Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Bordering On Failure- Current US Immigration Policy?


Immigration is one of the contentious and overarching issue that is currently simmering on the back burner (among the numerous others) in US politics. It is also a subject that touches many countries, let alone Fiji.

A series of video blogs, in an ongoing project by Busted Borders, in conjunction with Buster Halo, explores this very issue and interviews several illegal immigrants in the US.

With the help of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, BustedHalo.com began covering the issue of immigration in a unique way. Instead of contributing to the glut of coverage about immigration, BustedHalo is featuring stories by immigrants themselves about the issue. We distributed Flip video cameras to undocumented individuals and agencies across the country and asked them to start video blogging for a period of at least three months.

Busted Borders is an attempt to use the web’s unfiltered nature to move the immigration debate away from abstractions and statistics. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, we hope to give a personal glimpse into the humanity of these strangers in our midst. For reasons of safety, some of the participants have opted to keep their last names and locations secret.

Busted Borders is an ongoing project and we are still in its early stages. If you or someone you know is interested in participating please contact us at borders@bustedhalo.com.

Busted Borders Producer: Bill McGarvey; Project coordinator: Mirlande Jeanlouis.



Among those who submitted videos, is a Fiji immigrant named Prerna, who found herself in such a predicament. Prerna describes her complicated situation in the following videos.

Part 1 (posted below): Prerna, Fijian student, who was applying for residential paperwork, became the only undocumented member of her family



Part 2 (posted below): Prerna becomes an activist, a blogger and a volunteer




Part 3 (posted below): In this third video, Prerna's family is trying to avoid foreclosure on their home.




Part 4 (posted below): In this fourth video, Prerna talks about her experience biking from Los Angeles to Berkeley, CA.





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2 comments:

  1. Hi, thanks for the coverage! I am so tired of this immigration mess, I'll rather be making changes in Fiji! But then my whole family is here :-(

    -Prerna

    ReplyDelete
  2. No worries Prerna. Keep on truckin!

    ReplyDelete