DAY 1: Transparency in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Activity I: Infiltration.Discuss these prompts as a class to establish common definitions and to get a sense of their familiarity with the concepts:

• Write the word “Infiltrate” on the board. Ask students what this word conjures up for them. Possible answers may include: Spy operations, secret forces, enemy lines/combat.
  • What motivates people to want to infiltrate something? What conditions must be in place for “infiltration” to be necessary? What might someone infiltrating a space seek to access or discover?
  • What is a place that you would want to infiltrate? Why would it be necessary to infiltrate? What conditions require you to infiltrate rather than just access or explore or enter?
• Introduce the film using the following framing questions:
  • What is a detention center? What is the alleged mission of detention centers?
    Note to teachers:See our Discussion Guide for background information on Detention Centers.
  • Why infiltrate the detention center rather than go about other ways of activism?
  • What might a detention center not want revealed about its practices and processes of detainment? Why? What does secrecy suggest about the ways a detention center treats human beings?
  • How does infiltration allow the activists to support those people who are currently detained in ways they could not if they did not infiltrate the system?
  • What are the activists risking by infiltrating the detention center? What does this suggest about their motivations and belief in the necessity of activism?

Discuss with your students how a lack of transparency makes possible the following practices in privately run detention centers. Ask them how these institutions can be held accountable if their practices are not exposed to the public. Consider the following possibilities as entry points for discussing malpractice in detention centers:

• Abuse (sexual; physical; mental) by prison officials, nurses, and others in positions of power
• Unsupervised health protocol (especially during COVID-19), including unsanitary spaces, food, temperatures, and living conditions
• Unsafe conditions for individuals with disabilities and diseases
• Family separation, child detention (unaccompanied children) and the inability to communicate with others outside centers
• Restricted access to legal help
• Lack of reporting on abuse, violence, and other violations
• Violations of basic human rights
  
  

Activity II: Transparency in Detention Centers.Locations of ICE detention facilities: https://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities

Research 2-3 detention facilities closest to you using the above link. Read about their visitation policies, detainee protocol, and process for contacting detainees. Further research GEO Group - “work rehabilitation”/”job” programs; CoreCivic; Corrections Corporation of America; and differences between public versus private systems.

• What do you notice about the rhetoric applied to incarcerated peoples? Are they referred to as detainees? Do they carry an “alien registration number”? What does the language imply about the treatment of those in centers?
• Beyond physical barriers, what communication barriers are imposed in detention facilities? How do internal barriers reinforce isolation and further separate those within the detention center from those outside?
• What are private prisons? How are individuals treated differently in private versus public prisons? For incarcerated people who perform labor in private centers, how are they compensated in private centers?
• What information is missing within these specific detention centers (e.g., number of people, demographics, size, conditions)? Are the facilities remote?
  • Why might this information be intentionally obscured?
  • Who does the lack of transparency protect? How does it allow detention centers to avoid investigation and accountability?
• Read the following excerpt from a series of letters collected from the Glades County detention center in response to poor health conditions during COVID-19. (The article can be accessed here):

“This shows a total disregard for our safety and well being, and should not be the way human beings act especially not during this COVID-19 pandemic…. No one should be forgotten or left to die at any facility in the United States of America, especially now…. we were served spoiled food, we’re starving, bathrooms are bad, violations of rights…. beds are two feet apart and not six feet apart.”

• • Do individual facilities outline COVID-19 protocols? Do they offer information on the number of people tested and those who tested positive?
  • In what ways has the detention center’s treatment of those incarcerated made them become “forgotten or left to die”? How is this exacerbated by a lack of transparency? How can these attitudes instill feelings of trauma?

Day 2 Lesson: Undocumented and Unafraid

Activity I: Acts of Resistance.After watching the film, lead a discussion about the acts of resistance, big and small, seen in the film. List the acts of resistance on the board. (Some examples can include: refusal to board the airplane; distribution of phone numbers; conversations with detainees; etc.)

After the class has created a list of specific types of resistance, assign one or two methods of resistance to groups. Have them analyze these modes of resistance in search of the following:

Strategy -

Tactics -

Reasoning -

Have students cite moments from the film to support their explanations.

Before having students complete these assignments on their own, complete this sample assignment as a full group:

ASK: Why would these youth *volunteer* to get arrested? What is the strategy here? What tactics did they use?

Strategy -

Tactics -

Reasoning -

Activity II: Undocumented and Unafraid.While the year of the release of The Infiltratorssaw historic mass protest and resistance action, mobilization against criminalization and incarceration has been ongoing for years. Have students break off into small groups and assign them 1-2 of the following acts of protest/sources listed below to research. Afterwards, reconvene to respond to the activity discussion questions.

List of Protests:

• Trail of Dreams, 2010,https://beautifultrouble.org/case/trail-of-dreams/: On Jan. 1, 2010, four youths from Miami embarked on the "Trail of Dreams," a 1,500-mile march to Washington, D.C., demanding an end to the deportation of undocumented minors and passage of the Dream Act. Among the four was Ms. Pacheco. She had earned three degrees at Miami Dade College and co-founded the undocumented-immigrant student group there. After graduating, her undocumented status prevented her from getting a job and building a career. (source: WSJ - Anatomy of a Deferred-Action Dream)
• Washington D.C. Capitol Sit in:A sit-in at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington. "I felt empowered," says Ms. Dominguez. Nine protestors, wearing caps and gowns, sat in the atrium in a circle around a banner that read "Undocumented and Unafraid." Thirteen others occupied senators' offices. Capitol Police arrested 21 people. None was placed in deportation proceedings. (WSJ)
• Hunger strike: Carlos Amador, the son of illegal-immigrant house cleaners from Mexico who was completing a master's degree at UCLA, started a 15-day hunger strike backing the Dream Act with eight others outside Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Los Angeles office.
• Harvard Medical School protest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri4koB-cRC8
• Interruption of NC legislative session/hearing: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2012-mar-13-la-na-nn-north-carolina-dream-act-20120313-story.html
• List of actions 2010-2014:http://www.notonemoredeportation.com/the-history-of-the-not1more-campaign/
• Infiltration of Broward County: https://prospect.org/civil-rights/los-infiltradores/
• Progress Illinois: Activists Stop Bus At Broadview Detention Center:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z3z8uLsenk

Activity discussion questions:

1. What shape did these forms of protests take? In what ways did the participants act? How did they act out specifically in front of the congress people across the political spectrum?
2. How did these politicians take their concerns seriously as a result? Why were they moved to act than through traditional tactics of enacting social change (e.g., lobbying, campaigning, writing/calling legislators, etc.)?
3. Who leads these protests? Who carries the burden of risk? What risks are associated with political action for undocumented immigrants?
4. Although these significant protests have resulted in the passage of DACA, a renewable act that delays deportation for a two-year period, and the continuation of the DREAM Act, which creates an opportunity for young undocumented youth in the U.S. to become citizens, are these acts sufficient for protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants? Why or why not?

Other tie-ins:

Aloe Blacc music video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_o6axAseak

Theater of the Oppressed Activity:http://www.mandalaforchange.com/site/applied-theatre/theatre-of-the-oppressed/“acting, rather than just talking”