But now, because of this idea of installing fear — of, like, pushing people into the shadows — they expanded that mandate to say there are no priorities. We always take into consideration that the children and the family. “Immigration Nation” provides abundant evidence for things that some might call fake news, like the determination of ICE, under the Trump … That helps, but that’s not the only reason. That’s how it is. meant not just standing in an endless line, but then being shackled and put on a plane to Central America. Because a lot of times, when you pick up a collateral, their entire world begins to crumble. (Maybe that’s where they learned it.) The rules and the policies and these enforcement actions were not a secret. I doubt if it will change any minds. We don’t do that. And her mission was different than the systemic separation that was happening at the border at the same time. But there’s a lot that don’t. And I think that really put fear into communities. But Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva suggested that the ambush was linked to rising antipathy toward police. But you were able to follow them for nearly three years with a tremendous level of access. Because we weren’t allowed to arrest them in the past administration. I think that under this administration, they realized very quickly that enforcement policies were changing. He brought stuff like the Hatch Act — that is a old rule that during Soviet times, during the Cold War, government employees cannot try and overthrow a government. Being part of fugitive operations, she kind of hinted that they don’t do that. And he was kind of telling us how he typically does not do collaterals. As the years kind of progressed, he had moved up the ranks. Others didn’t like what they saw. It will almost certainly leave you better informed than you were before, even if its net effect may be to further entrench people on whichever side of the debate they already occupy. That was part of what they were trying to put out there. Consider the Salvadoran police officer who used to call in tips about the drug trade to the NYPD before he had to flee his country for his safety. Overall, we were happily surprised. One thing they do is use a fingerprinting machine. He really wants to catch real criminals, his targets. You have to remember also we started pretty early in the Trump days. But you’re kind of seeing this prevailing culture of ICE in that moment, under this administration, kind of winning out. Full Review Top Critic And you’re very happy about it. I know it’s my job. And then same under Trump. I don’t really — I don’t do collaterals. She’s the daughter of an immigrant. But the real impact of the show’s early episodes isn’t the outrage you may feel over the thuggish tactics. By moving around the country and speaking to both sides of the issue—the head of PR for ICE gets plenty of time to spin their side of the story too—“Immigration Nation” offers a more complete picture than anything we’ve seen before on immigration in the Trump era. So we approached the spokesman, who I had, at this point, a long relationship with and at that time was already in D.C. And we pitched him. And this is an election time. And she was grappling, I think, with this idea of family separation. We don’t rip children out of families’ arms and things like that. And once we got to the field in these places, that agents were keen on having us ride along, we got to spend endless time and really see them work. Unlike most of Netflix’s programming, the thoughts and visuals displayed throughout this series are intense, heart-wrenching, and, at times, traumatic. That he understands the people he’s arresting. — be looking at getting a lot of heat, you know? Because they get stuck in the system. And I think some did it less happily. And so men and women who have lived here for years were rounded up with knocks on the door. Shot between February 2017 and February 2020, “Immigration Nation” traces the Trump administration’s jaw-dropping effect on the country’s already disastrous immigration system. Immigration Nation seeks to build empathy for migrants, but that aim may not be possible: Trump’s is a constituency that has championed using … Any system that does that is broken. Material like that, and worse — like an agent picking an apartment building’s lock — gained “Immigration Nation” some prerelease publicity, particularly when The New York Times reported that ICE had pressured the filmmakers to delay the release and remove footage. Which we were like, all right, take out that shot. Because here is a boss coming on the radio and making clear that what he’s interested in is just detaining people. This is for the people who are locked inside. So the third episode centers on … And you need to be worried. It is very rare for them to allow journalists or filmmakers access to their operations. Familiar in the sense that you had seen it in operation on the ground in your time with the ICE agents? ‎Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about Immigration Nation!. Schwarz and Clusiau break out from that premiere and devote each hour to a different aspect of the immigration nightmare. They said we were going to get a carte blanche look, that they’re going to introduce us. The cumulative power of “Immigration Nation” is one of hopelessness. Menu. And I — there’s no pretty way to say it. And Tom Homan, the director of ICE at the time, basically his message was, you should be scared. My colleague, Meghan Twohey will host tomorrow. It didn’t fall under the