There is one line in the executive order that justifies its existence. It’s the second sentence in section 1.

An Iraqi translator named Sarah has been trying to get to the U.S. for eight years. Finally, this fall, she got a call to come in for an interview for her visa.

To get a sense of what may be broken about our process for bringing these Iraqis into the US, the ones who worked with US forces and who believe their lives are now in danger because of that, Kirk Johnson tells Nancy Updike about one guy. Almost a year of his emails were forwarded to Kirk, who printed them out and started to realize that he was looking at a dead man’s attempt to immigrate to the U.S.

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.

A few weeks ago, Jessica and Moisés found themselves hiding in an attic. Reporter Kevin Sieff talks to them about how they got there.

Just near the US-Mexico border, a group of self described "pissed off patriots" called the Minutemen stake out illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. They've got call-signs and walkie-talkies and guns.

Producer Zoe Chace hung out with some immigration lawyers who are getting calls from their nervous clients.

Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O’Toole talks to U.S. asylum officers—the people who end up sending migrants back to Mexico.

When she was three years old, Georgia was caught by immigration officials when a Milwaukee woman tried to bring her into the country illegally from Jamaica. She ended up at a residential detention center in Chicago.

Back in the 1990s, a bipartisan team led by the charismatic Barbara Jordan came up with a solution to the immigration debate that would have fixed a lot the things we’re arguing about today.

Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O’Toole talks to U.S. asylum officers—the people who end up sending migrants back to Mexico. And they don’t feel good about it.

A tale of two siblings — separated, but not at birth. Reporter Paul Tough and his sister grew up in Toronto, the most American of Canadian cities.

Keith Gessen, a young Russian emigre, revisits the heroes of his youth: the brave Soviet dissidents who risked their lives at the height of the Cold War. Many of them resettled into comfortable suburban lives in America.

Al Jurczynski is the mayor of Schenectady, New York. For the past year, he's embarked on a strange recruitment campaign, to convince Guyanese immigrants living in Queens, New York, to move upstate to Schenectady.

In the war on terror, the government is rounding up foreigners, checking their immigration status, and then, sometimes, deporting them. It won't give out their names.

It turns out winning the lottery is only the first step in trying to come to America. More than half of the people who win each year never make it.

It turns out winning the lottery is only the first step in trying to come to America. More than half of the people who win each year never make it.

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. Then in 2011, Alabama adopted the most extreme anti-immigrant law in the country.

Reporter Emily Green happens to meet a man being sent back to Mexico who tells her he’s afraid of being kidnapped—and then, he gets kidnapped.

Last Summer, Alabama passed HB56, the most sweeping immigration bill in the country. It's an example of a strategy called "attrition through enforcement" or, more colloquially, "self-deportation"--making life so hard on undocumented immigrants that they choose to leave the country.

Producer Nadia Reiman tells the story of one mom and her son stuck someplace with no choice.

When a small town loses 100 people in just a few hours, kids come home to find their parents missing. Producer Lilly Sullivan talks to people trying to make sense of where they went and if they’ll come back.

Seth Freed Wessler reports on people going the opposite direction over the US/Mexico border. Each year hundreds of thousands of people are deported from the US to Mexico — tens of thousands more choose to leave on their own — and lots of them make the journey after years and years living in the states.

David Rakoff on how he tried to pass as a local once he moved from Toronto to New York. He claims that there must be a chip in his head — or something like it — that automatically tells him when someone or something famous is Canadian.