A true story of young immigrants who get detained by U.S. Border Patrol—on purpose—and put in a shadowy for-profit detention center. Marco and Viri are members of a group of radical Dreamers on a mission to stop deportations, and they believe the best place to do that is in detention.

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and designed for people who want to use The Infiltrators to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities. In contrast to initiatives that foster debates in which participants try to convince others that they are right, this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people try to understand one another and expand their thinking by sharing viewpoints and listening actively.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the issues in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. And be sure to leave time to consider taking action. Planning next steps can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult.

For more detailed event planning and facilitation tips, visit https://communitynetwork.amdoc.org/.

Key Participants

Marco - Youth activist with the National Immigration Youth Alliance that infiltrated the men’s Broward Transitional Center.

Viri - Youth activist with the National Immigration Youth Alliance that infiltrated the women’s Broward Transitional Center.

Claudio- Broward detainee that helped Marco infiltrate Broward. Was detained one night while taking out the trash. His son, a DREAMER, worked with the National Immigration Youth Alliance for his liberation.

Beni - Broward detainee that, with the encouragement of Marco, refused to be deported. Broward staff threatened to deport his wife if he did not leave.

Samuel - A drug cartel refugee seeking safety from gangs in Honduras. Married a US citizen and has 4 children that are US citizens.

Maria - A political asylum seeking protection from the Venezuelan government. Has established a life in the US and has family and kids that are US citizens.

Nima - Survivor of spousal abuse. Sought protection for her and her children from her abusive husband with the police and was detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

Key Issues

Infiltratorsis an excellent tool for outreach and will be of special interest to people who want to explore the following topics:

• immigration advocacy
• the DREAM Act
• family perseverance and resilience
• navigational wealth
• Immigration Customs and Enforcement
• Department of Homeland Security
• detention center
• Neoliberal migrant labor exploitation
• youth activism

DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION CUSTOMS AND ENFORCEMENT, & PRIVATE DETENTION CENTERS

Immigration reform is one of the most complicated and contentious sociopolitical issues in the United States today. Although the United States is a nation of immigrants, immigrants contribute to the nation’s rich cultural tapestry, and immigrants are an instrumental part of the US economy, there is a general ambivalence about who is welcomed and granted citizenship. In The Infiltrators, we witness how a country that once offered refuge to poor and persecuted European immigrant settlers is now clenching its fist against immigrants, refugees, and asylees from Latin America and Asia seeking an opportunity to live the American Dream (Portes and Rumbaught,1996). These migrants are an instrumental part of our economy (Sherman et al., 2019) and the industry of monitoring and managing their migration is booming (Dayen, 2020).

Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush passed the Homeland Security Act in 2002 which culminated in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The relatively new department began operations in 2003 and is composed of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Upon its creation, DHS signified a restructuring of government infrastructure and absorbed 22 additional federal departments and agencies. These organization's mission statement, according to its website is to “secure the nation from the many threats we face” (DHS.gov). Within this mission, ICE is responsible for monitoring and managing migration in the US. From its conception, this department understood its mission as one rooted in defense, and today consists of detention centers, county and city jails, and privately owned detention centers used to hold undocumented migrants awaiting an immigration trial or deportation. Over the last few decades, the amount of detention centers has increased exponentially (Kassie, 2019) and currently the U.S. has the largest immigration incarceration system in the world with approximately 200 detention centers across the country. Although DHS is a federal organization, private corporations such as The Geo Group, Corecivic, and Unisys have accumulated billions of dollars in profit from the detention of immigrants (Public Citizen).

Scholars assert that there are race, class, and gender dimensions to immigration enforcement. For instance,Golash-Boza (2016) found the immigration enforcement patterns mirror prison labor exploitation patterns that subjugate Black and Latinx US citizens. Hence, although women migrate to the US at higher rates than men (American Immigration Council), “nearly 90 percent of deportees are men, and over 97 percent of deportees are Latin American or Caribbean” (Golash-Boza, 2016). Similar to policing patterns of the Black and Latinx community in the nation, immigrants are often detained for probable cause or minor offenses such as traffic violations, writing a bad check, disorderly conduct, or not having documentation. According toTRAC Immigration, “half of the 95,085 immigrants targeted by ICE for possible criminal deportation in fiscal 2015 did not have criminal convictions at all.”

