In the ongoing and intense immigration debate, we are often deprived of our personal stories of the human suffering and loss caused by the crisis. Brave New Films’ documentary Immigrants for Sale follows several families caught in the crosshairs of the immigration epidemic, and paints a remarkably intimate and compassionate picture of the pain caused by inappropriate laws designed to curb it.
The film also points out a more insidious and sinister dynamic behind many of these laws and policies: capturing illegal immigrants and destroying their families for the sake of politics and profit.
Immigrants for Sale dissects one such statute — SB1070, a sweeping and controversial anti-immigration law enacted in Arizona — and reveals a surge in serious human rights abuses since its passage. As the film suggests, the 2010 law, which has since been passed in various forms in many other states, provides financial benefits to one of America’s most lucrative industries: the prison system. After all, more prisoners means more profits, and anti-immigration laws like SB1070 ensure a steady stream of new prisoners will continue to flood America’s prisons. As a result of these actions, the US prison system generates a staggering $5 billion in annual profits.
The private prison industry, led by the Correctional Corporation of America (CCA), played an integral role in the formation of SB1070. According to the narrative articulated, the bill represents an exciting new business model for these companies — detaining illegal immigrants as a means of increasing profits.
These scathing observations of the political and corporate intrigue surrounding immigration reform are set against a decidedly more humane landscape; one in which spouses and children take center stage as innocent bystanders in the immigration war. By unflinchingly examining their personal struggles, Immigrants for Sale enables us to better understand the inadequacies of current immigration policy and the need for continued debate and reform.
