Newt Scamander(Eddie Redmayne) arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA), for a meeting with an important official. Central to this meeting is a magically expanded briefcase which houses a number of dangerous creatures and their habitats. When the creatures escape from the briefcase, it sends the American wizarding authorities after Newt, and threatens to strain even further the state of magical and non-magical relations. The mistake has a devastating effect on the state of wizard/No-Maj (the American term for a non-magical person) relations in New York City's community of wizards and witches in 1926, which is already in a dangerous place, due to the threatening presence of the fanatical New Salem Philanthropic Society, an extremist organization dedicated to the eradication of wizard-kind. Newt battles to correct the mistake, and the horrors of the resultant increase in violence, fear, and tension felt between magical and non-magical peoples.