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

For my media blog post I chose to watch the first episode of “Living Undocumented.” This documentary follows the stories of three families who migrated to the United States and have been living here illegally and also shows the issues and problems they have to deal with every day as a result. The first man you meet is Luis, and he traveled to America at fifteen from Honduras by taking buses and trains for several days. Once in America he worked his first job and was proud that he earned is first forty dollars. After living in America for a good amount of time Luis learned of a woman named Kenia who he had known since childhood who had just moved to America with her son and soon Kenia and Luis formed a relationship. Unfortunately, for them Kenia was made to show her papers during a traffic stop and was then detained by ICE, even though she was several months pregnant, and was scheduled for deportation. We then follow Luis and his stepson as they have to travel eleven hours so Luis can hand over her son and only watch as they are deported. The next family we see is Ron from Israel who fled to America shortly after 9/11, the worst time for immigration, to live the American dream. Ron was able to start a family and a successful business here all while living undocumented but the fear of being deported is always in his mind. Finally we have Alejandra, who while living in Mexico was robbed at gun point and when she told the police they then warned her attacker and her attacker came back after her and told her that if she ever tries anything like that again he will kill her. This was the final straw, so she tried to flee to America by lying to the boarder patrol, which did not work the first time but was successful the second time. Unfortunately, if you are sent away once from the United State boarder you are then only given one last chance to come over legally or else you will lose any chance to ever return. Alejandra started a family and has two daughters but was caught again and is now facing deportation. Because her youngest daughter is considered to be too young to take care of herself, since Alejandra’s husband works all the time, she is being deported with her, essentially sending a mother and her daughter to go be homeless in the streets of Mexico.

This documentary reminded me of the article we read, “ The expansion of “crimmigration,” mass detention, and deportation” where people who come to the United States illegally are all made out to be criminals.  According to the documentary when Alejandra was found out the second time she was only made to check in with ICE once a year, but shortly after the Trump administration came to be she was immediately slated for deportation. You could almost say that situations like this are, “creating practices, demarcating a nationalized, white, ‘us,’ and a globalized brown and black ‘threat.’ “(Menjívar et al. 2018). Situations like the one that is happening with immigration in America have effectively had a significant amount of consequences in the country. For one, in my own opinion, we cannot be a nation that stands on the fact that anyone can come here and be whoever they want to be if we continue to try and push out every single person who is fleeing a poverty and or war torn nation in hopes to build a better life for themselves. Also, it has created a bias towards black and brown immigrants within the police force in our country so much so that we have sanctuary cities where an undocumented citizen can walk across the street without fear of being deported.

I think one of the more important lessons I learned through this documentary was in the very beginning of the show. In the opening scene you have a young woman who tells us, “This is just something you are watching on TV. You can turn if off and go about your life.” And this really hit me hard because no matter how bad we feel and no matter how much we say we want to help, at the end of the day we can go to bed without worrying that tomorrow we will be forced to leave the country and I truly do not think enough people think about that when criticizing undocumented immigrants.

Sources:

Netflix Documentary “Living Undocumented”

-Schuldt, R. D., & Cantor, G. (2017). Providing Sanctuary or Fostering Crime? A Review of the Research on “Sanctuary Cities” and Crime​. Sociology Compass, 12(1). doi: 10.1111/soc4.12547

Menjívar C., Cervantes, A. G., & Alvord, D. (2018). The expansion of “crimmigration,” mass detention, and deportation. Sociology Compass.