Film veteran Errol Morris said the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents by Donald Trump’s US administration was “inhumane and cruel”, as his new documentary on the policy premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.
“Do we need borders? Do we need immigration laws? We need them,” the Oscar-winning US director told AFP ahead of a screening of his film “Separated”. “But the idea is that the laws should be fair and humane.”
“And this particular policy seemed, and still does seem, to me, inhumane, cruel and despicable.”
In 2017, during Donald Trump’s first year as US president, his administration raised the idea of separating children from their parents to prevent illegal immigration — a major plank of his campaign.
The “zero-tolerance” policy, officially introduced in April 2018, allowed for criminal proceedings to be taken against anyone caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, resulting in the immediate detention of parents without their children.
According to the documentary, which cites official government figures, at least 4,227 children were separated from their parents — and more than 1,000 are still living separated.
“I’m horrified that they didn’t keep records,” Morris, 76, said. “They separated families in such a way that it’s impossible to reunite them.”
The veteran director won an Oscar in 2004 for “The Fog of War,” a surprisingly candid account of the Vietnam War that was written by one of its producers, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
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Morris’s new film – which is being shown out of competition in Venice – is based on a book by American journalist Jacob Soboroff, who helped expose the desperate plight of children.
“He called me up and asked if I knew anyone who might want to make a film of his book… I offered to come forward and do it,” Morris said.
The documentary is based primarily on statements by Jonathan White, who was then deputy director of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and who opposed the policy implemented by his superior, Scott Lloyd, who is also interviewed.
Lawsuits and public outcry, even within Trump’s own Republican Party, forced the administration to halt the separations until mid-2018.
In practice, however, the Trump administration continued to separate families under another regulation that allowed undocumented parents to be arrested and deported if they committed serious crimes.
Immigration remains a major divisive issue for many Americans ahead of the November presidential election, in which Trump faces Vice President Kamala Harris.
A recent official US report found that the government had been unable to locate up to 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children over the past four years.
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