Relatives of three immigrants from Eastern Europe await their arrival in New York in 1893. When passengers from their ship are ferried from Ellis Island to the Battery, the three immigrants are nowhere to be found. Ship line officials inform the relatives that the three had died at sea and their bodies dropped overboard, but how they died was not known. Flashbacks describe the lives of the three persons up to the time of their deaths, revealing their character and behaviors that might influence what led to their deaths. The grieving relatives are determined to find out how they died in order to have closure and peace of mind. Sara Newman, the sister of one the deceased, locates the ship's captain and gets his explanation of what happened to her brother and the others. She then finds the ship's purser, who tells her a different story about what took place. Later, she speaks to a neighbor's sister, who had been on the ship, and gets a third account of how the three immigrants died. Being unable to achieve closure, Sara's family hires an immigration lawyer to investigate and determine what the real explanation was for how the deaths happened. The lawyer's research leads to a court hearing that uncovers the facts, but not before some intriguing developments.