Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Living Undocumented’ On Netflix, A Docuseries Where Undocumented Immigrants Live Under High Stress In Trump’s America

Life for undocumented immigrants in the United States has always been one that requires laying low, always under stress that their status will be discovered and that they’d have to go back to their home countries, tearing apart the lives they’ve established here. The path to legal permanent residency has been much tougher since 9/11, and deportations have increased in the years since. But under Donald Trump, there has been a zero tolerance policy, where ICE has the authority to deport any undocumented immigrant for as little as a traffic stop. Living Undocumented, directed by Aaron Saidman and Anna Chai, is a docuseries that follows eight undocumented immigrants as they deal with the ever-present threat of being deported.

LIVING UNDOCUMENTED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A little boy hand in hand with his father. A voice says, “I want you to imagine waking up one morning, and your father is just gone.”

The Gist: In the first episode, we meet Luis, a construction worker who came to Texas from Honduras in 2012 to find a better life. His girlfriend Kenia is being held by ICE in Kansas City and is scheduled to be deported, along with her 3-year-old son Noah, who has been living with his surrogate father Luis while Kenia has been detained. During a traffic stop six weeks before, it was found that Kenia — pregnant with their first child — and Noah had outstanding deportation orders, so Kenia was detained, despite Luis being the one who was driving. Now he has to take Noah to KC to join his mother, which is tearing him apart. And one more issue: If he tries to get out of the car to say goodbye, he also risks getting detained.

We also meet Alejandra, who lives in Florida with her husband Temo, a former marine, and their daughters Estela and Pamela. She came from Mexico in 1998, her life under threat and the corrupt police force in her town of no help. Because she got turned back from the border once before making it through, under Trump’s policy, she’s due to be deported, despite being a military wife. Temo voted for Trump, never expecting the “bad hombres” he spoke of deporting would include Alejandra. Younger daughter Estela, who is a U.S. citizen, will have to go with her because the childcare for her with her mother gone will be insufficient.

And, to show that not every undocumented immigrant comes over the U.S.-Mexico border, we meet Ben, an Israeli who came to Los Angeles in 2001 with his wife Karen under a tourist visa and overstayed it. He came a few months after 9/11, thinking that the tourist visa would be a pathway to a green card, but that road was shut down. He owns a successful marketing business, but he knows that, especially now, he could end up going back to Israel, leaving his business partner in the lurch.

Our Take: What Living Undocumented, which counts Selena Gomez among its executive producers, aims to do is not necessarily show the harrowing conditions that people who are retained trying to cross the border face, but the extraordinary stress the over 11 million undocumented immigrants that are already here live with, especially since Trump took office. These are productive members of society, working and paying taxes, often owning businesses and/or establishing roots here over decades. And at any time, they could get detained by ICE and sent back to their home countries, where they often have left because of dangerous conditions, abject poverty or both.

Balancing out the stories of these immigrants is interviews with experts like Barbara Corrales, a former ICE attorney who is now an immigration attorney, to show that the rhetoric of “they should stand in line” or “they should come here the right way” isn’t practical, given that someone in the U.S. has to sponsor an application, and quotas make waiting lists from places like Mexico decades long. It also tries to show that immigration over the Mexico border has sharply increased in the past two years, with more mothers and children coming than single men, creating the humanitarian crisis we’re in now, just as the Trump administration has decided to crack down even harder than the Obama, Bush or Clinton administrations did.

It’s an effective way to do this; yes, they pull at the heartstrings as they show Noah playing with and hugging his surrogate dad Luis as they take a break during the long drive from Texas to Missouri. And yes, there is a concerted effort to show these people as Americans and not as people who committed a crime and “draining resources.” The series may end up preaching to the choir who already think our immigration policies are abhorrent, not trying to convert those who think that anyone here illegally should be sent packing. But still, putting faces and emotions to these situations gives the people who do watch a close-up look at how devastating this threat can be, for people who are doing all they can to just make a better life for themselves and their families.

Parting Shot: Luis is in the house of Kenia’s attorney, who took the case after finding out that ICE detained a pregnant woman (another change under Trump). They pray for Kenia, Noah and the baby to be safe and live a good life in Honduras, then the attorney asks Luis whether he’s going to get out of the car to say goodbye, risking being detained. He decides to do it, and says “Let’s see what happens.”

Sleeper Star: Alejandra’s daughter Estela is only 9, but is sharp as a tack, especially when she says that the policy was to deport criminals. “But my mom is not a criminal; she’s a military wife.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing we could see.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Living Undocumented is an important series, to not only debunk myths about undocumented immigrants, but show how tough life is when you live constantly under the threat of deportation.

Your Call:

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Living Undocumented on Netflix