Hi, I'm Ruby Kramer. I'm an enterprise reporter for the Washington Post.

I wrote this story as part of our Deep Reed series, which showcases narrative journalism here at the post.

This is a story about the anger that surrounds the immigration crisis in America right now.

One of the places where I saw that playing out was not a major city.

It was a very small town in Massachusetts, just 11,000 people, where the state was getting ready to move

migrant families into a vacant prison.

I went there for about three weeks to report this story, and what I found was a town that was

trying to figure out whether to accept this news or to fight it. As I was

reporting this story I recorded audio of many of my conversations and interviews.

You'll hear some of that audio throughout the piece.

Okay, here it is. Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Massachusetts.

Here was the town where Kevin Roach grew up.

Empty sidewalks, a coffee shop, a pharmacy, two pizza parlors, two ambulances, two roundabouts, and no grocery store.

A small, quiet town, people in Norfolk said.

Pleasant, safe.

Nothing much to do, and that meant nothing much changed from one morning to the next or the

next until this morning.

When Kevin woke up and knew that the town would be different by the time the day was over.

He got in his car and drove toward Main Street just before 7 a.m.

Main Street ran from one end of Norfolk to the other, four miles in all, and it led to

the auto repair shop where Kevin, 60 years old, had work since he was 12, first for his father and now alongside his own son.

...