The Documentary ICE Doesn’t Want You to See

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been given a broad mandate to round up undocumented immigrants. The agency is infamously unwelcoming to journalists, but two filmmakers managed to get unprecedented access to its employees and detention facilities. Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz discuss how they got this closeup look at the agency as it developed ever-harsher policies designed to deter immigrants. Schwarz tells Jonathan Blitzer, who covers immigration for the magazine, that “if [ICE] can make life difficult enough, if [it] can send these messages . . . that this is the hell you’re going to get, then [they’ll] make these people leave.” The documentary, “Immigration Nation,” is available on Netflix.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.9	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Under the Trump administration,
0:15.1	the federal law enforcement agency known as ICE, immigration and customs enforcement,
0:20.1	has been given a broad mandate to round up undocumented immigrants
0:23.6	and with very little accountability.
0:26.6	We don't see much into the inner workings of ICE
0:28.8	because journalists just aren't given that much access.
0:36.5	But the new documentary series on Netflix called Immigration Nation is an exception to the rule.
0:42.4	Filmmakers were given access to ICE and its personnel for more than three years, which is just unprecedented.
0:53.7	The New York Times reported that ICE was so unhappy with the documentary
0:58.2	that they tried to delay the release until after the election, though ICE has denied this.
1:04.5	The New Yorker's Jonathan Blitzer, who covers immigration, sat down with Christina Klajou and
1:09.5	Shaul Schwartz, the directors of Immigration Nation.
1:13.5	There are so many places where I could start, but it seems to me that maybe the place for us to begin is at the beginning,
1:20.8	as I and every other immigration reporter in the country can attest, getting ICE to allow journalists any measure of access,
1:30.1	even the most limited forms of access, is notoriously difficult. Tell me about your initial
1:35.7	conversation with ICE when you first made this pitch to them. I mean, how did you, how did you
1:41.5	represent the project? And what was their initial response? It seems like they
1:45.4	were open to this, obviously. Yeah, they were. It was kind of an extraordinary way in.
1:53.7	I had worked with a local public affairs person for ICE in Arizona way back in 2011. And during that coverage, we kind of
2:08.0	became friends and we stayed in touch. And during the Obama years, I had actually pitched the
2:15.3	I spokesman who had climbed in the ranks down at that time to do a show about
	...

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