When it premiered in August, Time Magazine called Netflix’s Immigrant Nation one of the year’s most important documentaries.

NCRP Field Director Ben Barge continues his conversation with Stefania Arteaga about what philanthropy can learn from the film, especially in this crucial moment in our history.

BB: I think a lot of people in philanthropy may watch this show and say, “This is horrible, but I don’t fund immigrant justice.” What would you say to that?

SA It’s extremely important to see immigration as a fundamental justice issue because it is. We have large, privately run detention centers and a federal mandate that requires a body minimum in a detention center per night.

And our taxpayers pay for that! This is a subset of our mass incarceration system, and a key part of the criminalization of Black and brown bodies. Black immigrants are deported at much quicker rates.

This whole system has no accountability or due process for those detained. So I really encourage funders to see that we can’t live in a world where we have separate systems of punishment for people and a total absence of justice.

We also need to do away with the bad immigrant, good immigrant narrative, because then you just don’t talk about the over-criminalization of folks.

Read the full article about immigrant rights by Ben Barge at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.