Series Review: "Immigration Nation" (2020).

From the directors of Trophy comes Immigration Nation. This documentary web television miniseries directed by Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz. With unprecedented access to ICE operations, as well as moving portraits of immigrants, this docuseries takes a deep look at US immigration today.

On March 1, 2003, the federal law enforcement agency, The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was founded under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety. This mission is executed through the enforcement of more than 400 federal statutes and focuses on immigration enforcement, preventing terrorism and combating the illegal movement of people and goods. ICE has two primary components: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ICE maintains attachés at major U.S. diplomatic missions overseas. ICE does not patrol American borders; rather, that role is performed by the United States Border Patrol, a unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is a sister agency of ICE. The Acting Director is Tae Johnson. Since late January 2017, the agency has not had a Senate-confirmed director since Sarah Saldaña stepped down. In recent years, especially under the Trump Administration, the agency has been subject of criticism and several controversies, including allegations of sexual abuse, torture and wrongful arrest of US citizens. The series consists of footage filmed from 2017 to 2020 of ICE's work during the Trump era. Prior to release, the filmmakers were faced with legal threats; ICE sought to delay the release until after the 2020 United States elections.

The series is most effective in its first three episodes. But, as mentioned previously, its greatest strength is in the way that it humanises those individuals that the system seeks to dehumanise. This series is most threatening to the present administration not because it employs a rhetoric too powerful to be ignored, but because it is fair, thorough, and true. The series transports viewers inside detention centers and ICE field offices across the country. But it's the stories of the victims, torn from their children and parents, that prove the most haunting. The series does pull back to show the institutional forces at play here: the farce of our current system of legal immigration, and the ways capitalism incentivizes the dehumanization of undocumented immigrants. Powerful and painful, this documentary digs into the backstory of the Trump administration's massive ICE expansion, the agents on the job, and the immigrants they apprehend, with damning results. A useful parable to enable the layman's understanding of, as human rights attorney Becca Heller eloquently explains, "the brilliance of any bureaucratic system whose net result is fear and trauma." The series offers a more complete picture than anything we've seen before on immigration in the Trump era. The series provides a damning indictment of the labyrinth systems that make ICE so powerful, and a wrenching examination of the human cost its policies have wrought. A searing dissection of Trump administration policies that's even-handed but emotionally devastating in highlighting the pain associated with them.

Simon says Immigration Nation receives:

Also, see my review for Trophy.