When Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson decided to turn their penetrating focus to the immigration reform debate in 2001, I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect that one film would have blossomed to a dozen, and that the central issues would remain unresolved a decade later.  On the other hand, their series is designed to shine a light on how democracy works today. And the mosaic they have produced suggests a couple of answers: it doesn’t work very well or if it does, it works very, very slowly.

“The Senators’ Bargain“, the final episode of the series but the one that airs first, tracks the immigration reform bill’s 2007 demise. I was lucky to get a sneak preview, but revisiting the scars from the bill’s failure was emotional . . . and exhausting.  Exhausting not only because I felt the months of tension and sleeplessness from that time hit me again like a ton of bricks, but because it brought to life in yet another way the consequences of our failure. The millions of families and workers counting on us to help their voices be heard in Congress were the ones who came under siege when the legislation tanked. …