Border Wall / Migrant Stories

Checkpoint Nation? Building Community Across Borders

Border wall cuts through the Sonoran desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona

In the wake of panic and anti-immigrant hysteria following the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March of 2010, Arizona legislators passed SB1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, one month later on April 23, 2010.

The broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in recent U.S. history, the law required that state law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual’s immigration status during a “lawful stop, detention or arrest”, or during a “lawful contact” not specific to any activity when there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is living in the United States without documentation. Other similar bills followed in Alabama and Georgia, with the explicit intent to criminalize unauthorized residency in the United States.

This film by Dana Variano examines some of the issues around migration in Arizona, focusing on the story of Maria and her family. The film argues that Arizona is a testing ground for policies that could be enforced across the United States. Racial profiling laws, unjust treatment by the police and court systems, the belief that one human is not equal to another: these are all things for which we must speak out, before these poisonous policies spread.

If you like this film, please support this filmmaker to do more of this excellent work. See Dana Variano’s homepage Where’s My Sled Productions.

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