Claudio Rojas, one of the subjects of Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera’s acclaimed hybrid documentary film The Infiltrators, who had been detained by ICE in early 2019 and later deported to Argentina, was allowed to return to the U.S. few weeks ago, as reported by NPR.
Rojas acted as the inside source for the film about conditions in a for-profit detention center in Florida where he had been detained for overstaying his visa in 2012. His detainment and deportation was widely decried by members fo documentary and immigrant rights communities as an act of retaliation for his participation in the film.
Winner of the the NEXT Innovator and Audience Awards at the Sundance Film Festival,The Infiltrators tells the true story of young immigrants who get detained by U.S. Border Patrol—on purpose—and put in a shadowy for-profit detention center. Marco and Viri are members of a group of radical Dreamers on a mission to stop deportations, and they believe the best place to do that is in detention.
“My deportation was under the Trump administration. And as long as the Trump administration continued, it would be very difficult for me to enter. It would take a miracle” said Rojas to NPR’s “All Things Considered” news program. “Bringing people home who've been deported for their activism is a really important first step in correcting what has been a really outrageous assault on our democratic values” added Alina Das, one of Rojas' lawyers.
