A month or so ago saw the release of Crossing Over on DVD. The film was about multiple angles on the issue of immigration and how the United States handles it at its best and worst moments. The Least of These dwells in the worst. With only 62 minutes to get its point across, the documentary takes a sharp look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas opened with the sole purpose of housing immigrant families together as they awaited their trial for either deportation or granting of asylum. The concept sounds noble doesn’t it? Giving a place to families who’ve braved the border cross who have nowhere to in between their day in court and their day of arrival? According to Clark and Jesse Lyda the center is an awful idea badly in need of change – or at least it was until its recent shutdown in August of 2009.
The Lydas aren’t out to ruin the lives of these immigrant families or even have them sent back without a sympathetic ear. Really it’s just the opposite. Clark and Jesse are on a mission to expose the cruelty of the system within the Hutto Center. The facility was built and run by a privately owned prison company with a well-known reputation for building child and adult jails and it turns out they did little to modify the design of their traditional facilities when they build Hutto specifically for immigrant families. As delinquent children would be deprived of toys and locked behind bars, so are families from Mexico and other southern nations looking for asylum in the U.S.A. with only minor alterations. Obviously children are allowed to have their toys, but the strict schedules of the prison doctrine the company uses at all the other prisons has been given few tweaks resulting in an organization that doesn’t take into account the needs and practices of family life.
The story is effective and worthy of being told. It appeals to basic human rights and on that front little can be said against its focused message. Unfortunately the message is so focused to a point that it’s attacking a symptom of the problem without addressing the larger issues at hand. No, we can’t expect a couple of filmmakers to take on international matters of ethnic cleansing, religious persecutions and other harrowing topics in a brief documentary – but we can’t let them ignore them either. The subjects most frequently interviewed throughout the film include a mother who ran from her abusive husband in Mexico taking her children with her.
Now, she’s in Mexico and needs to run away from her husband.
Forgive the seemingly callous nature of this next paragraph but: America is not the only option for asylum. Are we to believe that she had no other option for refuge? That had she run anywhere else in Mexico she would have been found? Yes, the husband’s crimes were quite insidious but the filmmakers make out immigration services to be villains for not welcoming the woman into the country with open arms. I’m well aware of the “Give us your tired…” placard welcoming immigrants on the eastern coast, but there’s a point where taking on foreign nationals who are seeking asylum for domestic abuse ceases to be rational. Instead of bettering how we treat these people once they’ve arrived, we should be taking steps to tackle the problem at its source: encourage Mexico to introduce better services for abused women and children. The extremist in me wants to make the argument that unless we do so, we’ll end up with all the beaten women and children of foreign countries as their brutish patriarchs beat the remaining populations into servitude – but I digress. Clark and Jesse Lyda turn a blind eye to the real issue (services for abused women and children abroad) and twist the circumstances to fit their cause instead. It’s still a valid point towards their goal, but the examples they chose really aren’t the most evocative of emotion.
The Least of These sports a genuine concern for these people and it sought to right an unnecessary wrong within the system. If it doesn’t sway you to their cause it’ll at least get you thinking critically about alternative solutions to the immigration problem looming over the United States.
DVD Bonus Features
You’ll want to skip over the trailer and deleted scenes and get right to the heart of the extras. The epilogue provides a little closure but it’s intensely dry and poorly shot considering it’s nothing but a talking head for eight solid minutes. Then you have footage from film festivals and social activism panels where The Least of These created quite a storm, these are interesting but still nothing quite enthralling.
"The Least of These" is on sale September 15, 2009 and is rated NR. Documentary. Directed by Clark Lyda, Jesse Lyda. Written by Clark Lyda & Jesse Lyda. Starring Various.
