Living Undocumented Documentary poster. Image from Netflix.
Kayley Gavin also contributed to the writing.
Living Undocumented is based on a six-part series about the lives of what undocumented families go through with Immigration issues in the U.S. Directed by Aaron Saidman and Anna Chai. Living Undocumented follows six different families who travel from all over the world to get away from difficulties of their lives in their former country and face not being identified by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).
In the documentary, there is a man named Luis, who is an undocumented man who was bringing his undocumented step-son to ICE where his wife is. While he is there ICE forcefully takes him in and detained him for nearly two months. While Luis is detained, his girlfriend and her son go back to Honduras and later try to come back to America seeking asylum.
There is also a woman named Alejandra, a military wife, who is from Mexico, who came to the United States when she was 15 years old in 1998 when she was threatened. For the past five years, she has been required to check in regularly with ICE, but after the 2016 election, ICE announced to her that she had to be deported. Later on, in the documentary, Alejandra’s lawyer decided that they can make a private bill that states that she is able to stay in the US longer but Congress and President Trump denied that. Sadly, she was deported back to Mexico with her younger daughter Estela.
In between the six episodes, the families go through a lot whether it is good or bad, but they all have strong faith that they will stay together. Throughout the six episodes, there are different parts of the different types of detention centers and you see children wrapping themselves in a foil blanket trying to keep themselves warm because the people in the detention center have on the AC, making the children and adults really cold. Also, there are four officers in the detention center that try to get the undocumented people to get into fights with each other so they can write them up and get them deported faster to their country where they originated from.
Overall, it is a good but heartbreaking message on how the government treats undocumented immigrants after they have found out that they are not citizens.
