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

Mike Wilson, the editor of the Dallas Morning News, recently got some hate mail from conservative readers. They think that the media—and his paper—are biased.

Producer Zoe Chace has been following Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for the last few months, reporting on the run-up to his re-election bid in 2018.

The man who organized the rally in Charlottesville is named Jason Kessler. He says he’s not to blame for the violence that happened there, including the death of a counter protester.

Producer Neil Drumming spends a couple days exploring Detroit, first with a quirky mayoral candidate running an Afrofuturist campaign, and then with a couple of locals.

Last month, after white nationalists and members of the alt-right and offshoot groups descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, and marched with torches, the staff of our show realized something: The guy who organized the rally was a member of a right wing men's group that our producer Zoe Chace had been following for months, long before the rally was planned. And she’d learned that the group had an unlikely spiritual advisor: a liberal, black relationship consultant and comedian named Dante Nero.

Border Patrol agents were stoked when immigration became a centerpiece of Trump’s campaign. Producer Stephanie Foo went to find out how they hope their jobs will change.

Earlier this month, North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile… one powerful enough, news reports said, to reach Alaska. People were shocked.

In the first half of the show, we documented a community that was worried about what might happen, theoretically, if undocumented immigrants arrived. In this act, Producer Zoe Chace looks at a community where the immigrants have already arrived – Rockville, Maryland.

Dante Nero has been involved in this group for years, since before it even had a name. He’s seen its evolution.

The Department of Homeland Security’s new policies on deportation have sown fear and confusion among undocumented immigrants. Ira Glass and Lilly Sullivan go to Chicago and meet a family trying to navigate the situation.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is from Grand Rapids, Michigan. So is This American Life producer Susan Burton.

Brian Reed continues his story about the town of Homer, Alaska. He talked to all sorts of people involved in the debate over whether the town should welcome immigrants.

One of the justifications for the executive order from the administration was that we needed to temporarily stop admitting immigrants and refugees from these seven countries in order to scrutinize and improve the vetting process. Ira speaks with the vetters about how they vet and what they make of the new order.


We’ve all heard reports that voter fraud isn’t real. But how do we know that’s true? David Kestenbaum went on a quest to find out if someone had actually put in the work—and run the numbers—to know for certain.

Ira talks to our Senior Producer Brian Reed about a fight that’s been brewing in the remote town of Homer, Alaska over a resolution that states that Homer welcomes immigrants. Which is odd.

In 2014, in the wake of losing the previous presidential election, the Republican Party had committed itself to immigration reform as its only path to winning elections in the future. Within two years, Donald Trump would be elected on the exact opposite platform, railing against immigration.

Host Ira Glass interviews Congressman Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), who served four tours as a Marine in Iraq. Moulton talks about an Iraqi translator he grew close to, and about a special visa program that allows Iraqi and Afghan translators to come to the U.S.

Linndale, Ohio, is a town known almost entirely for its speed trap. Producer Sean Cole explains.

The anti-government protests last month in Russia were surprising for a few reasons – including the fact that they included tons of young people. After the protests, teenagers started posting videos to the internet of their teachers lecturing them about the protests and the kids arguing back.

The news of the executive order broke while immigrants and refugees were mid-flight. That meant they were stranded in airports around the country.