By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com

More than 200 people attended a showing of John Carlos Frey’s documentary, “The 800 Mile Wall,” Wednesday evening at the Grand Theatre.

Frey’s film, which was released earlier this year, documents the deaths of thousands of people crossing the Mexican border into the U.S. each year and the human rights violations of those people due to policies of the U.S. government.

“We want people to know that the United States is in violation of human rights charters that they themselves have signed,” he said. “Our border security infrastructure has directly caused the death of thousands of people.”

Frey is in Grand Island as part of the Multicultural Coalition Conference going on today at the Mid-Town Holiday Inn.

The film documents how the 800-mile wall along the U.S. and Mexican border was constructed during the Bush-Cheney administration at a cost of more than $7 billion and has done little to ebb the flow of illegal immigration. The wall has led to the deaths of thousands of people trying to enter the country, the film says. Despite the attempts to “secure the border,” Frey said, last year it was estimated that 450,000 people entered the U.S. illegally.

With the fiscal year ending at the end of September, Frey said, 2010 was a record year of recorded deaths of people illegally entering the U.S. from the Mexico.

While 20 years ago there were few recorded incidents of border crossing deaths, Frey said the new security wall funnels those seeking to enter the U.S. through the most dangerous areas of the U.S.-Mexico border of barren deserts and rugged mountains, thus increasing the death toll as Mexicans try to cross into the U.S.

And those efforts to secure the border are continuing to fail, according to Frey, as organized crime in Mexico has taken over the business of smuggling people across the border. Because of the involvement of organized crime in the border crossings, considerable financial resources are used to get information about the location and timing of U.S. border patrols to avoid capture and arrest.

And the situation is only aggravated by this country’s lack of a comprehensive immigration policy that could better address humane ways of getting immigrant workers legally in the United States in a timely manner for work in the nation’s agricultural fields. What complicates the nation’s immigration laws is that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S., the waiting time for people wanting to immigrate into the U.S., especially darker skinned people, has become longer, unless those immigrants are applying for high-tech jobs.

While the nation’s unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, Frey said many jobs, such as farm workers and meatpacking employees, still go unfilled, which only increases the demand for workers. Those jobs, in many cases, are filled by people entering the U.S. illegally.

While the U.S. economy is suffering, Frey said the reason people still seek to enter this country, legally or illegally, is that the unemployment rate in Mexico is at more than 25 percent in places and more than half the citizens live below the poverty line. That situation is even worse in Central American countries, he said.

The film also documents the tragic deaths of immigrants crossing the Great American Canal in California, where officials have spent millions of dollars to save endangered animal species impacted by the canal, but not a dime on safeguards that would protect the lives of people trying to cross the canal.

Frey was instrumental in helping CBS’s “60 Minutes” document the human tragedy caused by the canal, especially now with the construction of border security fences on each side of the canal that force people illegally entering the country to risk their lives crossing them. As a result of the “60 Minutes” piece, officials who manage the canal will be putting safety measures in place next year to help prevent future deaths.

Frey said documentaries on immigration have been the focus of his work as a filmmaker. He has made six films on immigration and is working on a seventh film.

“The core of what we do is try to dispel rumor and myth,” he said. “We have seen media portrayals that tend to be a little salacious, sometimes false. What we do is try to tell the other side of the story.”

What gives Frey’s films a realistic perspective is that they are often told from the point of view of the immigrant.

“It’s about the people coming cross the border and why they are coming,” he said.

And for 99 percent, according to U.S. immigrant officials, they cross the border to find work to support their families and not steal, take advantage of U.S. welfare laws or commit acts of terrorism or sell drugs. For example, immigrant labor fuels Grand Island’s economy, whether it’s at the community’s largest employer, Swift meatpacking plant, or the new hotels that have been built to accommodate visitors to Grand Island.

Frey said he wants people who see this film to understand the issue of immigration from the perspective of the immigrant and to ask critical questions about their government’s delay in passing comprehensive immigration reform that would put an end to the deaths of many whose only motivation to enter the U.S. is to work and provide for their families.

For more information about the film, visit the website at www.800milewall.org.

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