Immigrant Daily

Play “ICED” and find out what it is like to be “illegal”

ICED is a game from Breakthrough – an international human rights organization that uses popular culture to attain awareness about human rights issues.  This game teaches its players about the problems that immigrants and non-immigrants face daily in the United States.  Often when I read news about immigration, I stumble across posts by the anti-immigrant crowd that makes it seem like a piece of cake to be an immigrant in this country.  Well I suggest to those folks that crawling across a desert or being an adjustment applicant for multiple years is not the walk in the park that they think.

A short description of the game from its producers:

This 3D downloadable game, teaches players about the unjust nature of U.S immigration policy and the harsh 1996 laws, which affect legal permanent residents, asylum seekers, students and undocumented people. These laws are violating human rights and tearing families apart.

Game players have to live the day-to-day life of an immigrant teen. The teens are constantly being chased by immigration officers, while making moral/consequential decisions and answering myth & fact quizzes about current immigration policies.

If the player chooses or answers incorrectly, he/she increases his or her chances of being thrown into detention. Once in detention, the player endures both physical separation from his/her family and unjust conditions while awaiting, often for unknown amounts of time, the random outcome of his/her case.