I wonder if we could start with you telling me the story of a woman you wrote about called Anna.

Yes, and that I should say is a pseudonym.

Jonathan Blitzer writes about immigration for the New Yorker. He spoke to Anna recently during his reporting.

Anna lives in Minneapolis, but is originally from a country in Central Africa.

She and her family asked that I not specify for fear of reprisals from the U.S. government,

which is a strange thing, by the way,

to be told by a refugee, that initially all of them describe their persecution in their home

countries and the reason for their flight in the first case. And now they're going through

this experience of basically fearing the government that has, you know, theoretically accepted

them to offer them protection.

In 2024, Anna and her family were granted refugee status in the U.S., something that should give them bedrock rights to education, work, and a path to a green card.

Nevertheless, in mid-January, Anna was going to work.

She pulls into the parking lot, and she notices that there's this fleet of unmarked cars

that have been kind of, you know, hovering along the corner of the parking lot.

And she sort of notices them as she's preparing to get out of her car.

And before she can even fully unbuckle her seatbelt and open her front door, there are a bunch of

agents surrounding her car.

They're all dressed in plain clothes.

At first, Anna isn't even all that scared.

After all, she has her papers.

So she's thinking, okay, look, there's got to be some mistake.

I'll get out of the car.

...