Lesson Plan
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-10
Grades 11-12

The Infiltrators: Examinations of Immigrant Detainment, Safety, and Strategies for Resistance Film Clips

Film Clips

Clip 1: Bringing Down Broward(7:11-8:48; length: 1:37)
Activists from the National Immigrant Youth Alliance describe the misleading political rhetoric under President Obama that framed immigration detention as an issue of public safety focused on the deportation of violent criminals. In reality, the detention center located in Broward County, Florida, detained hundreds of low-level, non-violent offenders, as well as many who committed no crime at all.

Clip 2: Who is Being Detained in Broward County? (8:51 - 11:04, length: 2:13)
Marco, a young activist with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), makes contact with Claudio, a father originally from Venezuela, whose son contacts NIYA for help getting his father released. Claudio shares knowledge about the many different people who have been detained at the facility, sometimes for years, without ever having a trial.

Clip 3: Organizing Against Fear (14:04-16:03; length: 1:59)
Mohammad is a DREAMer who came to the United States from Iran at age twelve. This clip shows the variety of tactics and strategies Mohammad and other DREAMer youth used to loudly and visibly protest deportation policies, in spite of the fear of being deported by ICE.

Clip 4: An Impossible Choice (24:20-26:11, length: 1:51)
Marco and Claudio cut up phone numbers to distribute to detainees in the Broward detention center. Emiliano, Claudio’s son, recalls what happened the night he drove through a police checkpoint and his father was detained as a result. Emiliano explains the judge’s ruling, which stated that Claudio could be released from detention under the condition that he voluntarily leave the country within three months. Under this deferred action arrangement, Emiliano would be permitted to stay in the United States. Claudio explains why he stayed.

After learning about the existence of a women’s detention facility at Broward, Viri volunteers to try and get detained on purpose in order to infiltrate the jail. After an unsuccessful first attempt, Viri realizes that infiltration requires “playing a role.”

Sources

About the author:

Stacia Cedillo

Stacia Cedillo, M.A., is a former middle school science and social studies teacher. Stacia completed her master’s degree and doctoral coursework in cultural studies in education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied the role of race in education politics, policy, and ideology. She has worked as a community organizer, campaign volunteer, and policy intern in the Texas Legislature.

Stacia Cedillo