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The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly weighing a pitch for a reality series where immigrants would compete for a chance to win United States citizenship.
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A DHS representative said that the show is “in the very beginning stages of the vetting process.”
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Duck Dynasty producer Rob Worsoff is responsible for the pitch, and he reportedly presented it to both the Obama and Biden administrations before reaching out to President Donald Trump’s team.
The Department of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a pitch for a reality show in which immigrants would compete for a chance to win citizenship in the United States.
Producer Rob Worsoff confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that he has had discussions with members of the DHS about the show idea. The outlet reported that he’s received “positive” feedback from Trump officials about the pitch.
Worsoff also reached out to networks for “preliminary discussions’ to see if there was any interest in picking up the show if the DHS were to collaborate on it.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told WSJ that the show is only “in the very beginning stages” of a “vetting process” and not currently in the works.
Reports about the potential reality show were first picked up by Daily Mail, which reported that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was “backing” the series. However, Worsoff told WSJ that he had not spoken to Noem directly and isn’t sure whether she herself “has knowledge” of the pitch.
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Worsoff is someone who reality TV fans may already be familiar with from his work on shows like Duck Dynasty and The Millionaire Matchmaker. He immigrated to the U.S. from Canada.
“This isn’t The Hunger Games for immigrants,” he told WSJ. “This is not, ‘Hey, if you lose, we are shipping you out on a boat out of the country,’ ”
If the show were to proceed, he said that contestants would test their knowledge about a variety of American topics.
Worsoff previously pitched the idea for the show to the DHS under the Obama and Biden administrations, though the previous administrations did not proceed with the idea.
“Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval,” McLaughlin told WSJ.
PEOPLE reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for more information about Worsoff’s proposal.
WSJ reported that the DHS fields “hundreds of pitches a year for potential television shows, ranging from documentaries about border security operations to programs about white-collar investigations.”
They obviously do not move forward with every idea that they are presented with.
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Trump’s administration has faced intense scrutiny for its handling of immigrants in recent months.
In addition to aggressive immigration raids since Trump took office, the government has implemented controversial plans such as listing Latino immigrants as “dead” in the Social Security database, suggesting that they might be inclined to “self-deport” if benefits are cut off.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also been accused of arresting the wrong people while attempting to round up immigrants for deportation.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal immigrant, was deported and sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador earlier this year without due process. Federal courts ordered the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., but he remains in foreign custody.
Although Abrego Garcia was accused of being a member of a gang, his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura stressed that he was “not a criminal” during an April appearance on CBS Mornings.
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