That Trump wanted scenes deleted & Netflix's Immigration Nation to delay airing until after the election should tell you something. I'm weary too, but I felt like I should watch it to bear witness. I watched the first episode last night & took 3 pages of notes because I 1/

couldn't turn off my analytical lens. It is a brutal watch at a time when most people have compassion fatigue from covid19 & Trump chaos in general. Several things stood out from episode 1. As an immigration researcher, I read dozens of articles each day on the subject. 2/

It still didn't prepare me for the documentary. It is one thing to know that "collateral arrests" happen, these are arrests of people in the wrong place at the wrong time when ICE does a raid & they can't find their primary target so they scoop up people who are undocumented 3/

literally to enhance the apprehension statistics of "illegals." I know this practice has been happening across the country, but to see it in my own city, happening to a hapless terrified family, it's something else. Also stunning is the scene where a woman speaking perfect 4/

English repeatedly asks an ICE agent for the warrant that allows him to take her family member away. The agent repeatedly refusing and then waves some piece of paper at her and retorts that she voluntarily let him in so he can make the arrest. Then there's the ICE agent 5/

picking a lock. Paging 4th Amendment. Over and over you see deportation agents and officers saying they're "just doing their job" and just following the law. It seems pretty lawless to the viewer. There doesn't appear to be a culture of respect for the rule of law and 6/

procedural due process requirements seem so quaint. There is also the unnerving feeling when you realize that these agents feel unshackled with the Trump Administration's order to pick up anyone and to not adhere to priorities as targets as Obama had mandated them to focus on 7/

violent criminals, gang members, drug dealers. There is what appears to be ICE lying to detained fathers that they will be reunited with their children and then swiftly taken the border for deportation. There is Kristen Nielsen lying to a reporter, feigning outrage that the 8/

Administration purposely separates children from parents as a deterrent even though Trump is on camera saying, "When you prosecute the parents for coming illegally which should happen, you have to take the children away." 9/

But above all the other disturbing and enraging aspects of this series is the inhumanity some ICE agents display. While one is emphatic that he doesn't make collateral arrests and instead wants to focus on violent criminals, others don't hesitate to rip parents from crying 10/

children and another agent blithely asks "how many targets did you get through today." Immigrants are reduced to "targets" and "statistics" and separating families are carried out in the name of "following the law." And that's just episode 1 in the 6 part series. 11/

I wish as many people who eagerly binged Tiger King would watch Immigration Nation, but I know better, and it makes me sad. 12/12