AllMovie

The mere fact of a marijuana plantation in the Mexican state of Chihuahua might not be enough to upset many, and many factors contribute to escalating lawlessness of the gangsters who cultivate and sell the drug. The plantation in question was much too large for the Mexican authorities to ignore even if they wanted to, and in 1984 it was raided. What they discovered there was much more chilling than fields of the illegal herb and a bunch of gangsters: nearly five thousand poor persons worked there as slave laborers, after having been lured to the plantation with promises of high wages for picking apples. This is one of two docudramas which were made about the incident. The story concerns a man whose efforts to support his family through working illegally in the U.S. were thwarted by thieves who stole his mail. When he discovers this after being deported, he responds to the promise of high wages for apple-picking and winds up being a slave laborer. In addition to the dramatic reenactment of events, this docudrama also includes footage of the actual raid on the plantation and interviews with survivors, which the actors then comment on.