives of men who worked for the patrol, their career and challenges during those first years. By the end of the chapter 1, the writer includes role of organizations such as LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens and their work to integrate Mexicans to American society. The next part of the book, from chapters Five to Seven, traces the origins of the Bracero Program, in which Mexican workers would be allowed to work in the USA. This program lasted twenty-two years and allowed more than two million Mexicans work in American farms.
