This Week: Who Are the Refugees Barred From Entering the U.S.?

Just Like Us
Tomas van Houtryve

President Trump, with an executive order last week, closed America's borders to refugees and others from seven mostly Muslim countries. Pulitzer Center grantee Tomas van Houtryve has been following the Instagram trail of some of these refugees as they struggle to find safe haven. Their self-portraits, layered with Tomas's video of tent cities and other stops along the refugee route, are extraordinarily humanizing. Tomas told The New Yorker, which is featuring his work, that during a visit to Reynolds High School, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he asked students what the word "refugee" brought to mind. The answers were predictable: poor people in miserable circumstances. When he showed them pictures that young refugees had posted of themselves, it drew a different response: "They're just like us."

What Divides Europe and Asia?
Joshua Kucera

From Istanbul, where one can stand with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia, grantee Joshua Kucera begins an exploratory journey that takes him along the border that divides and defines East and West.

Against a Harmful Ritual
Amy Yee

Some 200 million girls around the world have been subjected to female genital mutilation. Grantee Amy Yee explains how one woman has effectively brought an end to the practice in the region of Ethiopia where she grew up.