At a time when the word ‘immigrant’ has become more loaded in America than ever, Irish comedian Maeve Higgins – who moved to the US three years ago – has launched a podcast full of immigrant stories, told by the people who lived them.

Higgins talks to people from Syria, Mexico, China, Dominican Republic, Nigeria and elsewhere, about their journeys to the US and how they differ from her own. “I can say ‘I’m an immigrant’ and people will say ‘No, you’re an expat’!” she says. “It’s almost coded now – that immigrant means a brown person; a person coming from an economic disadvantage. But that’s really nonsense.”

It is also a nonsense, says Higgins, that immigration is the huge threat it was made out to be during Donald Trump’s election campaign. “The two groups Trump targeted were Mexican and Muslims, but more Mexican people are leaving the US than coming in,” she says. “It’s such a lie.”

Higgins’ guests have arrived in the US from all over the globe. There’s Nayyef, an out gay man who lives in Seattle after having to flee Iraq, his family and his boyfriend because of the threats he received for working as a translator for the US army. And Chinese-American octogenarian Roz Khoo, whose activism and philanthropy has enabled more than 1,000 girls in China to go to school and on to higher education.

Nayyef Hrebid with Btoo Allami (left). Hrebid fled Iraq because of the threats he received for working as a translator for the US army. Photograph: Isolde Raftery

Finding an undocumented immigrant who can safely speak on record, however, proved tricky. “I wanted to feature someone undocumented, but I also wanted them to already be public because, you know, that’s dangerous,” says Higgins. She ended up meeting Dan-el Padilla Peralta, who went “from Santo Domingo to a homeless shelter in the Bronx, on to Oxford University” and is now an assistant professor of classics at Princeton, while still undocumented. (His appeal has been supported by everyone from the Clintons to the dean of Harvard).

“In the podcast he responds directly to Jeff Sessions, our new attorney general, who said that Dominicans have nothing to offer the US,” says Higgins. “And when Da-nel was an eight-year-old homeless boy, it may seem that way. But how do you measure how much somebody is worth? Where does humanity fit into that calculation?”

The idea for Maeve in America came from a trip to Iraq last year, where Higgins took part in a comedy workshop in Erbil. “I knew immigration is the thing I care most about, but I don’t think comedy works when you just preach, so I wasn’t sure how to do it,” she says. “Then in Iraq I met my peers – comedy is a baby industry there, but there are sketch writers and satirists all operating under really tough times. They were keeping going, using comedy.”

Maeve Higgins with Dan-el Padilla Peralta, who is an assistant professor of classics at Princeton while still undocumented. Photograph: Erika Romero

As well as the dark humour, there is a vital need to share the small, familiar details that remind us that immigrants are simply people: that they text their partners, buy groceries, snore at night and laugh at their mums. Which is why the straight-in-your-ear intimacy of a podcast works so well. “In the election, we found that people who placed immigration as one of their key reasons for voting Trump are least likely to live close to or know an immigrant,” says Higgins. “It’s a fear of the unknown. So it’s important to show people that this person buys coffee, or is a really good aunt, or watches Queer As Folk. I can’t believe it’s come to this. But for people who don’t know an immigrant, it is a good way to meet them.”

The day after we speak, Higgins was travelling to Friendship Park in San Diego, on the border with Tijuana, to record season two of the show. “It’s basically the border wall – it’s Trump’s dream but it already exists,” says Higgins. “This wall is open between 10am and 2pm on weekends, so people on the Mexican side can see their families who have US papers. The most contact you can have is your baby’s finger through the gate. We’re going to meet people who are being deported.”

Images of Friendship Park show families standing on either side of a huge metal fence, the wire mesh throwing shadows across the faces of babies, fathers, brothers. “Until you stand there and see it yourself, it’s easy to use phrases like ‘sent back’,” says Higgins. “This isn’t an abstract threat Trump is making – it’s very real.”

Roz Khoo, one of 3,000 people allowed into the US during the Chinese ban, holds a photo of herself and her late husband Karlson. Photograph: Maeve Higgins

While interviewing Khoo, who was one of just 3,000 Chinese people allowed into the US during the brief lifting of the Chinese ban in the second world war, Higgins was stunned by the contemporary relevance of her story. “When I heard about Trump’s travel ban I thought that simply wasn’t possible. But talking to her, I learned that it is.”

Maeve in America first came out during the US election campaign. “Because Trump was so virulently anti-immigrants, I felt this new charge,” says Higgins. “A lot of people don’t know what’s going to happen to them. We’re interviewing a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The big fear is not only that Trump will stop the programme – he’s said he will – but that he has a list of all these millions of people, their fingerprints and their addresses. That’s a very frightening reality.”

Perhaps surprisingly, there is also a great deal of pro-American sentiment in the podcast; what the US president might even call patriotism. “If you want to see what’s good about America, the people who honestly seem to love it the most are immigrants,” says Higgins. “Our Syrian guest gets a kick out of criticising Trump because he can speak freely here. That’s something people literally die for. The American Dream isn’t real for many people, but for immigrants it is still real. You can come here from somewhere where it’s not possible to go to college as a woman and get an education.”

Despite Trump’s presidency, Higgins has no intention of leaving the US – and will keep introducing us to the very people Americans are told they must fear. “There are many beautiful things still possible in America,” she says. “And if you look through an immigrant’s eyes, you can really see them.”

• Maeve in America is produced by First Look Media and available on iTunes. Season two starts on 14 February.