In late 2006, Saket Soni, a twenty-eight-year-old Indian-born community organizer, received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker in Mississippi. He was one of five hundred men trapped in squalid Gulf Coast "man camps," surrounded by barbed wire, watched by guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid toilets, forced to eat mouldy bread and frozen rice. Recruiters had promised them good jobs and green cards. The men had scraped up $20,000 each for this "opportunity" to rebuild hurricane-wrecked oil rigs, leaving their families in impossible debt. During a series of clandestine meetings, Soni and the workers devised a bold plan. In The Great Escape, Soni traces the workers' extraordinary escape, their march on foot to Washington, DC, and their twenty-three-day hunger strike to bring attention to their cause. Along the way, ICE agents try to deport the men, company officials work to discredit them, and politicians avert their eyes. But none of this shakes the workers' determination to win their dignity and keep their promises to their families.

Weaving a deeply personal journey with a riveting tale of twenty-first-century forced labour, Soni takes us into the lives of the immigrant workers the United States increasingly relies on to rebuild after climate disasters. The Great Escape is the gripping story of one of the largest human trafficking cases in modern American history-and the workers' heroic journey for justice.

About the Author
Saket Soni is labour organizer and the author of The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America. He is the founder and director of Resilience Force, a national non-profit that advocates for the rising workforce that rebuilds after climate disasters. He was profiled as an "architect of the next labor movement" in USA Today and named one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business for 2022. His work was the subject of a major New Yorker feature story He has testified before Congress and at the United Nations. Originally from New Delhi, Saket lives in Washington, DC. Follow him on Twitter @saket_soni


Book Information
ISBN 9781643755755
Author Saket Soni
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Algonquin Books
Publisher Workman Publishing
Weight(grams) 280g
Dimensions(mm) 208mm * 138mm * 22mm