While anti-immigrant policy and practices have a long history in the United States, many students are unfamiliar with the historical or current immigration crises. This study explores the challenges of teaching a graduate seminar about immigration and education at a predominantly white university. Five graduate students and their instructor share their reflections from a post-course survey and field notes related to the course's 'pedagogy of discomfort' and experiential learning. The class was moved emotionally, interrupting previous beliefs and shifting attitudes. However, the course fell short of exploring one's own positionality fully, resulting in unfinished learning about how Whiteness upholds the status quo. The authors argue for a neo-abolitionist pedagogy, one that creates a 'third space' to process emotional responses and discuss social positionalities to prevent unproductive feelings of guilt or pity that function to further otherize immigrants.