three things that they were allowed to comment. Listen, Trump didn’t start problems with immigration in this country, as his supporters love to point out, but he has used racist, fearmongering tactics to amplify every flaw in the system to his advantage. And maybe it’s hard for him, because he would do exactly the same. The basics of the agreement was that ICE would see the cuts that we are putting forward and that they would have, say, in three categories: Law enforcement sensitivities, which is really if we are showing kind of how they’re doing their work and kind of giving away police secret tactics and stuff like that. "Immigration Nation" simply brings it home for us at a time, hopefully, that people are more likely to listen. The filmmaking here is remarkably detailed and never feels showy or exploitative. It didn’t make any sense. It’s fine, this was the real world. This attitude that, in our minds, we were putting this individual in a place where he was having compassion and empathy towards those that he detains. The series focuses on the immigrant families torn apart more than those doing the tearing. But while its focus is to alert and to inform, its often glimmers of optimism and hope help restore just a small amount of faith into the future of this currently very fissured country. This is mainly the individuals that we were fairly close to throughout the production and that we’ve kind of stayed close to. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association. And literally, kind of as he was finishing to tell us that —. They just continue doing their job. And in the series’ first two hours, the results of that embedding, with ICE operations in New York, Charlotte, N.C., and El Paso can be startling and engrossing. How did that process go? And they had a very different reaction to the show they ultimately saw on Netflix. On the other hand —. In Immigration Nation, you'll find out as you guide newcomers along their path to citizenship. So I think a lot came into that. It’s a job. And other than that, the contract stated very clearly that we had the first right amendment to tell our story as we see fit. (SINGING) This is for the people who are locked inside. As I said earlier, if you’re in this country illegally, and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable. At least 25 people have died from the wildfires in California, Washington and Oregon, where the fires have now consumed more than one million acres. And I think, you know, there is something to be said that maybe there are a few that say, you know what, I just can’t do this anymore. Yeah. Much of the time, especially after its more fluid and immersive initial episodes, the series takes a standard television current-affairs approach, and as you watch its segments you may recall sharper or more evocative reports on the same stories by shows like “Frontline,” “Vice” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.”. In a statement to The Times, the agency said, quote, “The men and women of ICE perform outstanding work daily that often goes unnoticed or is misrepresented to the point of falsehood.” “ICE,” the statement continued, “is firmly committed to carrying out the agency’s sworn duty to enforce federal law as passed by Congress professionally, consistently and in full compliance with federal law and agency policies. Can we come in and talk to you? “Immigration Nation,” a documentary by Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, gives a glimpse of the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. There’s the grandmother who fled Mexico with her granddaughter after a drug lord tried to kidnap the girl and make her his child bride. And I wonder if you can talk us through that. It can be viewed on TV starting on August third. And somebody has to do it. And I think that’s something that they grapple with. And it was factual incorrectness, if we were just making a mistake. They are federal employees. If you watch only one documentary about immigration, then by all means make it “Immigration Nation,” a six-hour Netflix series that mixes reporting with an impressive amount of vivid ride-along observation. So you think of an agency that suddenly, on one hand, the gloves are off. And “Immigration Nation” pulls no punches, presenting a brutally honest look at this entire broken system, built on policies designed to dehumanize non-white people, enforced by men and women who have no idea what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. And we need you to relook at some of these issues. Those ones, you know, came back. The series’ hallmark is not an image but a sound bite — the agents’ endless variations on “I may not like it, but it’s the job.” The human-rights lawyer Becca Heller sums it up nicely: “When you add up all the people just doing their job, it becomes this crazy, terrorizing system.”, “Immigration Nation” provides abundant evidence for things that some might call fake news, like the determination of ICE, under the Trump administration, to remove immigrants from the United States in bulk regardless of whether they pose any danger. a lot of people who are now at the leadership have been reshuffled there. So kind of counterintuitively, the organization was not interested in having you document them during a relatively low heat moment — the Obama administration. One of the more notorious examples of this fear tactic under the Trump administration was an increased focus on collaterals, which is ICE-speak for undocumented people who are not the target of raids, but who agents