Trump administration is threatening legal action to stop Netflix's Immigration Nation from being released before the election

The New York Times

"After granting rare access to parts of the country’s powerful immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from seeing the light of day," reports The New York Times' Caitlin Dickerson of the Netflix six-episode immigration docuseries, which released its trailer on Wednesday. "Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid. At town hall meetings captured on camera, agency spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. But the filmmakers observed numerous occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records." Dickerson reports that filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz turned drafts of all six episodes of Immigration Nation to ICE leadership in keeping with a contract they had signed with the agency. "What they encountered next resembled what happened to Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece, who was eventually sued in an unsuccessful attempt to stop her from publishing a memoir that revealed embarrassing details about the president and his associates," says Dickerson. "Suddenly, Ms. Clusiau and Mr. Schwarz say, the official who oversaw the agency’s television and film department, with whom they had worked closely over nearly three years of filming, became combative...In heated phone calls and emails, they said, the official pushed to delay publication of the series, currently set to air on Netflix next month. He warned that the federal government would use its 'full weight' to veto scenes it found objectionable. Several times, the filmmakers said, the official pointed out that it was their 'little production company,' not the film’s $125 billion distributor, that would face consequences." Immigration Nation is scheduled to be released on Aug. 3.