In 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Donald Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process. As the documentary neared completion in recent months, the administration fought to keep it from being released until after the 2020 election, reports the New York Times. After granting access to parts of the immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from being released. Some contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.
At town hall meetings, ICE spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. The filmmakers observed many occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records. The filmmakers, Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, turned drafts of their six-part project called “Immigration Nation” over to ICE leadership in keeping with a contract. Clusiau and Schwarz say the official who oversaw the agency’s television and film department became combative. They said the official pushed to delay publication of the series, currently set to air on Netflix next month. The filmmakers said they were told that the administration’s anger over the project came from “all the way to the top.” ICE press secretary Jenny Burke said the agency “wholeheartedly disputes the allegations brought forward by filmmakers of this production.”