Full of factual inaccuracies, non sequiturs, conservative buzzwords, and scare-mongering, this so-called "documentary" film is nothing more than the parroting of tired right-wing bigotry masquerading as "fair and balanced" (and no more convincingly than Fox News manages to pull off "fair and balanced"). The filmmaker, Dennis M. Lynch, makes much of his attempts to appear to be giving equal time to "both sides"; however, the sides are completely misrepresented in the first place. Am I being fair and balanced by giving equal time to "yes" and equal time to "no" in my film in which I ask my neighbor the yes/no question, "Have you stopped beating your dog yet?"? In reality, my neighbor has never beaten his dog, but then that wasn't one of the sides I portrayed in my film, is it? Lynch similarly frames the issue of immigration in a false dichotomy and then proceeds to carefully cultivate the appearance of fairness and balance for those uninformed, trusting, or simple enough to be fooled by it. As such, his credibility as an objective documentarian goes right out the window.
The actual pro-immigration stance is woefully absent in Lynch's film, no doubt because accurately representing it would sound the death knell for his carefully crafted narrative. Lynch works hard to cast himself as a victim in the film, as a lone seeker of truth being abused by some of those he interviews, being kicked out of political rallies, and knocking on the massive closed doors of a conspiracy hellbent on keeping a terrible secret. In reality, however, he aggressively asks leading questions and is wantonly disruptive of those not likely to agree with him. It is not that those who support immigration refused to be represented in his film, but that they were not willing to be a part of an obvious attempt to misrepresent them.
In lieu of an expansive soundtrack, Lynch opts instead to underscore his film with the constant drumbeat of an endless string of white people all too eager to scapegoat immigrants for everything wrong in their own lives. An overt, over-the-top racist predictably appears at opportune moments in the narrative to act as apologetic counterpoint in order to lend the appearance of legitimacy to the undercurrent of "softer" bigoted attitudes given voice throughout the film. Lynch casts himself as a softy that feels for the undocumented immigrants, and suggests at one point that perhaps America is not the best place for immigrants because it would be a shame for them to become the victims of rising racial tensions. There's nothing revelatory here, just an incendiary laundry list of long ago refuted straw-man arguments dramatically staged to look as if they are alive and well and candidly documented on the gritty front lines of public opinion.
What does it say about the strength of the anti-immigration political position when it must be bolstered by such underhanded tactics?---that proponents of this position are on shaky ground. What does it say about these proponents that these tactics are so transparent and unconvincing?---that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. The debate is over, they have lost, and the only alternative to having the integrity to concede the point is to attempt revision of the debate itself and its historical timeline. Still, they refuse to read the writing on the wall and accept that they could ever have possibly been wrong. In this reviewer's opinion, all of the ills Lynch outlines in the film can be cured when conservatives cease running interference that prevents immigration law reform from ever coming about.
It is an insult to the venerable art of documentary filmmaking to call this piece of propagandistic political puff a serious addition to the genre. Whatever your views on immigration, this film can safely be ignored as it seeks only to muddy the waters.
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