Our immigration system is broken. It is estimated that eleven million undocumented immigrants currently live in the United States. Throughout this year, policy makers have engaged in a heated debate in Congress and in main street America about what to do with them. Meanwhile, there have been unprecedented mobilizations at the local level with hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters coming out in support of immigration reform.
Crossing Arizona examines the crisis through the eyes of those directly affected by it. Frustrated ranchers go out day after day to repair cut fences and pick up the trash that endangers their livestock and livelihoods. Humanitarian groups place water stations in the desert in an attempt to save lives. Political activists rally against anti-migrant ballot initiatives and try to counter rampant fear mongering. Farmers who depend on the illegal work force face each day with the fear that they may lose their workers to a border patrol sweep. And now there are the Minutemen, an armed citizen patrol group taking border security into their own hands. As up-to-date as the nightly news, but far more in-depth, Crossing Arizona reveals the surprising political stances people take when immigration and border policy fails everyone.
Please join us for a provocative panel discussion and Q&A session immediately following the film.
Featured Panelists:
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-AZ
Esther Olavarria, General Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)
Dan DeVivo, Director and Producer of Crossing Arizona
Alexis Mazon, Derechos Humanos Coalition of Tuscon, AZ
Moderated by:
Dan Restrepo, Director of The Americas Project at the Center for American Progress