Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here

The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

By: Jonathan Blitzer

Narrated by: André Santana, Jonathan Blitzer

A National Bestseller • A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, PBS NewsHour, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Lunch, Christian Science Monitor, and Counterpunch • One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks • Named a Notable Book by New York Times and Washington Post • Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

“What an incredibly thorough documentation of the causes of the immigration crisis, the discussions that have been going on through multiple administrations.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

“Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is sure to take its place as one of the definitive accounts of the U.S. and Central American immigration puzzle. . . . Hopefully, those with the power to change things will listen.” —Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post

An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer

Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.

As Jonathan Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, this crisis is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture of this vast and unremitting conflict.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the epic story of the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, delving into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future.

A must read for anyone who has thought about immigration

Thoroughly researched; unsentimental and uncompromising. Clearly illustrates how US’s failed foreign policies in Central America are the source of the immigration crisis.

This book will stay with me forever

Listening to "Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis" was, unexpectedly, a way of understanding my father.

We don’t have a relationship, and I don’t want one. But this book gave me something else: context. It helped me see the weight of generational trauma and PTSD in shaping the person he became.

As a teenager living in El Salvador, my father joined a strike in support of teachers, naively, mostly for the chance to skip class. He was captured and tortured. He rarely speaks about it, but I know it changed everything. After that, he changed his name and entered a Catholic seminary. Under the pretense of becoming a priest, he migrated to Costa Rica, where I grew up.

Coming from a country that has been relatively stable and privileged in the region, this book widened my lens. It made me confront the depth of violence, displacement, and survival that people from the Northern Triangle have endured and continue to endure. It also allowed me to hold two truths at once: distance, and compassion.

What stood out most were the chapters that followed individual stories: their escapes, migrations, activism, and resilience. Those narratives made the crisis human, not abstract.

Some of the more policy-heavy sections, especially those centered on White House decision-making, felt dense at times. I found it helpful to pair the reading with the audiobook, which made those sections more accessible.

Overall, this is an incredibly insightful and necessary book. Not just for understanding migration, but for understanding people: where they come from, what they carry, and how history lives inside them.

Worth the time, a lot of investment though

I read and listen to a lot of nonfiction books, particularly United States and United States history history. When I got this book, I was expecting more along the lines of typical nonfiction books, going through policies and events, which this book definitely does. However, there is a lot of storytelling in here. Which, at first was kind of a turn off for me and I was about ready to stop listening. Not that the stories were not appealing, but I wanted to talk more about the events and policies. Over the course of the book, I grew to appreciate the stories that were told. All of them had their own significance and I got a real prospective of what it must’ve been like for these people who were just trying to get better lives. To me, as someone who knows little to no immigration history, or anything like that, the idea that most of these people Were not looking to the US as thier home, they were looking to go back to their home countries. That fact, kind of made me look at it a different angle. As my title says, this book is a lot of investment as a listener in my opinion, but worth it

Well done

Very good explanation of how our immigration system works and how badly it needs funding and reform

Fascinating read

Such a great book explaining the immigration crisis. History has a lot to do with where we are now with the current immigration issues