Immigrants are often detained for several years, determined by the length of time their case takes to be processed.Golash-Boza (2012) states that the current system of immigration detention violates these procedural citizen protections in three critical ways: (1) detainees bear the burden of proof; (2) the state can deny bond hearings; and (3) the judge and the jailer are sometimes the same. A lack of consistency regarding immigration trial protocols contribute to the lengthy detention sentences. The DHS justifies the detention of noncitizens through the original orientation of “defense” and as a measure necessary to ensure migrants adhere to immigration customs, attend immigration trials, and leave the country when ordered to do so.

ICE is under contractual obligation to private owners to fill or pay for a minimum number of immigration detention beds at specific facilities and incentivizes the agency to fill those beds (SPLC). The longer the detention time, the more profit is made by the private detention centers. According to theACLU, taxpayers pay “a daily cost of $164 per detainee per day, and more than $2 billion a year.” Detention centers obtain additional profit from their detainees’ labor exploitation. The detainees work for approximately $1.00 a day and additional family visitation time (Elinson, 2018). The detainees accept the work compensation primarily for their extended family and friends visitation time. Additional profits accrue when the detention centers seek ways to cut a profit from telephone services, food, health and safety financed by tax-payers.

aBROWARD TRANSITIONAL CENTER

TheBroward Transitional Center is a short-term, non-criminal, low-security detention center managed and operated by The GEO Group and financed through U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility was opened in Pompano Beach, FL in 2001 and has maintained the American Correctional Association (ACA) accreditation. The two-story center was designed to blend in with the community setting and to provide privacy, separation by gender, and full support space for the residents and staff. It features a kitchen building, expanded medical clinic and courtroom areas as well as a 14,000 square foot office building for client use. The facility houses 700 detainees, 595 of the detainees are men and the 105 are women (O’Matz, 2013). Among them are teens transferred from the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s custody at 18, pregnant mothers, the elderly, and asylum-seekers with no criminal offenses (O’Matz, 2013).

Broward Transitional Center received a $20 million dollar contract through the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement to detain immigrants (O’Matz, 2013). ICE has the legal obligation to adequately care for Broward Transitional Center detainees by providing necessities like food, shelter, clothing, toiletries, recreation, access to information to fight their immigration cases, contact with loved ones and attorneys, and medical and mental health care. Unfortunately, the Broward detainees are routinely denied their basic rights. According to theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Broward Transitional Center’s conditions of confinement include inadequate medical care, inadequate mental health care, and inadequate accommodations for detainees with disabilities. In 2019, the detainees submitted a list of grievances to detention center officials. According to theSPLC, their complaints included “a lack of bilingual staff members, monitored phone calls and a work program that only allowed participants to earn $1 to $2 a day”. The SPLC asserts that the oversight mechanisms used at Broward are little more than a checkbox and that none of the mechanisms ICE employs to oversee its facilities adequately correct systemic deficiencies.

One of the aggrieved concerns expressed by detainees was the lack of legitimate protocols and the subjective discretion to parole individuals or release them on bond or on their own recognizance. Because Broward houses non-criminal detainees all of them are eligible for parole or bond (O’Matz, 2013). Incarcerating immigrants who pose no threat to national security or public safety violates the 2011 legislation that contends that immigration enforcement efforts are to focus on “suspected terrorist, violent criminals, repeat offenders and gang members” (O’Matz, 2013). According to the National Immigration Youth Alliance, there were over 100 instances of people being detained despite meeting the low-priority threshold. Accordingly, most had no criminal records or past deportations, were DREAM ACT eligible youth, or were waiting for their refugee and asylum status. The unjust discretionary cause of detention and deportation, lengthy detention between trial and deportations, and inadequate conditions of confinement are what prompted Marti and Viri to infiltrate Broward Transitional Center and to draw attention to an unjust immigration system.

IMMIGRATION ADVOCACY AND YOUTH ACTIVISM

The National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA) is an undocumented, youth-led national organization with approximately 27 chapters across the nation. The youth activists are collectively organized and advocate for justice and equality for immigrants. Their core values are to empower, educate, and escalate: NIYA.

