The Center

When immigration enforcement activity increases in South Florida, parents can be detained without notice, leaving children in the care of relatives, neighbors, or friends. At the Guatemalan-Maya Center in Lake Worth Beach, staff begin locating detained parents and organizing the immediate aftermath.

The film follows Mari and her team through extended workdays, staying with phone calls, translation, and coordination as events unfold. Conversations move between English, Spanish, and Maya languages, and much of the work is shaped by waiting and incomplete information. The camera remains present as decisions are made in real time, moving from contemplative quiet moments to active detainments and raids.

The Center also stays close to the families themselves, to what a detainment looks like up close, and to a community that keeps showing up in ways that rarely make it on camera. Filming extends beyond Florida to Guatemala, where children reunite with parents months after separation.

Access to this work is granted through a formal partnership, allowing the film to observe spaces and processes that are rarely documented. The Center is a feature-length observational documentary currently in production, filmed through an ongoing collaboration with the Guatemalan-Maya Center.

The Center is an intimate verite documentary, without narration or sit-down interviews. the story emerges through sustained observation of daily labor, waiting, and the ways a community responds when the people holding it together are suddenly gone.

Part of this reporting aired nationally for the first time on Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, produced in partnership with Six Eye Films.
[Listen to the episode here → https://revealnews.org/podcast/ice-immigration-family-separation-parents-perez-florida/]

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