Immigrant Narratives

We invite nonfiction submissions from immigrants whose lives have been shaped by the experience of coming to the United States and building a life here. We are seeking work grounded in specific moments—what prompted the decision to leave, what arrival actually looked like, and how identity and belonging took shape over time. Essays, testimonies, and narrative nonfiction should reflect lived experience with clarity and attention to detail rather than broad themes or symbolic gestures.

We are interested in writing that traces the realities of migration as they were felt: the conversations that preceded departure, the small or sudden recognitions that defined the first weeks in a new place, the adjustments that became part of daily life, and the ongoing negotiation of home, language, and community. Pieces may focus on a single turning point or a longer trajectory, but the work should remain close to concrete experience.

We welcome submissions from immigrants of all statuses and backgrounds, including those who arrived as children, individuals navigating mixed-status households, and those living with temporary, uncertain, or undocumented status. Writers may submit under their own name or anonymously if doing so offers necessary protection.

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Why This Call Matters

The forces shaping migration today are staggering in scale and immediate in their impact on individual lives. More than 117 million people are currently displaced worldwide as a result of war, political collapse, and targeted violence, a number without precedent in the modern era. These movements reflect choices made under duress, in moments when remaining at home is no longer an option anyone can reasonably call safe.

Across Central America and parts of the Caribbean, daily life is marked by threats that destabilize even the most ordinary routines. In neighborhoods where gangs dictate the terms of survival, refusing a demand can carry the same weight as stepping onto a battlefield. Families leave because the balance of danger shifts in an instant, or because a single encounter makes unmistakably clear that staying means risking death. Elsewhere, state repression has escalated. The political and economic collapse in countries across the globe pushed millions across borders, creating one of the most significant modern displacement crises.

These are the conditions that bring people to the United States seeking safety, stability, or simply the chance to rebuild. Yet public understanding of migration is often shaped by political narratives rather than by the lived experiences of those who are forced to leave everything they know, love, and care about behind to survive.

One of the most common claims—repeated by politicians for years—is that asylum seekers “refuse to follow the law.” The government’s own data shows the opposite. More than 80 percent appear for their court hearings, and for those with legal representation, appearance rates have reached as high as 95 percent.

Another recurring narrative frames migrants as an economic burden, despite decades of research showing that immigrants, including undocumented workers, contribute more in taxes and labor than they receive in public services. They pay billions in payroll, income, and sales taxes and fill essential roles in industries the country cannot function without, including agriculture, food production, construction, and elder care. Every long-term economic analysis points in the same direction: immigration strengthens the U.S. economy. The claim that migrants “drain resources” endures only because it is a convenient line in a political argument.

Perhaps the most persistent and damaging myth is the assertion that immigrants increase crime. Extensive research shows the reverse. In city after city, state after state, immigrant communities record lower violent-crime and property-crime rates than U.S.-born populations. This pattern has held for decades. Yet political rhetoric continues to promote the false linkage between immigration and criminality, often seizing on isolated incidents to justify sweeping policies, even though the broader data contradict the narrative at every turn.

These distortions shape public perception, policy debates, and the national conversation. They obscure the reality that people flee because they have to, not because they are looking to break laws or burden systems. They come because danger left no space for alternatives.