The Department of Homeland Security is open to “out-of-the-box” TV show pitches, including a widely reported one about immigrants competing for citizenship, but the agency says that project is not in development right now.
The pitch in question comes from “Duck Dynasty” producer Rob Worsoff, who has proposed a reality competition series about a group of prospective immigrants who are taken to Ellis Island via boat and are greeted there by the show’s host, pitched as a famous naturalized American like Sofia Vergara or Ryan Reynolds. Each episode would follow the show’s contestants as they travel on a train across America, competing in challenges and tests unique to each region they visit.
At the end of each episode, one contestant — and their seat on the show’s central train — would be eliminated.
Potential challenges would reportedly include mining for gold in San Francisco and assembling car parts in Detroit factories. At the end of each season, one winner would be sworn in as an American citizen on Capitol Hill by an official American politician or judge. Worsoff has purportedly pitched this project before, during both the Biden and Obama presidencies.
On Thursday, The Daily Mail reported that “ICE Barbie” herself, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, supported the pitch and was pushing for it to be made. That claim has, however, been fervently disputed.
“The reporting by the Daily Mail is completely false, and an affront to respectable journalism,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to TheWrap. “Secretary Noem has not ‘backed’ or even reviewed the pitch of any scripted or reality show.”
“The Department of Homeland Security receives hundreds of television show pitches a year, ranging from documentaries surrounding ICE and CBP border operation to white collar investigations by HSI. Each proposal undergoes a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval,” McLaughlin’s statement continued. “If the excuse for a reporter at the Daily Mail had even thought to ask, he would have learned the show in question is in the very beginning stages of that vetting process and has not received approval or denial by staff.”
“We get hundreds of pitches for shows. This country needs to revive patriotism and civic duty and we’re happy to review out-of-the-box pitches,” McLaughlin also noted.
Worsoff’s pitch is, in other words, very much real. But the Department of Homeland Security has neither rejected it nor decided to help develop it.
In recent months, the Trump administration has been aggressively pursuing and implementing the president’s promised mass deportation plan. Noem, for her part, has taken full advantage of the initiative, posing for photo-ops throughout America and the world, including at the El Salvador prison where over 200 immigrants were deported over alleged ties to Venezuelan criminal organizations.
Noem’s publicity stunts have earned her the nickname “ICE Barbie.”
