By Valeria Luiselli, from Tell Me How It Ends, which was published in April by Coffee House Press. Luiselli is a novelist and essayist. Her article “Terrorist and Alien” appeared in the February 2017 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

I started working as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking children in the New York City Immigration Court in March 2015. On my first day of work, I took the subway downtown in the early morning and walked to the big, ominous building at 26 Federal Plaza. Inside, the building branches vertically and horizontally into hallways, offices, windows, courtrooms, and waiting rooms, with few signs…