The Hope College Knickerbocker Theatre is showing the award-winning film "Crossing Arizona", on Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 20-22, and Monday-Thursday, 24-27 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The film has been seen at the Knickerbocker before and returns now as a sponsored event for the Hope College Critical Issues Symposium which focuses on immigration this year.

The symposium, "Immigration: Shaping and Reshaping America," will take place on Oct. 2 and 3. Activist Mike Wilson, featured in the film, and director Dan DeVivo will take part in a session at the symposium on Oct. 3.

With Americans on all sides of the issue up in arms and Congress embroiled in a knock-down drag-out policy battle over how to move forward, "Crossing Arizona" shows how we got to where we are today.

An estimated 4,500 people attempt to illegally cross the border in the treacherous Arizona desert every day. This influx of migrants crossing through Arizona and the attendant rising death toll have elicited complicated feelings about human rights, culture, class, labor and national security.

"Crossing Arizona" examines the crisis through the eyes of those directly affected by it. Frustrated ranchers go out day after day to repair cut fences and pick up the trash that endangers their livestock and livelihoods. Humanitarian groups place water stations in the desert in an attempt to save lives. Political activists rally against anti-migrant ballot initiatives and try to counter rampant fear mongering. Farmers who depend on the illegal work force face each day with the fear that they may lose their workers to a border patrol sweep. And now there are the Minutemen, an armed citizen patrol group taking border security into their own hands.

Tickets for the film are $6 for regular admission and $5 for students and senior citizens.

More information on the film may be obtained at www.crossingaz.com. More information on the Critical Issues Symposium is available at www.hope.edu/cis.

The Knickerbocker Theatre is located in downtown Holland at 86 E. Eighth St.