Ironflix presents Omoni Oboli (Joyce Unanga), Sam Sarpong (Paul Unanga), Terri Oliver (Susan Backley), Collin Paradine (Tim), Mark Cassius (Attn John Rogdougougan), Santigo Lopera (Joy Rosario), Joshua Teixeira (Chris Castillo). Producer, Lonzo Nzekwe; Co-Producer, Ian Sun, Jeremy Hood; Writer/ Director, Lonzo Nzekwe; Associate Producer, Malachi Richards, Chukwudi Nzekwe; Director of Photography, Richard Diaz, C.S.C. ©2019
The movie starts with tense moments of ICE closing in on Paul Unanga (Sam Sarpong) and his wife, Joyce Unanaga (Omoni Oboli) pregnant, in her trimester. They are both illegal and have overstayed and slated for voluntary deportation. Paul is ready to leave, but Joyce must stay to have a United States baby. A child born in the United States has lots of promise and hope. He even dreams of buying his son he already named Uche, a basketball at age three to be the next Kobe.
Before he leaves for work that morning, he lets Joyce promise him that whatever it takes, she’s going to stay in the United States to have their baby. They kiss upon the promise. At work, this one morning, ICE swarms the building, arresting all illegals, but Paul manages to get away even as he drops his phone, which the ICE officer took. The next morning his wife leaves for a walk around the block when ICE barges in the apartment room and officer Castillo reads him his deportation rights and orders. They carry Paul away and get deported back to Nigeria. But before then, Paul calls from Immigration holding center:
Paul (on the phone), “Joyce, it’s me, Paul.”
Joyce (on the phone), “Babe, where are you?”
Paul (on the phone), “I’m at the immigration holding center.”
Joyce (on the phone), “Babe, what do I do?”
Paul (on the phone), “I don’t know but, please listen. Where are you now? I want you to get out of the apartment immediately.”
Joyce (on the phone), “I don’t care if they catch me. I want to be with you now.”
Paul (on the phone), “So you want to throw away everything we’ve worked for, just because I get arrested?”
Joyce (on the phone), “Paul, you know things are going to be difficult for me. I don’t know if I can do this all by myself.”
Paul (on the phone), “Yes, you can. You are a strong black woman. One more thing, I don’t want you ever to use your real name. I don’t care where.”
Joyce (on the phone), “I don’t know how you expect me to do this.”
Paul (on the phone), “Yes, you can. Take the savings from under the bed. You can stay in a motel for now.”
Joyce is left by herself to her wits. She’s now in her fifth month of pregnancy and had developed some problems, so she had to see a doctor. The problem, however, no medical office could see her without proper identity. On a visit to a doctor, a woman who goes by the name of Susan Backley (Terri Oliver) befriends her. Susa decides to help her out of a place to stay. The one sticky problem, though, Joyce must take Susan Backley’s identity; that way, she can use her insurance card and gain treatment and have the baby.
You may think it’s all good for Joyce will have medical attention until she has the baby and a place to stay. The biological mother’s name should be Joyce Backley. One thing happened in the event of living with Susan. Susan mysteriously gets pregnant, an opportunity she has been looking forward to for years. Paul dismissed Joyce when she told him how puzzling everything looked. Joyce puts to bed a baby boy and is glad when the baby’s passport arrives in the mail. She’s ready to depart for Nigeria, yet she finds the biological mother’s name of the mother is Susan Barkley, and therefore, Joyce couldn’t travel with Uche.
Susan decides to travel with Joyce to Nigeria as an escort, and deliver the baby and then comes back to the United States. At the airport, Joyce kisses her baby boy one more time before entering the airport immigration office, for clearance to travel out of the country. She’s handcuffed and escorted out of the office. Susan has disappeared with the baby while Joyce alone is escorted by ICE officers to a holding cell, before her deportation date, and to the gate to board the plane to Nigeria.
Watching Anchor Baby could be gut-wrenching for we the haggard; we the tired, the poor huddled masses. We put ourselves in the shoes of Paul when he receives Joyce at the Mutala Mohamad Airport, without his Uche. It means all that the hardships the couple went through in America went in vain. The system manipulated Joyce to abandon her negroid DNA in a country, that has no place for strangers anymore. Susan and her husband have been wanting to have a baby but no way, so running into Susan and standing in for her was the right opportunity for them to have somebody’s child as their’s practically for free. It was all fake, a couple preying on desperate illegal aliens needing help.
This film concerns itself with social problem-immigration. The concern isn’t so much as to expose the evils and callousness perpetrated by the system; the ills and criticism of the institution, it may be looking at ways for reform. Anchor Baby presents a narrative of a day to day events the illegal immigrants go through. And it could even be a lesson for those who may want to lure themselves into such situations.
The accidental murder of an officer, Chris Castillo (Joshua Teixeira), by the Rosario kid, is a testament to the downside of the immigration law. We sense resentment between the Rosario kid and officer Castillo’s son at the basketball court. Two kids, both citizens, are growing up in an environment when both shall look at each other with disdain. He won’t stand to see his parents after been here before he was born, and now seventeen, his parents dehumanized, placed face-down on the floor and handcuffed, in the ICE raid of their apartment. He shoots officer Castillo dead. He is shot dead too. The Rosarios lost their only son, and ICE lost officer Castillo. A loss caused by the system, and to the system.