The Infiltrators

Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra (2019, U.S., 95 min.) + post-film discussion and Q&A with filmmakers

What does it mean to put your life on the line for what you believe in? For Marco and Viri, members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, it means giving up your freedom and potentially even the only home you have ever known in order to pursue justice. In this pulse-pounding true story presented as a documentary interspersed with dramatic re-enactments, we follow two American youths who are part of the DREAM Act, youth who were brought to the U.S. undocumented as children but who have only ever known the U.S. as home. In their quest to be citizens and to protect the rights of other undocumented persons facing deportation by ICE, they hatch a plan to be intentionally captured by ICE so that they can work their activism from the inside of long-term, for-profit detention centers.

Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera’s The Infiltrators is more grippingly suspenseful than a fictional action thriller, as we watch these brave souls work the system from the inside, avoiding paid snitches while reaching out to scared men and women seeking help and justice for their cases. Smuggling legal documents, hatching strikes, and generally putting themselves at risk, they work to bring light to the harms of long-term incarceration perpetrated by the U.S. amidst a stalled national debate on citizenship, immigration, and human rights. An absolute MUST SEE! Filmmakers participated in a post-film Q&A.

(Shown as part of Penn State’s Hispanic Heritage Month)