In this article, the author examines the role that is played by interpreters in registration interviews run by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in Tirana, Albania, following the end of hostilities in 2000, and at a point when many Albanians were trying to pass for Kosovars in search of a relatively easier life in Kosovo. His data analysis demonstrates clearly that managing asylum seekers is largely achieved by denying them the opportunity to tell their stories, and that in most cases the task of stopping storytelling fell heavily to the interpreters who, because of their interactional role, represented the first line of defense against unobstructed narratives. Beyond participating in enforcing the institutional agenda of preventing refugees from telling their stories, interpreters in the interviews recorded by the author are shown to play the role of institutional gatekeepers in other ways, actively managing the interaction even before the interview itself has started.