Faced with deportation at the end of his work permit, an Asian employee tries to get hate-crimed to secure a green card.

Director’s Vision for ‘VISA’

Living in the US as an international citizen is living on borrowed time. You’ve committed yourself to study and work oceans away from your family; you adopt an American name alongside your native surname because you can’t fathom another person pronouncing your birth name wrong; and your identity gets torn between your home and adopted country.

Your life can also be uprooted instantaneously: regardless of how hard you try, your immigration status is eventually dependent on three tries at a 1/300 green card lottery system. Similar to Kevin, there is a real possibility that as an Asian international, I will also be deported next year for circumstances outside of my control.

VISA is more than a simple one-line joke about a very-real type of specialized green card. The film is about immigrants’ desires for a career, a kinship, and a home in the US. The film sheds light on an overlooked and often-exploited population of the American workforce, who live in uncertain conditions with the precarious promise of a job sponsorship and the looming threat of sudden deportation. Our crew is entirely made up of Asian internationals and Asian immigrants who share these worries.

This film is for all the Kevin Nguyens whose futures hang in the balance.