After immigrant Mireya Sanchez is deported, officer Max Brogan takes on the responsibility of looking after her young son. He lovingly transports the boy to his grandparents in Mexico. Tragically, the news soon follows that Mireya has been found murdered near the border, prompting Brogan to return to deliver the heartbreaking news to her family.
In a separate story, we meet Cole Frankel, a corrupt immigration officer, who strikes a dubious deal with Australian immigrant Claire Shepard: he promises her two months of unfettered intimacy in exchange for a green card thereafter. As their tenuous relationship unfolds, Cole finds himself entangled in personal complications, especially as he begins to genuinely fall for Claire. However, she swiftly dismisses his affections. Eventually, Cole liberates her from the terms of their deal and arranges for her green card, but his deception catches up with him, leading to both his and Claire's arrest and her subsequent deportation. Meanwhile, Cole’s wife Denise Frankel adopts a Nigerian girl who has languished in a detention center for several years.
Hamid Baraheri, an Iranian officer, grapples with family pressures, particularly regarding his sister's relationship with a married man. This familial discord escalates tragically when Hamid’s brother, spurred by anger, commits murder, resulting in his arrest.
The narrative also features Yong Kim, a South Korean teenager on the brink of naturalization. Reluctantly, he becomes embroiled in a robbery with a quartet of accomplices. In a chaotic shootout prompted by Hamid, Yong is spared while the others are killed, prompting him to falsely testify about the number of robbers involved.
Lastly, we encounter Gavin Kossef, a young British immigrant who masquerades as a religious Jew to secure a position at a Jewish school that facilitates his stay in the U.S. Faced with a daunting religious test, he initially falters but is unexpectedly granted approval by a rabbi in exchange for ongoing education to bridge his knowledge gaps.
Taslima Jahangir, a 15-year-old girl hailing from Bangladesh, causes contention at her school by presenting a paper that advocates for a deeper understanding of the actions of the 9/11 hijackers. While not legally charged, her predicament worsens when both she and her parents are discovered to be living illegally in the U.S. Consequently, a heart-wrenching decision lies ahead: one parent must remain with Taslima's two younger siblings, who are U.S. citizens by birth, while the other must return to Bangladesh with Taslima, who can only recall her early years there. Thus, she bids a painful farewell to her father, leaving an indelible mark on the challenges faced by immigrant families navigating stringent immigration laws.
