Her parents were teenagers when they were forced leave their homes, bid their fathers farewell and live far away, behind barbed wire, for no good reason. In spite of this history, Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas says, she inherited from her family an “irreverent love” for America.

Is the United States a “nation of immigrants”? Depends whom you ask. But one thing is certain: who counts as worthy of being American has always been contingent and politicized. Amanda Frost takes Will, Siva and their class on a journey through immigration history.

Historian Kimberly Gauderman explains how scholars can serve as expert witnesses in asylum cases, shedding light on the sociocultural dynamics driving applicants to escape their countries of origin.

Sayra is from Mexico. Alejandro from Bolivia. Their journeys are different but the limbo they’ve experienced growing up undocumented in America has shaped them in parallel ways. Also on this episode, American University law professor Amanda Frost reflects on how the hidden history of citizenship-stripping can inform naturalization policy in the present.

If people aren’t counted in a representative democracy, it’s as if they don’t exist. And for politicians or parties banking on minority rule, that’s just fine. Until they meet Dale Ho — who defends citizens’ voting rights for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Many people still refer to unauthorized immigrants in America as “illegal” — but it’s the country’s immigration system itself that is lawless and inhumane, says political scientist Elizabeth Cohen.

Nativist ideology in U.S. politics — and policy — is no Trump-era invention; it dates back to the country’s founding. Immigration scholar Erika Lee walks Will and Siva through America’s spotty record as a nation of immigrants, from the Naturalization Act of 1790, which barred nonwhite people from becoming citizens, to the Trump administration’s Muslim ban in 2017.