'Constructed documentary' has cast members follow the same path illegal immigrants take to U.S.

While Congress continues to flounder on immigration, and the fate of millions of undocumented workers remain in limbo, a new documentary series tries to take a firsthand look at the plight of immigrants trying to cross the border illegally. The Al Jazeera America series "Borderland" takes six Americans with varying backgrounds and opinions on immigration, and has them follow the same path in which three immigrants -- Omar Lopez, Claudeth Sanchez and Maira Zelayadied -- died while trying to cross the border from Mexico. (AJAM map: path the immigrants and cast members took)

The series, which premiered April 13 and airs on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, "starts out in the Pima County Morgue in Arizona—which handles more migrant remains than anywhere else in the country—then follows the participants as they visit Lopez, Sanchez, and Zelaya’s families, and board La Bestia (The Beast), the train many undocumented immigrants hitch a ride on to the U.S. border," Edirin Oputu reports for Columbia Journalism Review. Halfway through "Washington farmer Gary Larsen becomes increasingly grim. 'Every politician should go on this trip,' he says. 'They need to see what these people go through.'"

Co-executive producer Ivan O’Mahoney calls the series a "constructed documentary," a "hybrid between traditional documentaries and factual entertainment that alternates between people in real, unscripted situations, and contributions from experts and talking heads," Oputu writes. O’Mahoney told Oputu, “A lot of people have very pronounced opinions on a lot of issues, but these opinions are not necessarily based on any experience that people have had themselves, or any real exposure to the issue that they’re commenting on.”

“When you meet people one on one (you discover) that often, the situation is more complicated than you thought it was, and all the cast members will tell you that they’ve learned things that they never knew existed,” O’Mahoney told Oputu. “My hope is that the series leaves no one unaffected. I don’t want any viewer to walk away feeling the same way about the issue as they did when they started watching.” (Read more)