The DREAMers are the safe ones, right? It's okay to advocate for the DREAMers because they're the English-speaking, college-educated ones, right? It's so interesting that I set out to document DREAMers, but what I ended up doing was actually documenting the experience of, the reality and truth of, the moms and the parents.

To this day writing is the most painful thing to do.

The immigration bill is going to pass. We're going to have a bill. It's going to get through the Senate. I think the fundamentals are there and the foundation is strong and the bill is going to happen. The House is going to be trickier, but I think it's going to happen there too.

The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about...?"

Film, as any immigrant will tell you, television and movies is the way we make sense of America when we first got here.

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.

To be in America illegally is actually a civil offense and not a criminal one.