TRAILS OF HOPE AND TERROR is a documentary film that attempts to answer the questions “Why do they come? And “Is there a “legal” path for the undocumented?” The filmmakers traveled to the U.S. border five times, beginning in 2012, to walk the desert and interview humanitarian groups, social workers, legal professionals, the undocumented, and anti-immigration protesters. What they found was that policies such as Operation Gatekeeper have been created as a system of "prevention through deterrence." In other words, if people were forced to cross a desert in where they were likely to die, then they might think twice about the risks. The fact is that few have been deterred, choosing to face death along the way.