THEY’RE HERE (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
They’re Here Documents ICE’s Confrontational Action in Minneapolis
Unfolding in the style of horror film, which it is, directors Laura Poitras’ and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s They’re Here documents ICE’s illegal, combative activity in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this past winter. Immediately mimicking the menacing, stalking point-of-view shots that evoke anxiety in that genre of films, the association is apt given ICE’s threatening, frightening, even terrorizing men, women, and children. In a revealing, informative 25 minutes, They’re Here presents the array of tactics used by ICE agents in military uniforms and, almost universally, with partial masks covering their faces, thereby concealing their identity.
First, through the snow packed streets, dashcam footage captures a car in forward motion as “Liz Lemon’s” voiceover (an anonymous observer) relates ICE information. Liz follows an ICE car to her house where she yells, off camera, “You know what you’re doing is illegal, right?” She continues following the ICE car as it circles back to her house again, an intimidating move. Next, Éden Villa, a pseudonym for a Spanish-speaking man hidden in a trunk, talks of rumors of drones and reports of two people killed, as he tells his son to drive slowly. Éden takes refuge in the car’s trunk because he must get to work and is certain ICE would never think to look there certain that in sub-zero temperature he’d get hypothermia. Footage shot later by co-director Mueller captures Éden’s claustrophobic enclosure. Next, several posters on a wall identify ICU Nurse Alex Pretti and American Mom Rénee Nicole Good, confirmation of two people killed by ICE. Additional social media footage shot by teenage Chicagoan brothers Sam and Ben Luhmann depicts combative clashes, with artist Josh Begley’s ICE Air Operations map and Nick Benson’s database of flight tail numbers documenting analytical efforts to track ICE. Finally, local groups’ ICE Activity Map, briefly included, lists over 11,000 incidents, as noted in press notes.
As detailed, in the excerpted scenes, ICE representatives confront, scuffle with, and attack protestors. In two scenes, extreme long shots of planes, one Eastern Air and one Global Air, capture vans pulling up on the tarmac after which handcuffed men walk up stairs onto the planes. In other confrontations, ICE releases green smoke which protestors warn each other not to breathe. If they do, they choke and cough, as the camera records. One young woman protester is knocked to the ground by several ICE men and dragged bloodied toward a van. Meantime, activists monitor ICE movements and crowdsource data to each other regarding ICE locations and actions. As closing titles state, “During its 3-month occupation of Minneapolis, ICE abducted thousands of immigrants. Tens of thousands of residents volunteered to document ICE’s activities and abuse of power,” adding that “ICE continues its abductions across the US. Their goal is to deport 1 million people per year. The agency’s budget is over $70 billion.”
In press notes, Poitras explains that the title came from a 10-second Instagram post of “a beautiful idyllic winter landscape with the sound of voices screaming ‘lock you doors,’ ‘stay inside,’ ‘they’re here!’” Significantly, in a quick 25-minute documentary, directors Poitras and Mueller encapsulate what this government-sponsored deportation means in human terms. In response to events, the federal government has charged the “Minneapolis 15” who organized blockades with conspiracy and describes them as “domestic terrorists.” They’re Here presents, as Mueller describes it, what “the rise of authoritarianism and the decay of civil liberties feels like.” As directly and insightfully presented in They’re Here, those documenting ICE activities and courageously intervening risk their safety in order to assert and safeguard all our rights. They’re Here is showing at this year’s New York Film Festival.
