Patriot Acts (Sree Nallamothu) Rating: NNN
Rating: NNN
This is a workmanlike documentary that will make the USA’s Patriot Act personal for you if it isn’t already. It follows two Pakistani men, Tariq Moti and Mohammad Tariq, and their immigration lawyer, Christopher Helt, as they struggle to establish legal status in the United States and avoid persecution under a law that saw 83,000 Muslim men over 16 questioned and fingerprinted and 2,800 detained without charge between November 2002 and April 2003.
Moti winds up in jail for three months, essentially because of a clerical error and a poorly timed visit to a jewellery store. Tariq waits in limbo to see if he and his family will be deported before his two blind children can complete their medical treatment.
What’s sobering in light of Canada’s dicey deportation record is that many people in the film move here to make refugee claims when the States starts to feel too threatening. (May 20, Innis Town Hall)
