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Full episode
607: Didn’t We Solve This One?
Act Two

He’s Making a List

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Nancy returns with a story that explains the origins of the special visa program for interpreters. A decade ago, a young guy named Kirk Johnson inadvertently became the point person for American policy about the Iraqis and Afghans endangered by their work for us. Kirk reflects on the visa program’s successes and failures—and on how, recently, his advice to translators who want to immigrate to the U.S. has radically changed. (25 minutes)

By

Nancy Updike

Song:

“Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” by The Smiths

More in Iraq

View all
607: Didn’t We Solve This One?
Jan. 6, 2017

Act One: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait. But Not Always.

An Iraqi translator named Sarah has been trying to get to the U.S. for eight years.
593: Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee
Aug. 5, 2016

Act Two: Thank You for Smoking

People don’t have a lot of money in the refugee camps, and our producer Miki Meek went to see what that’s like at a camp that’s been built on the grounds of an abandoned psychiatric hospital.
499: Taking Names
June 28, 2013

Act One: Reluctant Sailor

Kirk sleepwalks through an open window and into a completely different life.

More by Nancy Updike

View all
718: Same Bed, Different Dreams (2020)
Sept. 25, 2020

Act One: Dream Weevil

Kim Jong-Il loved movies, but hated all the movies made in North Korea. So he kidnapped a famous South Korean director and his ex-wife—a South Korean film star—locked them up in a villa in North Korea, and forced them to make movies for him. Nancy Updike tells the story.
705: Time Out
May 22, 2020

Act Two: Dunk and Go Nuts

Producer Nancy Updike talks to her friend Mary Conway about the strangest-looking trophy she got in her years playing basketball.
674: Get a Spine!
May 10, 2019

Act One: Finally

We start with someone getting up the nerve to do something that really, it would be nice to see more often — an apology.
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