Events
The Infiltrators (2019)
Film Screening and Organizing Meeting
Based on true events, The Infiltrators (2019, 1hr 35 min) tells the story of two immigrant rights activists with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, Marco Saavedra and Viri Martínez, who turn themselves in to immigration authorities in order to provide support to migrants in detention and facing deportation. Seven years after this heroic action, Marco now faces his own struggle to remain in the US, as he fights for asylum. We are screening the film on the eve of Marco's final asylum hearing, which will take place on Thursday, November 7th, at Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan. We will gather there for a press conference at 8:00 am.
We invite you to join us for this free film screening, to hear from some of the film's protagonists, and to support Marco at his hearing the following day. The discussion will feature Marco Saavedra and Claudia Amaro from Dream 9, Juan Carlos Ruíz, Pastor at the Church of the Good Shepherd and Co-founder of the New Sanctuary Movement, and other guests. You can learn more about Marco's asylum case here and here. You can sign a petition supporting Marco here.
Organized by The Sanctuary Working Group, Global Studies, Food Studies, and Lang Social Justice Committee at The New School, and the Hemispheric Institute as part of the Ecologies of Migrant Care initiative. Watch our interview with Marco Saavedra here.
66 West 12th Street
New York, NY 10011
The Infiltrators, (2019, 1hr 35 min) Directors: Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera.
The Infiltrators is a docu-thriller that tells the true story of young immigrants who get arrested by Border Patrol, and put in a shadowy for-profit detention center – on purpose. Marco and Viri are members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, a group of radical Dreamers who are on a mission to stop deportations. And the best place to stop deportations, they believe, is in detention. However, when Marco and Viri try to pull off their heist – a kind of ‘prison break’ in reverse – things don’t go according to plan. By weaving together documentary footage of the real infiltrators with scripted re-enactments of the events inside the detention center, The Infiltrators tells this incredible true story in a boundary-crossing new cinematic language. The Hollywood Reporter said of the multiple award-winning film “rather than feeling like homework, watching it is a thrill.”
Marco Saavedra is originally from San Miguel Ahuehuetitlán, Oaxaca, Mexico, and has been living in the United States with his family for more than 20 years. Saavedra began organizing as part of the Dreamer Movement in 2010. His activist work is featured in the 2019 film The Infiltrators. Marco has an upcoming asylum hearing on November 7th. For ways to support him, click here.
Claudia Amaro is a Kansas-based Dreamer and migrant rights activist who made national headlines in 2013 as part of the Dream 9. In 2017, she was selected as one of four fellows of the League of Creative Interventionists of Wichita. Amaro was recently appointed by the Kansas governor, and is the only undocumented person to serve in the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Committee.
Juan Carlos Ruíz is Pastor at the Church of the Good Shepherd and Co-founder of the New Sanctuary Movement. In 2017, Ruíz co-founded Vecindarios Santuarios / Sanctuary Neighborhoods, a community-based, multi-faith organization comprised of activists, organizers, faith leaders, and other community members working to cultivate, strengthen, and connect sanctuary spaces in New Jersey and New York State.