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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Prof. Nancy Janus
(941) 713-3044
janusng@eckerd.edu
Author Sarah Towle Unravels How Immigration Was Weaponized to Break US Democracy: Her Speaking Tour Arrives in Florida This Fall.
“We all deserve a narrative with clarity, and Towle’s has delivered. Spectacular!”
Ken Burns, filmmaker
SEPTEMBER 2026: Ever taken a boat ride out to Egmont Key? From now on, bring your passport (and maybe let your lawyer know) because you could end up under lock and key at Krome.
Since federal authorities doubled their enforcement reach off the Florida coast in August, even pleasure boats that come within 24 miles of the beaches can be confiscated and those on board taken prisoner by Customs & Border Protection and imprisoned under ICE.
How did it come to this? It’s all part of the decades-long anti-immigration escalation that Sarah Towle, award-winning author of Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands, will address on October 7th.
Towle unmasks our dysfunctional immigration system beyond slogans. She explains how President Donald Trump transformed its “brokenness” into a weapon to drive democracy into crisis. She reveals how paramilitary forces and surveillance cameras came to patrol US streets. She compels us to get to the polls this November to halt the normalization of an expanding US police state, including the new Customs Enforcement Areas (CEAs) that now extend federal authority 24 nautical miles into the Gulf, where armed officers can stop and board all vessels, as well as question and detain all passengers before they reach US territorial waters — as they have been boarding buses and pulling over cars in the nation’s interior for decades.
Towle’s harrowing narrative nonfiction account of the first Trump regime’s immigration record and the resistance and resilience of those caught in the implacable machinery was intended as a document of recent history. On November 4, 2024, Crossing the Line transformed overnight into a bellwether of the brutality to come: an exposé of the now-global deterrence-to-detention-to-deportation pipeline that is failing everyone, “save the demagogues and profiteers who benefit from it.”
Now out in a second edition, Towle’s journey from outrage to activism to abolition unveils how the US led the charge in renouncing post-WWII commitments to protecting folks fleeing harm, adopting a security-first mandate that enabled the birth of a police state on US soil. Crossing the Line has been lauded as a manual for the movement to safeguard and stand up for immigrant and human rights. States Austin Kocher, Syracuse University Professor and ICE researcher:
“Every concerned citizen should read this book.”
ABOUT THE BOOK
Harnessing the emotional truth, narrative power, and moral vision of Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, and Howard Zinn, Sarah Towle’s urgent and evocative journey of discovery inside the detention to deportation pipeline reveals how the US immigration system evolved, then devolved into a weapon to drive democracy into crisis.
Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands, 2nd edition
by Sarah Towle
October 2025 | Creative Nonfiction / History / Oral History / Memoir
Paperback | 979-8-89636-134-3 | $18.99 | Ebook | 978-8-89636-135-0 | $12.95
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Awards & Accolades
2024 Nonfiction Book Award Gold Medal Winner
2024 CIBA Nellie Bly Award First Place Winner for Journalistic Nonfiction
2025 RFK Human Rights Book Award Nominee; SocialJusticeBook.org
Featured Book for “Teaching About Immigration”
Professional & Industry Praise
“Towle’s eye-opening narrative . . . offers an astute analysis that provides a well-researched overview of the current immigration system...A powerful exposé of the human costs of America’s immigration policies.” — Kirkus Reviews
“. . . an expertly written, deeply human exposé . . . It brings clarity to a very complicated situation, leaving the reader well-informed . . . It enlightens as much as it devastates . . . With the effect of immigration being felt globally, this should be everyone’s must-read.” — Nonfiction Authors Association Gold Award Review
“Towle has obliterated today's dead-end arguments about immigration and transformed them into riveting, human stories. We forget that ideas — good and bad — have always crossed our borderlines; only human beings need a piece of paper. We all deserve a narrative with clarity, and Towle’s has delivered. Spectacular!” — Ken Burns, filmmaker
“Simultaneously a searing indictment of inhumane immigration policies and a moving testament to the resilience of the human spirit, Sarah Towle’s Crossing the Line is public-interest storytelling at its finest. A brilliant, engaging, and essential read for anyone seeking a true understanding of America’s borderlands.” — Toluse Olorunnipa, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.
“With Crossing the Line, Sarah Towle exposes the relentlessly cruel US immigration system. . . as she restores humanity to an issue currently lost in a blizzard of polarizing ideology and hate. Sarah makes it clear that what is unfolding now is not just Trump-era politics — it’s rooted in American exploitation of our southern neighbors. For anyone who wants to understand the dysfunctional immigration debate beyond slogans, Crossing the Line is an absolute must-read.” — Scott Allen, former Editor, Boston Globe Spotlight Investigative Team.
“A beautiful book, awesomely reported. What an accomplishment and contribution to this issue. Sarah has written this with great empathy. The focus remains squarely on rehumanizing those most harmed by US immigration policies. The chronology makes the meta-story even more riveting and appalling.” — Heidi Ostertag, executive producer of Running to Stand Still—Migrants Search For Hope in The Promised Land, Worldwide Documentaries.
“Crossing the Line is a well-researched yet accessible exposé of border policies that harm migrants and undermine the promise of America. From the ‘family separation’ policies of the Trump administration to the massive growth of immigrant detention, Towle’s ability to weave together first-hand stories of accidental activists — including priests, attorneys, and concerned locals — with the broader policy context is on display in an ambitious book infused with a profound commitment to humanity and justice. Every concerned citizen should read this book.” — Prof. Austin Kocher, Research Assistant Professor, Syracuse University
“In Crossing the Line, Towle achieves something few writers can: She catalogs years of the US government's nightmarish cruelty towards migrants without tipping into despair. It’s an inspiring account of many tireless and seemingly fearless immigration advocates standing up for justice and humanity. Towle’s personal tale, too, is a smart and moving grappling with the moral calamity that is the US immigration enforcement regime. I challenge any reader to pick up this book and not be shaken, disturbed, and ultimately committed to a better and more just world. — John Washington, author of A Case for Open Borders
"The work represents a significant and valuable contribution to reflection in this field." — His Eminence, Cardinal Baggio, General Secretariat, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, The Vatican “With a propulsive narrative and an engaging style, Crossing the Line is an important contribution to our understanding of the borderlands, and by extension, America itself.” — Prof. Reece Jones, author of White Borders, Violent Borders, and Nobody is Protected
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Towle is an educator, human rights defender, choral soprano, and the author of Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands, a powerful exposé of the human costs of US immigration policies. She keeps the issues top of mind and the project going through her Substack newsletter, Tales of Humanity, its companion podcast, From the Borderlands, and her monthly Hope Knows No Borders Network webinar series, which seeded the creation of her latest initiative: the Coalition for Values-Based Investment, a nationwide campaign to divest of all holdings in the for-profit prison industrial complex hiding in our financial portfolios.
Her op-eds have appeared in the Boston Globe, Common Dreams, PennLive/Patriot News, and Al Jazeera.
To learn more about both the book and the author, please visit
www.sarahtowle.com
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