Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Crime in the Media Fall 2020

Cole Montgomery

CRIM -410

Professor Engstrom

October 27, 2020

Tragic Choices.  (Separated: Children at the Border Documentary).

The PBS documentary  Separated: Children at the Border, was extremely significant especially in today’s day and age, with the current state of our country.  Throughout the United States of America’s history immigration has been important.  Many of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents immigrated to this country for a better opportunity of life.  Essentially, the United States is a nation built by immigrants, and these people are a huge part of the country’s heart and soul.   We currently live in a world where our county is very divided for numerous reasons.  The issue of deportation remains a huge talking point for debate, and this documentary was very efficient in providing the information needed to understand the topic of illegal immigration.

This documentary in particular caught my eye, because I am currently reading “Detained and Deported by Margaret Regan”, for my book review for Criminology class.  Since I already have knowledge on the topic of illegal immigration in the United States, I was thoroughly interested in what this documentary had to offer.  The documentary explains in detail many instances of Hispanic illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border between the U.S. and Mexico.  In particular, many of these immigrants were attempting to cross the border because their family’s lives were in danger, and they were threatened with death by gang members.  Many people have no choice but to cross the border by jumping onto moving trains, or by paying coyotes or smugglers to help sneak them into the United States in trailers, or tractors.  The documentary explained that during the Obama Administration, there were far more illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border than ever before, because of the issue of violence and lack of safety throughout their countries.  President Obama was left with a tough decision, and that was to separate children from their families who were crossing the border, or to put these families into detention facilities.  Ultimately, these families were put into detention facilities, and it wasn’t until the Trump Administration when children were separated from their families at the border.  This caused outrage among both Republicans and Democrats as explained in the documentary.  The idea of separating children from their parents at the U.S. Mexico border was to keep illegal immigrants from attempting to come into the county illegally in the future.  In other words, it was a fear tactic.  After President Trump decided to not separate families at the U.S. Mexico border anymore, the damage was already done.  Many people were asking questions like, “What about the children who were already separated from their parents?”  or, “What will you do to reunite these families”?  I believe that something needs to be done in order to reverse the separation that has already occurred.  I believe that families that were separated should receive a reparation of $1000 per month.

The documentary describes the horrid conditions in detention centers which house illegal immigrants until their asylum cases are reviewed.  For example, fifteen-year-old Jocelyn explained how she was brought to an “Ice Box” in Texas while she was separated from her mother who was brought to Arizona.  Jocelyn stated that it was “very cold.”  (Marcela Gaviria 2018).  She was traumatized by this experience, and I could see how her mental health was strongly affected by this event.  Her mother described her as angry all the time as a result of this.  Detained and Deported, by Margaret Regan (2015),  also describes the horrid and gruesome experiences that illegal immigrants have when housed in detention centers.  For example, according to the author Regan, “The Estrella detention food was both skimpy and bad, and Mariana was hungry all the time”.  (Regan, 2015, p. 58).  According to the documentary, children as young as one year old, are thrown in cages separated from their parents, while their parents are in other cells.  I learned that the guards were often harsh and rude to the detainees as well.  One guard even told a detainee that they will never be legal.  This is truly disgusting and could be the result of Implicit Bias.  For example, In Professor Engstrom’s Criminology class, I took Implicit Bias tests myself.  (Project Implicit).  Implicit Biases are basically unconscious racial stereotypes.  In the case of this documentary, I truly believe that this applies to the guards of these detention centers and evidence of this could be their negative and aggressive behavior towards the illegal immigrants.

As you can see, this documentary covers a very important issue in our society today.  Many people argue that the only way to keep so many illegal immigrants from rushing into our country is to threaten them with family separation, while other people believe that there are other alternative and that this is far too harsh.  Hopefully, in the future there is a compromise and we find something that can be supported by all Americans.  In conclusion, Separated Children at the Border was a fantastic documentary, and it is very significant that you watch it.

References:

Take a Test. (2011). Harvard.Edu; Project Implicit. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Marcela Gaviria (2018).  Separated: Children at the Border. FRONTLINE. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/separated-children-at-the-border/

Regan, M. (2015). Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire. Beacon Press.