The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Engel, Patricia. Infinite Country. New York: Avid Reader Press, 2021.

The novel begins with 15-year-old Talia breaking out of a reformatory for girls located in the mountains of Santander in Colombia. She was remanded to this institution because she threw hot oil in the face of a man who killed a stray cat. Talia must get to Bogotá where her father, Mauro, lives because he has a plane ticket that will take her to the United States to be reunited with the rest of her family. After her escape, Talia asks a trucker at a gas station for a ride and they begin to head south.

Mauro waits in Bogotá, worried about his daughter and what will happen when he sends her to the U.S. to live with her mother, Elena, and her siblings, Karina and Nando. The novel enters an extended flashback. Mauro's own mother kicks him out of the house when he is a child. He goes to live with his aunt and her companion, Tiberio. Tiberio tells Mauro stories from the mythology of the Muisca people, who lived in Colombia before it was colonized. These stories stay with Mauro all of his life. As a teenager, Mauro gets a job in a marketplace. This is where he meets Elena. They fall in love, and eventually Mauro moves in with Elena and her mother, Perla. Shortly after the birth of their first child, Karina, Mauro suggests to Elena that they go to the United States to earn some money to support their growing family and Perla's laundry business. She agrees.

The family lives in Houston, Texas, where Mauro works for a moving company. Around the time their travel visas are set to expire, Elena discovers she is pregnant. They contemplate returning to Colombia but ultimately decide they want their second child to have the opportunities that come with being a legal citizen, born on American soil. On the day that this child, Nando, is born, Mauro's moving company is raided by immigration authorities. Having narrowly missed being discovered and deported, the family moves to South Carolina and then to Delaware. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, they are subjected to racist comments by Americans who view all immigrants with suspicion and disdain. In one instance, Mauro is physically attacked.

Talia is born while the family lives in Delaware, but they are forced to move again shortly thereafter when the landlord of the couple they are staying with threatens to evict them for “harboring 'illegals'” (47). They consider returning to Colombia, but instead move to New Jersey, into a house filled with other immigrant families. Mauro works at a factory and Elena cleans houses. One day, Mauro asks a friend to cash his paycheck for him, and when the man returns with the money, Mauro believes he kept some for himself. They get into an altercation, the police are called, and Mauro is deported.

Back in the present, in Barichara, Talia contemplates the death of her grandmother, Perla, who raised her. Mauro was in Colombia during Talia's childhood, but he did not become a fixture in her life until Talia was seven years old. Talia gets a ride from a young man on a motorcycle named Aguja. Mauro recalls the period of time right after he was deported. After returning to Colombia, he drank heavily and lived on the street. He was too ashamed to visit Talia regularly.

In the flashback, Elena, Karina, and Nando move into another house in New Jersey. They share a room with a couple and their baby, and while everyone else is sleeping, Elena observes the man staring at her while masturbating. She contemplates returning to Colombia but Mauro tells her to stay. She decides to send Talia back to live with Perla because she cannot find a babysitter willing to watch a baby and she must continue working to support her other two children. Back in Colombia, Mauro gets sober and begins attending AA meetings. He moves in with Perla and Talia as Perla begins suffering the effects of dementia. Elena is hired at a restaurant, but shortly thereafter she is raped by her boss. Her friends tell her not to go to the police because she might be deported.

Elena is hired as a cleaner by a wealthy family. She gets along well with their neurodivergent son, so the family asks her to become his live-in nanny. Elena, Karina, and Nando move into their guest house. In chapters narrated in first-person, Karina expresses her anger about the way she is treated in American society as an undocumented immigrant and Nando recalls being subjected to racist harassment by his classmates. Nando also notes that Karina, an excellent student, is unable to attend college or pursue a career as an undocumented person. In the present, as she nears Bogotá, Talia thinks of everything she will leave behind when she goes to the U.S. She arrives and spends the night with Mauro before he takes her to the airport the next day. They have an emotional goodbye, and Mauro stays in the airport for 12 hours after she leaves. Ultimately, he decides he can no longer be apart from his family and he enters the U.S. illegally to be reunited with them. In the final chapter, Karina explains that, though the family is together again, they will all continue to be wary until there is no longer a chance someone could be deported.