Empower: We are undocumented and unafraid. We realize that our greatest power comes from accepting ourselves and realizing that we, as the people most affected, are the ones that need to be at the forefront of our movement. We are committed to making sure that all undocumented youth realize the potential and power they have as undocumented youth, to embrace their identity and to demand nothing less than equality.

Educate: The core of our work not only relies in our methods but also our stories and pedagogy that are embedded in the history of social movements. While we understand the “how” and the “what” of our work, we also need to be aware of the “why.” An essential aspect of NIYA is to learn from past social movements successes and be able to incorporate and innovate that wisdom into today’s pursuit of justice. Escalate: Throughout the years of restless organizing across this country, undocumented youth have claimed a place within the historical immigrant rights movement we must now take the lead. We have reached a point where lobbying alone is not adequate to accomplish our mission. We strongly believe that our movement needs to escalate and we will use mindful and intentional strategic acts of civil disobedience to be effective. NIYA.

Marti and Viri are youth activists and community organizers that work with Claudio and Omar to infiltrate the Broward Transitional Center and organize a hunger strike in an attempt to bring awareness to the unjust conditions and the broken immigration system. Both Marti and Viri are DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals) and DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) recipients. These policies provided temporary relief from deportation (deferred action) and work authorization to certain young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children (AIC). They had to meet certain guidelines to keep their DACA status. The program is not permanent and requires that the recipients meet certain conditions and renew their status every two years (AIC).

AFTER THE FILM

Immediately after the film, you may want to give people a few quiet moments to reflect on what they have seen. You could pose a general question (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers before opening the discussion. Alternatively, you could ask participants to share their thoughts with a partner before starting a group discussion.

• What are 2-3 things you learned from The Infiltrators?
• What specific feelings did the film bring up for you? Do you remember which scene brought that feeling up?
• Did this film generate any new thoughts, ideas, or ask you to consider something you hadn't yet before considered?
• If you could ask anyone in the film a single question, whom would you ask? What would you ask; and why?
• Describe a moment or scene in the film that you found particularly moving or disturbing. What was it about that scene that was especially compelling for you?

PROMPT 1: PUSH AND PULL FACTORS INFLUENCING IMMIGRATION

Immigrants are pushed, pulled, or forced to the US in search of opportunity or refuge and safety from political persecution, economic repression, state violence, or natural disasters.

• If you, or someone in your family is an immigrant, or someone you know is an immigrant, what were their reasons (push and pull) for migrating to the US?
• What are some of the reasons you may be pushed to migrate from their home country? What are some of the reasons you may be pulled to another country?
• How was their reception and welcome to the United States? Did they notice any difference in how they were treated because of their race, gender, age, or socio-economic status?
• How have their gender and age roles changed since they have been in the US? How have they adjusted to the changes? What has been the response of the family and friends?
• Is the necessity to leaving one's' home country always a choice? In what scenarios might a person need to leave and want to stay in their home country?
• How has social and political rhetoric around immigrants in the US disregarded the political necessities for safety and/or the US’s history of being a welcoming place for immigrants?
• In what ways did learning that DHS is relatively new impact how you think about the role of this department? How do the founding motivations for DHS continue to shape the way the department functions today?
• What checks and balances are necessary to hold those working within DHS and in detention centers accountable? In what ways does private ownership of detention centers impact this approach to accountability?

PROMPT 2: IMMIGRANTS ARE ESSENTIAL

Technology has transformed our access to goods across the world. Where, at one time, it would take a few months to get access to foreign goods, today, it takes a matter of minutes or days. Similarly, the services and labor available come from all over the world. Have you ever thought about all the ways that immigrants contribute to our economy? Immigrants (legal and illegal) are instrumental elements to agriculture, meat processing, restaurants, hotels, and garment production. Without the labor of immigrants, there would be a lot of businesses that would have to close. How would your day look without immigrants?

Consider the following:

• Who tends to the produce at the farms and processes the meats that you eat throughout the week?
• Who is cooking the food and cleaning the dishes at your favorite restaurants?
• Who is laundering the sheets and towels at your favorite hotels?
• Who is building the houses and businesses that are in current development in your neighborhood?
• Do you imagine that they have the same worker rights that citizens do? occupational safety and hazard protection (consider the era of COVID-19)? access to health insurance? Or access to retirement benefits?
• What is concerning about the political discourse and realities that immigrant workers face when you consider who employs members of these communities? Who gains profit from the labor of immigrants?
• What could you do to advocate for their worker rights?

