Kiera McGuire

Features Editor

On Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m., students, faculty and community members gathered in Scheide Music Center’s Gault Recital Hall for a screening of the collaborative documentary film “Borderland: The Line Within.” Film director Pamela Yates and producer Paco de Onis were in attendance.

The screening, which was part of the College’s week-long Martin Luther King Junior Day celebration, provided insight on both the immigration process in the United States (U.S.), and the racism and danger present at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The film explored the lives of two individuals with different backgrounds who shared a similar struggle: living in the U.S. among strict immigration laws. Film subject Kaxh Mura’l, a human rights activist, wanted to seek asylum in the United States from Guatemala but struggled to get an asylum hearing. This left him to find an immigration attorney and to learn his rights as he attempted to enter the U.S. legally on multiple occasions.

Film subject Gabriela Castañeda, a community organizer and communications director for the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), moved from Juarez, Mexico to El Paso, Texas when she was 15, but struggled later when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported her husband. This forced her to take care of herself and her children through multiple jobs and legal battles for citizenship when her work visa expired.

These perspectives, according to Yates and de Onis, were not uncommon in areas close to the U.S.-Mexico border, where the documentary was filmed. The duo interviewed multiple sources, including the grassroots humanitarian group that identifies as the “Armadillos.” The human rights group, according to Armadillo searcher Luis Osuna, aims to “… find people of all different ages” crossing into the United States through taking discreet and barren paths to enter undetected. “You have to be very desperate to come and take this route,” he said.

The duo also interviewed an eight-year-old girl, Gabriela Murillo, who told the story of her father being deported from El Paso. “I sometimes pray that I can see my Dad and then my dream comes true,” Murillo said in the film.

According to the film’s subjects, their experiences underscore the immigration issues within the U.S. and the power of ICE in cities close to the border. “ICE is against everything we [the BNHR] do because it’s against the status quo,” Castañeda said at the beginning of the film. “I’m going to fight hard [against them].”

Kaxh shared similar sentiments when he started documenting his movement from Guatemala to the U.S. on his phone. He described ICE as a group that “sees us [immigrants] as animals” and discussed the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border due to ICE and the legislation ICE follows. “They keep us hidden with no food,” he continued.

Despite the harsh realities of the dangers at the border, Kaxh videotaped his journey and shared it with Yates who said that it was “important to keep a document and record to remember for today and for the future” during an audience discussion after the film. 

The documentary also showed instances of communities and human rights groups coming together to reunite families, including the “Hugs Not Walls” event at the Rio Grande River at the border. Castañeda said that the goal was “… to give families the chance to embrace and hug their loved ones,” going on to say that “what we’re [BNHR] trying to tackle is not the agent, but the system.” At the event, the Castañeda and the Murillo families saw and embraced their loved ones for three minutes. 

Yates and de Onis encouraged audiences to focus on their individual communities during the audience discussion after the film, imploring audiences to stick with their localities. “We need to keep our eyes open,” de Onis said. “We need to not lose hope.”

To see more about “Borderland: The Line Within,” visit https://borderland.skylight.is/.