This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2025.
My beat covering Burlington politics can be exhausting. So when I had the chance to write a human interest story over the summer, I jumped on it.
The story was about Chiengkuach Majok, who had fled his native South Sudan during the brutal civil war two decades prior. He was one of the “Lost Boys,” a group of children who made the perilous journey, on foot, to a refugee camp in Kenya. Some of the survivors resettled in America, including Vermont.
Now a U.S. citizen living in South Burlington, Majok was trying to reunite with his wife and four children, who were still in Kenya. His wife had recently gotten a visa to travel here. But three weeks before the family’s departure, the U.S. announced it was barring entry to South Sudanese passport holders. Majok was devastated, as were his friends whose families were also stuck overseas.
The story would show how even local people could become ensnared in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. But a last-minute twist of fate made for a much different tale than I had envisioned.
During an interview at their Dorset Street home, Majok and his friends took turns describing the painstaking process of applying for visas and their shock when their lives got put on hold. They showed me videos and pictures of their children. My heart ached for them.
I filed the story on July 3, the Thursday before the piece would go to press. The following Monday, I called Majok to fact-check a few details — and my story imploded. Majok’s family had been cleared to fly, he said, and he was driving to Boston to pick them up.
I was genuinely happy for Majok, but I started to panic. The story was going to press the following day. How could I possibly salvage it?
Thankfully, my editors decided to hold the piece for a week, giving me time for fresh reporting. The original headline, “American Dream Deferred,” became “Nobody Knows the Future” — less poetic, for sure, but a more accurate summation of the men’s plight. And I didn’t have to do a full rewrite, as I’d initially feared. I was able to keep most of the story intact, revealing only at the end that Majok got his long-planned reunion. Because I hadn’t been there myself, I asked Majok to describe the moment when he saw his family at the airport, the food they ate on their drive home and what they planned to do in the days to come.
It wasn’t the ending I’d expected, but it was the right one.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Biggest Twist”
This article appears in Dec 24 2025 – Jan 6 2026.
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