Grim insights into immigration
Adirondack Film Festival documentary
The Front Page
Afternoon Update
Adirondack Film Festival
By Ken Tingley
About 70 miles north of the Mexican border along Route 281 is a border checkpoint for those heading north. It is design to catch illegal immigrants.
Dating back to 1994, the government strategy was to acknowledge that the vast Mexican border was too large to secure, so it set up checkpoints further inland. It forced illegal immigrants to walk around the checkpoints through the harsh lands of Brooks County.
The government strategy was that the illegal immigrants would give up and abandon these suicide missions once they realized the futility.
They has not happened.
“Missing in Brooks County” is not a political documentary as much as it is a grim reminder of the grim human toll the checkpoints have taken as desperate immigrants look for a way to a better life.
The documentary by Jeff Bemiss and Lisa Molomot has been named best documentary feature in seven film festivals already. They follow two families searching for loved ones who went missing in Brooks County and the attempts of others to find the remains by exhuming bodies from unmarked graves and recovering bones from the rural outback.
The migrants pay smugglers to get them across the border and show them around the checkpoints where they are often handed a jug of water and directions, eventually dying of dehydration and exposure.
Eddie Canale of the South Texas Human Rights Center is also featured in the film as he works diligently with the two families to find out what happened to their loved ones.
In recent years, he has led an effort to set up water stations around the county and keep large blue barrels filled with jugs of clean water as a humanitarian gesture for the illegal immigrants. Seven different ranchers have since agreed to let him do it on their properties.
Later in the movie, 15 of the barrels are stolen by those opposed to Canale’s efforts. On one barrel, Canale finds the words “ Build the wall now” scrawled. He then meticulously scrubs off the words.
Forensic teams from local universities now make yearly trips to mine remains found around the county.
Since 2008, 270 sets of remains have been found around Brooks County alone. Only 40 have been identified. Officials believe that only one in five of the dead are ever found. In recent years, there has been more of an effort to identify the remains and put the suffering of loved ones to rest.
“Missing in Brooks County” is a grim reminder of the tragedy of this policy and the heartache left behind.
It is an insight into the immigration issue we all could use to see.
It is a film that is often hard to watch, but necessary to our understanding of the issue.
It’s also the type of movie we would not often get to see without a local film festival.
“Missing in Brooks County” is the type of film that stays with you.
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