Thread: Role Play an ILLEGALS Life in Video Game

Read the Article and you should be able to download the game. Also add comments at the bottom of the Article. Have Fun.

"A human rights organization today unveiled a new video game called ``ICED!,'' which stands for ``I Can End Deportation."
The game is free for download at www.icedgame.com.

The creators of ICED! said it is ``designed to spark dialogue and create awareness of unfair U.S. immigration policies.''

In the videogame, players can choose from five characters -- including an undocumented immigrant and lawful permanent resident. The ultimate goal is to become a U.S. citizen. The players make moral choices, like whether to hop a subway turnstile or shoplift. The characters are pursued by immigration officials, who try to detain and deport them. Players earn points to help avoid deportation by doing positive things.

The game was created by Breakthrough, a New York-based human rights organization, along with community organizations and high school teachers and students.

UPDATE FROM MIZANUR RAHMAN:

I got an advance peek at ICED! and tested my immigration knowledge.

For game play, I picked the character Javier, a 20-year-old who migrated to the U.S. from Mexico with his family on visitor visas. He works as delivery boy in New York City and wants to become a teacher. But his family overstayed their visas and now can be deported. He's waiting for passage of the DREAM Act (the law that would put undocumented student immigrants on the path to legalization).

I quickly earned a pot of points, for planting trees, recycling a soda can, giving money to the homeless and volunteering in a soup kitchen. But then I faced a dilemma: I came across someone on a street corner registering people to vote. Should I register? The game warns me that if I register I increase my chances of being deported. It also tells you there are millions of immigrants in the country who are legal and pay taxes but cannot vote. I play it safe and walk away.

Then I stumble upon someone selling counterfeit DVDs. Should I buy? The game tells me that any association with illegal activities could draw ICE's attention. I pass on the DVDs.

Temptation strikes again: a car with the key in the ignition. Should I steal the car? That was easy. No way.

My play was going smoothly until ... I got busted by immigration agents for something in my past. I apparently had a baby when I was underage with my 16-year-old girlfriend. Technically, I broke the law. My family was split up, and I was hauled off to a detention center in Louisiana.

I could be there for five months or five years. It's uncertain. And I have no access to a free lawyer. I stopped playing before the next phase of the game -- navigating the world of immigration detention.

ICED! hopes to teach people the facts and myths surrounding immigration. It succeeds at illustrating how quickly and unexpectedly an undocumented immigrant's life can unravel. But immigration is an incredibly complex and nuanced issue -- one that is difficult to simplify into a video game. (For instance, as far as I could tell, the game makes no mention of how to address the thousands of immigrants who commit serious crimes.)

But the value of the game rests in its simple premise of walking in an immigrant's shoes and experiencing their world."

http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/arch ... _teac.html

"But the value of the game rests in its simple premise of walking in an immigrant's shoes and experiencing their world."


Your kidding , right?

Why do a give a carp , I don't want to be them , I could care
less how hard they have it

I want them gone

The more the fear , the more they are scared

the better

From what I understand our young people spend more time playing video games than reading and watching TV all together. These games are a perfect way to “brainwashâ€

I quickly earned a pot of points, for planting trees, recycling a soda can, giving money to the homeless and volunteering in a soup kitchen. But then I faced a dilemma: I came across someone on a street corner registering people to vote. Should I register? The game warns me that if I register I increase my chances of being deported. It also tells you there are millions of immigrants in the country who are legal and pay taxes but cannot vote. I play it safe and walk away.

Then I stumble upon someone selling counterfeit DVDs. Should I buy? The game tells me that any association with illegal activities could draw ICE's attention. I pass on the DVDs.

Temptation strikes again: a car with the key in the ignition. Should I steal the car? That was easy. No way.

My play was going smoothly until ... I got busted by immigration agents for something in my past. I apparently had a baby when I was underage with my 16-year-old girlfriend. Technically, I broke the law. My family was split up, and I was hauled off to a detention center in Louisiana

Same thing happens to legal citizens every single day. The old lady who failed the breathalizer at a vehicle check point because she took NyQuill before she left home. (True story...happened in Syracuse.)Charged with a DUI. A teacher that did nothing wrong but give a student a grade they didn't like but deserved, and so a group of students got together and claimed she made "advances" to get her fired. The secretary who was told by the Dr. to put services down not given and told don't worry...it's OK everybody does it....but she is charged with insurance fraud. The 18 yr old guy who has sex with his 16 almost 17 year old girlfriend...but her parents don't like him and now he's a "sex offender". The mother held over at work and told she MUST stay or loose her job, not allowed to use the phone for "personal business" and is late in picking her child up at school and is charged with neglect. We are all faced with choices and decisions and consiquences....fair or not, not consistant in enforcement or even clear, where our lives are forever changed. Except we can't run to another country and get a clean slate to start over...or get a new identity with ease and give life another go without fear of being caught either. That's LIFE....not just the life of an illegal.

i just downloaded and played the game.

When the software tried to establish communications with an outside source, I blocked that with my virus protection.

This game is so stupid.

The initial play is based on the premise that if you plant trees, recycle cans, adopt a pet, volunteer at a food shelter, fight global warming, raise funds for a detained immigrant, and pick up trash you can gain points that will help you stay in the US.

Then you run into people on the street and the game instructs you that stealing cars, spray painting public or private property, buying stolen and forged goods, registering to vote as an illegal aliens, or shoplifting are all bad ideas because they can get you separated from your friends and family forever because you might get deported!

The game takes up for criminal activity all the way and when you are offered stolen or forged DVDs for sale, the game explains that many undocumenteds are forced to do things like sell fake DVDs because of the unfair laws in the US!

When my character was sent to the detention center, I was supposed to go around and make progress getting out, but I chose to accept deportation and it launched into another sob story and blamed the attorneys and court system for my problems.

W

Why would anyone want to play this garbage? The only thing this game does is to brainwash youg people into believing that it is alright for citizens of countries to sneak in here, even though it is against the law to do so.

It attempts to justify them being here as "good" illegals
as opposed to "bad" illegals

Both the same in my book

The point is not if they are “good or hardworking peopleâ€

Why would anyone want to play this garbage? The only thing this game does is to brainwash youg people into believing that it is alright for citizens of countries to sneak in here, even though it is against the law to do so.

Or how to get around the laws for as long as you can and then cry victim.

How can you randomly do inspections when you let the company know a month in advance and give the exact time and date of when they will be arriving? How is it a "random" check point when they put it in the paper and people claim they are unfairly being "targeted" when they were warned? Sounds like this game is more about how to get around things than to just obey the law. Should be the moral of the story to not break the law to begin with because look at all the other laws you break in the process that opens you up to being caught so much easier.

With that logic....I want a better life..I get a job..it doesn't pay enough...so I steal...then I have garage sales with the stolen items and go to pawn shops and sell things on E-Bay.....I get caught and now everyone showers me with money and sends me plazma tv's because I intended to get a better life and did! Wa-la! The end justifies the means.

It's my Dad's fault and the churches fault and I was lied to this whole time!!!! Dishonesty does pay...stealing does pay...lying does pay when you are rewarded exactly for what you were doing wrong. I mean what is wrong with wanting a better life? It's natural and normal and hey...I didn't kill anyone. I recycled the cans...replanted that tree in my yard that I heisted from the local garden shop......I even gave my neighbor that stolen stove when theirs broke down. I helped my neighbors plow their drives with the stolen snow blower.....I even mowed the churches lawn for free with the stolen lawn mower and the gas I syphened from someone else. See....I'm a GOOD person!!!!!