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NARR: Breakthrough is an organization that uses media and popular culture to advocate for change in immigration policy. Until now, they have mostly made videos for YouTube. But Malakha Dutt, the executive director of Breakthough, decided that a first person video game might be the best way to address the detainment and deportation of immigrants.
ACT: Malakha Dutt: 9 seconds: ICED is something that anybody can play, wherever they're located, and see it as a way to understand unfair immigration laws in this country.
NARR: The name of the game, ICED, is a pun on ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The government created this organization after 9/11 to enforce immigration laws. According to Dutt, it's not only undocumented immigrants who get deported. Anyone who is not a citizen can be sent away if they are arrested or plead guilty to a any crime designated an "aggravated felony."
ACT: Malakha Dutt: 12 seconds: What many people don't realize is that detention and deportation laws affect legal permanent residents in the United States—asylum seekers, people on student visas, war veterans—pretty drastically.
NARR: ICED has five characters who are drawn from real cases. It can be downloaded for free and played on Macs or PCs. Players can choose one of the five characters and hear about their background. One character, Anna, is a legal permanent resident from Poland.
ACT: Game: 8 Seconds: In 1987, my father left Poland for the U.S. for a better life. We finally got our green cards and we were thrilled to have security.
NARR: Once a player chooses a character, the game begins. The first of two levels is a city scene based on New York City. There's a subway stop, a bagel store, a Chinese restaurant, even someone selling bootlegged DVDs/
ACT; Game: Come and get 'em, best copies around. New releases, two for ten. Great value. New releases, 2 for 10.
NARR: Soon after, the player learns something about immigration law.
ACT: Game: 7 seconds then fade under: Undocumented immigrants have less choice for jobs, so they are often forced to work selling bootegged products on the street to support their family.
NARR: When a player encounters a yellow light bulb, she must correctly answer a "Myth of Fact" question about immigration policy in order to collect points. Players also come across situations where they can commit crimes like picking up a gun or stealing a car. If a player does any of these things, she is quickly scooped up by policeand put into detention. The game's narrator explains.
ACT: Game: 10 seconds: Welcome to detention. You have just joined tens of thousands of immigrants who are locked up and fighting their deportation order. Right now, you're in Louisiana.
NARR: The detention center is a series of drab buildings connected by arid, brown grounds. Immigration agents walk around harrassing the player. They are the game's villains.
ACT: Game: 9 seconds and fade under: Now, back up against the wall you people, wherever you come from. Now this is an American prison. Get it, got it.
NARR: The object in detention is to get out. Players have to call family and meet with attorneys, all while facing the threat of solitary confinement. Occassionally, the player can choose to submit to voluntary deportation, ending the game. Heidi Boisvert, the lead designer of the game, used input from almost 100 local young people for the character profiles and the first level. For the detention center, she interviewed detainees.
ACT: Heidi Boisvert: 17 seconds: I tried to honestly represent some of the experience that a detainee would go through in terms of the conditions, in terms of what the place would look like, what it would fee llike, what it would sound like. So we had all of these sound effects that were basically given to me through the conduit of a detainee who told me his story.
NARR: But some advocates think immigrants who break the law should be subject to deportation. Ira Mehlman is a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform.
ACT: Mehlman: 18 seconds: When you are in this country as a legal immigrant or on some provisional basis, you are here on a conditional agreement, and one of those conditions is that you stay on the right side of the law. And if you violate that agreement, that whole agreement becomes null and void.
NARR: ICED is part of a new crop of video games that seek to promote social change. In June, an organization called Games for Change will sponsor a gathering of over 300 video game makers who make socially conscious video games.
Rafael Cohen, Columbia Radio News.