Immigration

The Immigration Paradox takes a critical and in depth look at one of the most divisive issues in human global history-immigration. After encountering an immigrant crossing the Arizona desert, Emmy Award Winner and Filmmaker Lourdes Lee Vasquez set out to understand why people would risk their lives to come to the U.S. Her quest takes a shocking twist when she musters enough courage to cross the line at a protest and has an encounter with whom she believed was her enemy. From there on her journey, spanning 7 years searching for answers and solutions to this complex social issue, takes her and the audience to places never before considered in the immigration debate.

Running Time: 77 mins
Year: 2014
Filmmaker: Lourdes Lee Vasquez

What happens to children when their parents are deported to Mexico? The Deportation of Innocence takes us on a journey into the experiences of U.S.-born children and their immigrant families as they come to terms with deportation and the long-lasting effects this has had on their lives. For the children, this can mean growing up with an absentee parent, being placed in foster care and in the most dire cases, being put up for adoption. This film takes us deep into the struggle of these American children as they are caught in the political crossfire between two nations.

Running Time: 49 mins
Year: 2016
Filmmaker: Francisco Alarcon

In 1992, Sam and Elida Mejia left Guatemala during a violent civil war and brought their one-year old son, Gilbert, to California. The Mejia's settled in the Bay Area, and for the past 17 years they have worked multiple jobs to support their family, paid their taxes, and saved enough to buy a home. They had two more children, Helen and Dulce, who are both U.S. citizens. Two years ago, immigration agents stormed the Mejia's house looking for someone who didn't live there. Sam, Elida, and Gilbert were all undocumented and became deeply entangled in the U.S. immigration system. Sin Pais begins two weeks before Sam and Elida's scheduled deportation date. After a passionate fight to keep the family together, Sam and Elida are deported and take Dulce with them back to Guatemala.

"With intimate access and striking imagery, Sin Pais explores the complexities of the Mejia's new reality of a separated family-parents without their children, and children without their parents. Sin Pais is a documentary that brings a face, a reason, and a new found hope to the topic of immigration through the struggle of one family...Sin Pais tackles the much debated issue of immigration with love, justice and compassion through the eyes of those who are most affected." - Minerva Flores, Director of College Assistance Migrant Program at Mendecino Lake Community College

Running Time: 20 mins
Year: 2010
Filmmaker: Theo Rigby

Children In No-Man's Land is an award-winning documentary that uncovers the current plight of the 100,000 unaccompanied minors entering the United States. The film will give this timely political debate about the U.S.-Mexico border a human face by exploring the stories of Maria de Jesus (13) and her cousin Rene (12) as they attempt to cross the US/Mexico border alone to reunite with their mothers in the Midwest. Focusing on minors crossing through the Sonora Desert area in Nogales, Arizona, this film will explore every detail of these children's journey as well as the journeys of other children we meet on the way as we uncover in an intimate and personal way where they are coming from, what their journeys have been like and how they've gone about it, through to the arrival at their destination their new home, The United States of America.

Running Time: 39 mins
Year: 2008
Filmmaker: Anayansi Prado

The State of Arizona captures the explosive emotions and complex realities behind Arizona's headline-grabbing struggle with illegal immigration. From ground zero of the nation's immigration debate, the film follows Arizona's controversial "show me your papers" law through the stories of Arizonans on all sides of this divisive issue - from those who wrote it, to those who supported it, to those who dreaded its wrath.

Frustrated with federal inaction and rising border tensions, Arizona lawmakers ignite a national maelstrom by instituting SB 1070. The tough law is designed to make life so harsh for unauthorized immigrants that they will "self-deport." Supporters call SB 1070 a common sense law enforcement tool; opponents see it as a dangerous infringement of civil rights that would inevitably lead to harassment and racial profiling. The State of Arizona follows the battle over the law as it spills out to the streets, into the ballot box, and goes all the way to the Supreme Court.

By the makers of the award-winning Farmingville, The State of Arizona captures the latest chapter in the American experience in which Arizona's clash over immigration galvanizes Latinos across the country to change the nation's political landscape.

Running Time: 85 mins
Year: 2014
Filmmakers: Carlos Sandoval, Catherine Tambini