Immigration has become a hot-button issue over the past couple of years. Presidential hopefuls are now expected to have a stance on immigrants trying to make their way into the country. The documentary Missing in Brooks County is a harrowing take on this issue. It doesn’t make a case for or against these immigrants. It does, however, illustrate those caught in the crossfire.
Brooks County, Texas is in South Texas. Many Mexican immigrants try getting into the country via the county. The film demonstrates the highs and (primarily) lows of these attempts. You see a dead body four minutes into the film. The corpse is of a migrant whose attempt to reach the States failed.
The film is unrelenting in its depiction of these escapes. You have characters like Eddie Canales, who sets up water stations to try and aid those escaping. You have the Houston-based Román family, trying to find missing family member Homero. You have a litany of border patrol agents, official and unofficial, trying to locate and track down “illegals” in the county.
You also have anthropologists and scientists fighting a losing battle to identify human remains. The Román family search is compounded when you realize that even if they found Homero, they may not be able to correctly identify him. The lack of closure here is heartrending. The entire documentary is brilliantly shot and depicts immigration as a much more complicated issue than some make it out to be. Do these “illegals” deserve rights? Should we be helping them instead of persecuting them? The film leaves these questions unanswered and lets viewers dwell on them instead. Aud: C, P.