by John Washington
Haymarket Books
7/21/2026, paperback
SKU: 9798888908167
An urgent polemic and practical guide to dismantling the immigrant detention system
Masked federal agents are kidnapping and killing our neighbors, on the streets and behind the bars of hundreds of detention centers across the country. In How to Close a Camp, award-winning journalist and translator John Washington offers a galvanizing, clear-eyed case for why we must close these camps--and how to do it.
In spite of the decades-long growth of immigrant detention, communities have been fighting back against camps--and winning. Washington distills strategies and lessons from successful campaigns to close camps and block or slow the opening of new ones, drawing on conversations with veteran organizers from the movement.
Chipping away at the infrastructure of the camp is the only way to stave off increasing xenophobic and authoritarian violence. It is time to close all the camps and build a world that no longer requires them.
Reviews:
"This is an urgent, courageous book. It is not just a comprehensive history of immigration detention camps as sites of social control and repression; it is also a compelling catalog of the many creative ways in which people have refused to be contained. Please read it, both to witness the vital stories that Washington captures with grace and rigor and to study the moral blueprint it presents to us all, to help us account for and shape the kind of world in which we hope to live. What could be more needed than that?" --Sarah Stillman, staff writer at The New Yorker
"John Washington has written an important and timely book: a thorough reckoning of ICE through a deep historical analysis of this long-standing yet somewhat-unknown machine of terror, most starkly symbolized by its incarceration camps. Just as important, this book also vividly reports on the spirit of sustained and creative resistance that is needed to bring these camps down. A must-read." --Todd Miller, author of Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders
"How to Close a Camp showcases Washington's rich talent for weaving together the deep veins of anti-immigrant policy in the United States with a cogent analysis of the system and powerful, instructive stories of resistance. As immigrant detention becomes a testing ground for authoritarian rule, this book is a crucial resource for seasoned activists and those new to the issue alike." --Silky Shah, author of Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition
About the Author:
John Washington is a journalist covering the border, climate change, democracy, and more. He has written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Intercept, and other outlets. He is the author of The Case for Open Borders and The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexico Border and Beyond. Washington is also a translator of books by Anabel Hernandez, Sandra Rodriquez Nieto, and others. His most recent translations include The Hollywood Kid by Óscar Martínez and Juan Martínez, and Blood Barrios by Alberto Arce, which won a PEN Translates Award. Both were co-translated along with Daniela Ugaz. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.