find by accident along the way. Shot between February 2017 and February 2020, “Immigration Nation” traces the Trump administration’s jaw-dropping effect on the country’s already disastrous immigration system. Absolutely. Once they said that you could come in, what did they ask for, if anything, in return for granting you this access? You know, and once we would bring these issues, of course they would crumble legally and try to find another. But we proceeded to go to a house with her where she had actually found that target, that person that ICE was looking for. Filmmakers Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau make an effort to humanize some of the officers here, and you can see glimpses of compassion and confusion on their faces, although they’re careful not to present too sympathetic a portrait of people just following orders. What’s your name, ma’am? Schwarz and Clusiau break out from that premiere and devote each hour to a different aspect of the immigration nightmare. But that line wasn’t so good for me. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. In some ways, it seems surprising to me that ICE would find itself surprised by what you captured and depicted in the film. So that’s why I’m in here. She’s a parent. But what sticks with you from “Immigration Nation” is its up-close depiction of the banality of deportation — of the huge disconnect between the everyday people of ICE and the Border Patrol and the everyday people they detain, arrest and “process.” (In El Paso, a morning meeting at a detention center ends with the chant, “1, 2, 3, processing!”), Agent after agent expresses an ambivalence about the job that’s given its most extreme expression by an Arizona ICE investigator who says, “I put my personal feelings aside, which, yeah, maybe that’s what every Nazi said, right?” But he immediately adds, “I actually believe in the cause of trying to enforce some sort of sovereignty over our borders, and no one’s figured out a better way to do it yet.”. Because that’s a pretty stupid [EXPLETIVE] to say. Immigration Nation 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. Authorities in Los Angeles are investigating what they said was the unprovoked shooting over the weekend of two sheriff’s deputies sitting in their patrol car in an incident caught on surveillance tape. And she let that happen. And I said, why? And then they really were in the hot seat. In the groundbreaking six-part documentary series Immigration Nation, acclaimed filmmaking team Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (2017's Trophy) offer an … I originally started working with ICE almost a decade ago, doing stories about the drug war. It’s going to be a challenge day after day. : Watching Gene Kelly From a Child's-Eye View by Ethan Warren. Again, I would like to think that this is a rare apolitical issue and that both sides would agree that those who have been willing to die for this country shouldn’t be forced to leave it, but the fact that this remains a reality at all is only one of many disturbing aspects of this series. HBO's It's a Sin is a Radiant Coming-of-Age Story in a Dark Period, Three-Hour Brunch Friend: Greta Gerwig's Breakups, Getting to the Heart of America in David Lynch's The Straight Story, Bright Wall/Dark Room February 2021: Who Could Ask for Anything More? So —. 1 was here. We are embedded with officers as they don’t show I.D., talk their way into apartments under the guise of being helpful, exploit language barriers, and discuss the concept of “collaterals,” people they just happen to find while they’re serving warrants on others (warrants they don’t have to actually show, by the way, just claim to have). And there’s this moment where you’re sort of witnessing agents adjusting to this new approach. I don’t care what you do, but bring at least two people in. We don’t all have to come in, just a couple of us. And be with them in the field by ourselves and really do the work we were hoping to do. Parts of it may start to drag or feel padded, but its see-the-whole-elephant approach to one of America’s most divisive issues has inherent value. She wants him to say goodbye to his daughter. A documentary looking inside the world of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. And so —. You know, I think you’re referring to one moment that we were in a car with an agent. Four years later and with the election approaching, the agents tried to block the release of their film. I'll try to be objective as this doc-series was on a very divisive issue. Yeah. Immigration Nation is an admirable effort from Clusiau and Schwarz, the directing duo that previously worked on Trophy and Aida’s Secrets, to capture the truly labyrinthine nature of U.S. immigration policies, including enforcement tactics and the removal process (or deportation). As one of the disarmingly honest agents says, “They want to get rid of everybody, I guess.”