Immigration Nation (Season 1)

Immigration Nation (2020) is a Netflix documentary series you can watch online on iFILM. The filmmakers earned rare access to the U.S. immigration agency ICE and spent close to two years filming it from the inside — the raids, the arrests, the deportations, and the people standing on either side of the process.

Across six episodes the cameras stay close to the officers who knock on doors before dawn, and just as close to the migrants themselves: families being split apart, kids waiting for a parent, lawyers fighting case by case. Nobody narrates the conclusion for you; the camera simply stays in the room when things get hard. You hear the flat language of policy memos and you watch the faces of the people whose lives those memos decide. It was shot during a stretch when American immigration policy had become a fierce public argument.

The series was directed by Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, who have said the agency tried to delay its release after seeing the cut — which tells you how close they actually got. This is tough, even-handed non-fiction with no voiceover sermon: worth your time if you can sit with uncomfortable questions that don't come with tidy answers. Stream Immigration Nation (2020) online on iFILM.