PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Kristal Sotomayor is an unabashed South Philly artist with a bright future ahead of them, or at least that’s what audiences of the BlackStar Film Festival are saying now after Sotomayor won its Philadelphia Filmmaker Award following the Philly debut of their short documentary “Expanding Sanctuary.”
“It was a big deal,” Sotomayor told KYW. “I’ve been working on the film for over six years.”
The film follows longtime South Philly immigrant rights organization Juntos in its fight to end Philadelphia’s PARS agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. PARS, which stands for Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System, is a records database shared by the police, District Attorney’s Office and the courts. Under the agreement, some of the records on the database were shared with ICE.
ICE would use those records to carry out immigration enforcement (mostly deportation) on individuals who had not been arrested, or accused or convicted of any crime.
“And they ended up winning,” Sotomayor said of Juntos’ fight to end the PARS agreement. Philadelphia did not renew its PARS agreement with ICE after it expired on Aug. 31, 2018.
By following that fight to its conclusion, “Expanding Sanctuary” also became a message about the power of community, especially the one Sotomayor found in South Philly.
“Making sure the community knew the incredible work they were doing and that we are here to fight for one another,” she said.