. I don’t care about the guy that’s minding his own business and cooperating with me. Fear will equal make it as hard on them, as bad on them, maybe they will leave. Yeah. If you don’t mind. Do you know that? spokesman had actually put that same machine picture and wrote a story about it and sent it to the press. Advertisement: "Immigration Nation" is currently streaming on Netflix. And I think they were successful at it. They will be enforced and enforced strongly. And they have this support. Please open the door so I can talk to you. It makes plain the bureaucracy’s purposeful dead-ends and how circumstances that look “in order” on paper can nonetheless yield infinite harm in reality. Oh, no. And really those were what they were going to be allowed to comment on. But leading up to the August 3 release of Netflix’s Immigration Nation, plenty of people ventured out on that limb to promote the series on social media. Because they wanted to show numbers. He brought up, even in that initial phone call, some stuff that legally just didn’t make any sense. When you’re part of fugitive operations, you have targets of people who committed crimes. There’s this scene where you’re with these agents in New York discussing the policy. And he’s like, yeah, but empathy in these days could be looked as: You’re not supporting the mission. But you just seeing more of an uptick in non-criminal because we’re going from 0 to 100 under the new administration. We constantly look like we’re the bad guys, when all we’re doing is enforcing the laws and doing our job. And of course, that kind of gave birth to the abolish-ICE movement and a huge outrage that really sparked the debate. But I think they understood that we did profile what we saw day-to-day and what they do day-to-day. It was quite a variety. The on going question about what we should do with the illegal immigrants and how do we keep them out of our country. There is no right way anymore. And about a week later, we got a phone call from the spokesperson that we had been dealing with throughout the entire process of the show. The east winds came over the top of the mountain, proceeded to turn the fires into blow torches that went down and just incinerated a series of small towns, like Blue River and Phoenix and Talent. Once inside the home of the target, probably an immigrant accused of a crime, they frequently find “collaterals,” additional people who can be rounded up simply because they’re undocumented. You know, and I think these days were also when the tactic of installing fear were really at its height. (PROTESTERS SINGING) Together we will abolish ICE. And our job does not get any easier because people don’t like law enforcement. The supervisor came on the radio. And — and that’s it. We said, listen, we think the agency is going to come under a lot of heat. And he immediately said: We do not like it. Collaterals were something we saw on a daily basis for years. Immigration Nation Review Tamar Jacoby's article "Immigration Nation", was a great view on the immigration issue in the United States at this time. Just as a human, you have compassion towards other people. And they felt that they wanted to tell their story from the inside. It’s a nice summation of the schism, within the country at large, that will keep us talking past one another despite the filmmakers’ best efforts. So the third episode centers on the antithetical concept of deported veterans. It dismays me at the same time. This does not portray us in a favorable light. The move from seeking out immigrants with criminal backgrounds or who have committed crimes here in the States switched to grabbing all immigrants under Trump, including the ones designated “non-crim” (non-criminal). So initially, we handed off the first cut to ICE. What’s the story? We understood from the things we saw exactly what they were trying to do to get us to fold and to comply and to give up. ICE has disputed Shaul and Christina’s account of efforts to block the film, “Immigration Nation,” from being released until after the election. Immigration Nation is utterly convincing and utterly exhausting, a harrowing reminder that, while we've been distracted by other things in the … For too long, your officers and agents haven’t been allowed to properly do their jobs. 817-335-0220 1403 Ellis Ave. Fort Worth, TX 76164. Plus, you opened the door and let me in. Yeah. What do you think? You should look over your shoulder. But you know the saying, right? We saw that the scope of ICE’s mandate under this period of time had expanded. Movies. and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You know, we had an officer who told us in the show —. We were in the car with Judy, an agent we spent a long time with. One of my partners. Yeah. The … He’s like, no. Still, its simplicity means a limited scope and a relatively brief experience. The granddaughter was allowed to stay. I mean, I think that we have to remember a lot of these ICE agents are career officials. And so I think that something to recognize is the fact that they, you know, they had different mandates under Obama. That will be the takeaway for those who want to make political points from the series, from either direction. Luckily for us, we haven’t really been involved in any of that family separation thing. From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. It’s just — that’s not what we do. Yeah. And a lot has changed in D.H.S. At first, I wasn’t sure I could finish “Immigration Nation.” The first episode focuses heavily on ICE process, which, no matter how you feel politically, is built on layers of subterfuge and confusion. I never escaped the smoke. But in that morning, Judy was doing exactly her mission. You know, I don’t agree with the policies. And they just got caught up in politics, if you look at it. And what’s so smart about “Immigration Nation” is how Schwarz and Clusiau take each of the talking points of the current (and some of the former) administration and reveal their blinding inaccuracy to capture the entire immigration experience. Yeah. But why the whole scene? In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley blamed the fires on decades worth of climate change.