Around twenty years ago, the first carrying illegal immigrants ran aground in Queens. Inside the vessel were close to three hundred undocumented immigrants, cramped together like sardines in a can. Some of these three hundred could be described at political refugees however most of them could be described as migrants looking for the American dream. Some of these immigrants were able to obtain amnesty status while some were deported right away. The documentary outlines every little detail of the path these immigrants took to get to America and what had happened while they were here. This close look into the lives of several immigrant passengers shed some light on what illegal immigrants have to go through. Until the Golden Venture had run aboard if immigrants arrived in the United States illegally, but requested asylum when they got here, they were generally given a court date, and then released. This policy had bought forth multiple waves of illegal immigrants and this time the government had decided that while their asylum claims were processed, the immigrants would be sent to jail and held there.
During our in-class debate many topics came up which were addressed in this documentary. First was the idea that immigrating illegally was quicker and much cheaper. The documentary shows that this isn’t necessarily true because the two hundred eighty six immigrants had to pay close to a total of forty thousand dollars each in order to get a cramped spot on the boat and the entire trip took a total of a hundred and twenty days, so close to four months. Secondly the entire issue of these illegal immigrants being able to take over the jobs of legal citizen if granted admission into America. However through the documentary we see that the jobs that these immigrants took on were long, low wage jobs. And in exchange for these menial jobs in America these immigrants gave up their lives back home. They left their families, their households, and their comfort zones. And even after they were released from jail and began to settle down in the “golden land” there was always the constant fear of being deported whenever the government felt like it.
The treatment of these immigrants was truly horrendous in comparison to previous cases however the support and advocacy they received from groups here was tremendous. These immigrants came looking for an opportunity to escape from the suppressive conditions back at their homes and we were supposed to welcome them as the word on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty state:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
