A moving, eye-opening polemic about the US-Mexico border and what happens to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied Mexican and Central American children arriving in the US without papers We are driving across Oklahoma in early June when we first hear about the waves of children arriving, alone and undocumented, from Mexico and Central America. Tens of thousands have been detained at the border. What will happen to them? Where are the parents? And why have they undertaken a terrifying, life-threatening journey to enter the United States?' Valeria Luiselli works as a volunteer at the federal immigration court in New York City, translating for unaccompanied migrant children. Out of her work has come this book a search for answers and an urgent appeal for humanity and compassion in response to mass migration, the most significant global phenomenon of our time.