The border wall Kamala Harris claims she’s itching to build gets a workout in “Line in the Sand.”
Journalist-turned-filmmaker James O’Keefe shows parts of the finished wall getting cut in the documentary’s opening moments. It’s just one of many shocking sights in a film made outside the Hollywood ecosystem.
Of course.
The riveting documentary blends O’Keefe’s undercover work with good, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. The takeaway? The U.S./Mexico border is a crisis unfolding in real time.
And it’s even worse than we imagine.
Greed. Corruption. Government excess. Human trafficking. Drugs. Lost children. O’Keefe’s camera captures it all, with some melodramatic asides from O’Keefe.
O’Keefe and a small crew go south of the border to investigate the existing border wall and the parties that feed off of immigration chaos.
They interview plenty of migrants, finding some eager to share their stories and destinations. The dangers are immense for the wannabe Americans, from falling off moving trains to knowing children can disappear at any step in the journey.
Nothing stops them. They keep on coming, hoping for a sliver of the American dream.
The right-leaning O’Keefe has plenty of empathy for the migrants. They’ve been told by Team Biden to come on in. Heck, we’ll pick up the tab, the future president vowed during the 2020 campaign. He sadly kept his word.
O’Keefe is on hand every step of the way, narrating his journey and putting himself in harm’s way to glean information other journalists fear.
“I’m just doing my job,” he hears more than a few times from his interview subjects. Buck passing abounds. Moral lines are crossed over and again. And people react poorly when O’Keefe’s camera crew shows up.
The latter proves revealing. It also gives “Sand” some storytelling friction. The subject matter does the rest.
This clip from James O’Keefe’s “Line in the Sand” (you can watch the full documentary on the Tucker Carlson Network) will blow your mind. 🤯
An undercover journalist walked into NYC’s Roosevelt Hotel (which, btw was a beautiful, luxury hotel not so long ago) and asks for… pic.twitter.com/22Rq2wOkF3
— Communism Survivor (@communismsurviv) October 22, 2024
Not all of the revelations land as squarely as the film hopes. Sometimes O’Keefe’s showmanship feels unnecessary. He’s still doing the digging that so many journalists won’t, and he uncovers a treasure trove of despair and deceit.
A few revelations shouldn’t come as a surprise. Venezuelan criminals are flowing into the U.S., something Aurora, Colo. residents have learned the hard way.
As if ANY apartment complexes being commandeered by Tren de Aragua in Aurora is acceptable. There must be ZERO tolerance on this. Incredible mental gymnastics by Martha Raddatz on behalf of Coffman’s weak sauce statement. https://t.co/WIIlulzsqO
— Ryan Schuiling (@RyanSchuiling) October 13, 2024
Other migrants have better intentions, but they arrive knowing the exact towns where they’re headed. How does that happen?
And we watch buses taking illegals to various drop-off points, all on Uncle Sam’s dime (AKA our dime).
Some border patrol agents express frustration with doing a job with one hand tied behind their backs. And they’re the lucky ones. Others simply shrug and get back to “work.”
BREAKING: Federal Government Whistleblower Exposes $347M Contract for Transporting Unaccompanied Minors – “What You Know, You Cannot Unknow,”
“My line in the sand moment was when I found out that GSA had awarded a contract to a company to transport unaccompanied minors,” shared… pic.twitter.com/FVvMJg7kmK
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 22, 2024
The segments involving children hit the hardest. Trafficking abounds in border territories. We’re told parents aren’t automatically reunited with their children, while “sponsors” often take kids to what everyone hopes is a healthy home.
Last year’s sleeper hit “Sound of Freedom” touched on trafficking issue and got mauled by the press.
That tells you how radioactive the topic remains. Few, if any, media outlets will follow up on what O’Keefe uncovers. Anyone shocked?
Is some of the material in “Sand” distorted or otherwise tweaked to heighten the dramatic stakes? Possibly. Is all of it fake? Impossible.
We’re left with trouble questions. Why is this broken system only getting worse? Why is one party fine with the status quo and the other lacking the political will to bring real change to the border?
“It’s just all about the money. It’s not about people,” O’Keefe says in disbelief at one point. Watch “Line in the Sand,” and you’ll nod in agreement.
HiT or Miss: “Line in the Sand” is bleak, harrowing and necessary. And it took one of the original citizen journalists to make it possible.
