Immigration and Integration Policy Archive

In 1987, a 40-year-old mother of five named Tita Comodas received a strange request. Comodas, a resident of a sprawling slum district in Manila, had just been asked by an acquaintance if a young American journalist named Jason DeParle could rent space in her already cramped dwelling. She somewhat reluctantly agreed, and DeParle stayed for eight months, kicking off what became a lifelong friendship. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by DeParle, now a senior writer at The New York Times, for a discussion on his new book, “A Good Provider Is One Who […]

CHIQUIRINES, Guatemala—In August, Abner Lopez Macario, a 30-year-old farmer and father of two, found himself out of luck and back in Chiquirines, a town in the muggy coastal lands of Guatemala surrounded by sprawling banana plantations. Far from being a bittersweet return after years abroad, Lopez Macario’s homecoming was an admission of defeat. Three months earlier, after a 20-day trek through Mexico guided by a migrant-smuggler, he, his wife and his two sons made it all the way to the border of the United States in the back of a truck. Upon reaching El Paso, Texas, they had sought out […]