New Video Game Based on Detention Story

The release of a new video game entitled “Homeland Guantanamos - The untold story of immigrant detention in the United States,” puts the player in the position of a journalist, and walks them through many of the factual aspects of immigrant detention. 

The game is an homage to Boubacar Bah, an immigrant who died in detention after being denied medical care in 2007. The game — created by Breakthrough, an international human rights organization in New York that is trying to get the public behind efforts to strengthen oversight, due process and medical help in immigration detention — uses Mr. Bah’s story to walk players through a simulated detention center, and into the documented ordeals of other detainees. They include a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor and an Army veteran held for three years while he fought deportation.  In the end, the game leads you to a memorial wall, with the names of the more than 87 detainees who have died since 2003.

Mixing fact and fantasy is familiar territory for Breakthrough, which seeks to galvanize young people by using the new tools of popular culture to put them in the shoes of legal and illegal immigrants. In February, it introduced “ICED — I Can End Deportation,” a game in which players assume the role of one of five characters with uncertain immigration status, trying to avoid deportation and to secure citizenship.

The game has been downloaded 110,000 times. Some supporters of stricter enforcement called the game propaganda for illegal immigration. But many educational, religious and immigrant advocacy groups embraced it as an antidote to “Border Patrol,” an Internet game in which the player shoots at caricatured Latinos running across the United States-Mexico border.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the video game was “a work of fiction that dehumanizes the individuals depicted and grossly distorts conditions in detention facilities.” She added, “I believe that most informed people know that they leave reality at the door when they enter the world of video games.”