4 Detention Movies Reviewed for Classroom Use
This week, my Crimmigration class focused on detention. Usually at this time of year, I’ve been able to take students to the local county detention center for an on-site tour. Sadly, there has been turnover since Covid and I found myself unable to charm the new officials to let us back in. In the absence of a physical tour, I wanted to show a movie about detention. I found four contenders.
1. Lost in Detention: 50 minutes if you skip the prologue and end at the credits. This is a PBS Frontline production that first aired in 2011.
This is the video that I chose to play for Crimmigration. It is the most clearly crime-y of the available documentaries. It includes topics like: fugitive ops, traffic stop apprehensions, detainers, local cooperation with ICE, and deportation flights. The interviews are with big names (Cecilia Muñoz, Mark Krikorian).
In terms of detention, there is video footage from inside and outside the now-closed Willacy detention center in Texas that mirror the conditions in other detention centers today. It talks about abuse within that detention center that is eerily identical to some of the topics covered in Sarah Sherman-Stokes’ JUST-released report on conditions at a center in Massachusetts.
I also like the the video throws Obama pretty solidly under the bus. In a course that can quickly seem overly left-leaning, it’s important to me to showcase how abysmal both parties are on the topic of immigration.
You might think that a 2011 report would be outdated. While some of the terms might be (Secure Communities) the content is the same–we still have data sharing through fingerprints, just under a different name. The conditions are the same. The politics are the same. Well, with one exception. Towards the end of the 50 minutes someone talks about how Latinos will never flock to the Republican party. I highlighted for my class the book review just posted by Kevin about a Latino shift right.
2. The Infiltrators. Streams for free at pbs.org. This is the longest of the options. It’s run time is one hour and 23 minutes. It first aired in 2020.
The Infiltrators is far and away the most gripping detention movie. It follows young DREAMer activists who intentionally get themselves thrown into immigration detention so that they can organize detainees and advocate for their release. It is impossible to overstate the bravery and determination of these advocates.
The movie mixes video of the activists themselves with reenactments by actors. So, while the outside shots of detention are real, the inside shots are produced. That’s not to say it doesn’t do a good job of giving the true feel of detention. It does.
I chose not to use this documentary for crimmigration because the focus is really on undocumented migrants without criminal records.
3. The Facility. 45 minutes. It first aired in 2020.
This movie, not to be confused with a documentary by the same name discussed below, focuses on interviews outside of detention with formerly detained young people as well as the families of detained and deported individuals. It is a very moving look at the toll detention and deportation takes on both the detained and those left behind.
I chose not to use this film for crimmigration because the focus is on undocumented migrants without criminal records. It also lacks any video coverage of the detention centers themselves, other than exterior shots.
4. The Facility. Yup, a second movie with the same name. It is the shortest option at 25 minutes. It’s also the newest. It aired in 2022, though it’s content is from 2020.
Pros: After Lost in Detention, this film has the most “real” footage of detention. That’s because it’s functionally filmed entirely via Zoom with detainees. You see the detention conditions behind the detainee being interviewed. And the detainees, on instruction, also leave the “camera” running when they are out of frame.
Cons: It is entirely about Covid and the government’s response to Covid in detention. Somehow, in 2024, that feels more dated than the material covered in the 2011 production Lost in Detention.
-KitJ