The Patriot Act and related legislation gave enhanced surveillance and investigative powers to law enforcement and imposed new restrictions on the freedom of immigrants to travel into and out of the United States. Deportations had risen by 30 percent. The undocumented moved from neighborhood to neighborhood and borough to borough, seeking off-the-books work while keeping a low profile. Some ran into visa troubles, lost their jobs, and had to return home. When I heard from Santosh or my other friends from Midtown, the stories tended to be of either the on-a-treadmill or the crashed-and-burned variety. They stood in sharp contrast to the conventional stories that depicted South Asians in the United States largely as professionals who experienced great economic stability for themselves and their children. Most didn’t even manage the mini-mart life of Apu on The Simpsons. Santosh tried to expand his restaurant and catering services, but hard times had sent him back to his lucrative but illegal sideline as part of the “underground railroad”
