This critically acclaimed study of the culture of illegal immigration in Europe is told through the story of a boy’s eventual ascendance to grace in the face of his father’s cruel and illicit traffic in undocumented workers. For exorbitant fees, Roger smuggles illegal immigrants into Belgium, forges false work permits for them, and sets them up in overpriced slum apartments. Many also work at Roger's construction site, where they are paid a pittance for hard, occasionally dangerous work. The father succeeds at passing on his dehumanizing attitudes to his son just until a construction-site accident brings the boy face to face with the dying wishes of a West African worker. His promise to care for the immigrant’s wife and child creates a moral struggle that pits him against his father and causes him to reevaluate the accepted practices of an exploitative human trade.