PROMPT 3: IMMIGRANT YOUTH ACTIVISM

The Broward Center detainees felt like they had no other options. They expressed that they could not support immigration reform because they are not legal citizens. They cannot vote, they cannot call on their local representatives, they have no other choice. How do the participants that were DACA recipients or second generation immigrants advocate for their undocumented family and friends?

• What are the expectations of the members of the DACA and second generation citizens?
• How does their life (their roles) differ from their immigrant parents?
• In what ways do DACA immigrants advocacy and social resistance vary from their US citizens? What might DACA immigrants stand to lose that US citizens do not? Can you think of ways this might impact the DACA community’s approach to resistance or feelings of urgency?
• How do youth activists understand the impacts of detainment and deportation? In what ways have their lives been ruptured through the practices of DHS?
• If you are a US citizen, can you imagine an experience of losing a family member to detainment or deportation? In what ways might a family be impacted when a mother/father/sister/brother/uncle is detained and deported? In what way will the person who is being detained be impacted?

PROMPT 4: NAVIGATIONAL RESISTANCE

Consider the approach to advocacy exhibited by both the Infiltrators and the detainees.

• What do you notice about their approach to advocacy that is less traditional than what a legislator might do? What are your thoughts about their approach? In what ways might the circumstances necessitate a different approach to advocacy than more traditional legislative-focused approaches?
• What role do trust and relationship-building have on their approach and access to people who are detained?
• What role do the people who are detained play in helping the infiltrators navigate the detention center? What might the people who are detained be risking?
• What role do the infiltrators play in helping the people who are detained navigate immigration policies and processes?
  • What does it suggest about the systems and processes of detainment that the people who are detained are left in the dark about policies and processes?
• How do the detainees enact their agency and resist what they perceive as uncaring, inequitable and/or dehumanizing conditions?
  • What conditions did you notice that seemed oppressive or dehumanizing?

CLOSING QUESTION/ACTIVITY

In the film, Viri had to get into character to play an immigrant that needed to get deported. She drew on common stereotypes that are associated with immigrants. However, most immigrants are not poor, uneducated, unemployed, or undocumented. Many of them come to the US as educated, professionals, and entrepreneurs. Think of a campaign that could be used to transform and humanize the way we imagine immigrants and to transform harmful stereotypes about non-citizens in the US.

As you begin, try to list popular media portrayals of members of the immigrant community. What images are presented? What is harmful about these stereotypes?

• How did your experience of viewing this documentary change your uncritical or stereotypical assumptions about members of the immigrant community in the US? What specifically was challenged for you?
• Compare and contrast the characteristics of immigrants in mainstream media with the participants in film Infiltrators.
• Develop a strategy to galvanize other people to join you in transforming the image of immigrants, including why this is important, how it impacts society, and the goals you seek to accomplish.

TAKING ACTION

Follow the following social media accounts to stay current on issues impacting immigrant communities: @unitedwedream, @NILC, @Not1_More, #Not1More, #Ni1Mas, and @Re4mImmigration

Carry a copy of this “Know your Rights” card in your wallet. Provided by the ACLU:https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bustcard_eng_20100630.pdf

Educate yourself on workers’ rights to organize and protest here.

Learn about organizations who are working to support immigrants’ rights here.

Explore this list of resources to learn more about immigrants’ experiences and structural challenges they face

RESOURCES

Alianza Americas https://www.alianzaamericas.org/

Immigration Law Help https://www.immigrationlawhelp.org/

Immigration Lawyer Search https://www.ailalawyer.com/

National Immigration Law Center https://www.nilc.org/

United We Dream https://unitedwedream.org

Unidos US https://www.unidosus.org/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Gina Tillis, PhD. is a professor, scholar, and practitioner at the University of Memphis. She has taught high school and university courses that center the experiences of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities in social history, sociology, cultural anthropology, social-psychology, ethnic studies and curriculum and instruction.

CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Discussion Guide Producer, POV: Courtney B. Cook, Education Manager

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation and the MacArther Foundation.