With unprecedented access to ICE operations, as well as moving portraits of immigrants, Immigration Nation offers a unique and nuanced view of the ongoing struggles in America’s broken immigration system, coming to Netflix on August 3rd.
The docu-series will examine the processes, pitfalls, and pain of immigration in America. Shot over the course of three years, Schwarz and Clusiau capture the daily workings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, activists, lawmakers, attorneys, and a wide swath of undocumented immigrants, from recent desperate arrivals to longtime residents to deported U.S. military combat veterans.
With an unrelenting flow of migrant workers continuing across the U.S. border, the pressure on ICE to enforce the administration’s zero-tolerance policies puts immigrants in the crosshairs. But how do we fix a system that seems beyond repair? How do we apply common sense to something that’s evolved from one of humanitarian concern to an us-versus-them political flashpoint? Has the story of America — the one that inspired our own immigrant relatives to risk death for a better life — been rewritten so broadly that the “land of the free” is a luxury afforded now only to a few?
Immigration Nation is directed by executive producers Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau. Dan Cogan, Jenny Raskin, Brandon Hill, and Christian Thompson also serve as executive producers.