Prologue

We begin with a woman whose sister has died.

There’s a problem with having a Facebook account after you’re dead that you’ve never, ever, ever thought about.

A guy goes to a funeral for someone he doesn’t know at all, and has to piece together everything about him.

One of the things we were excited to investigate when we went to Alabama was to answer the question at the heart of the immigration debate: what does it cost taxpayers when we let in millions of immigrants, documented and undocumented? In Albertville, how much was it? We asked economist Kim Rueben and her colleague Erin Huffer to run the numbers.

In 2012, the fever broke, and the Albertville city council stopped targeting Latino residents.

Suddenly realizing just how many Latinos had moved to town, longtime residents jumped into action, fueled by a wave of national and statewide anti-immigration fever.