At a time when immigration is a pivotal issue in Arizona, a new documentary about immigration at the border of the United States and Mexico, “Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis,” will hold its premiere at the Worldwide Women’s Film Festival in Scottsdale at 10:50 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18 at the Harkins Shea 14 Theatre, 7354 E. Shea Blvd.

The mission of the Worldwide Women’s Film Festival is to educate, support and empower filmmakers in the collaborative effort of filmmaking while shining a light on stories by women, and other diverse experiences across genders. Director Victoria Bruce and Supervising Producer Kristin Schrecker will be in attendance.

“Las Abogadas” (which means “women lawyers” in Spanish) follows five immigration attorneys over a multi-year odyssey as the U.S. government under President Donald Trump upends every law meant to protect asylum seekers fleeing from persecution, violence and war.

“After learning that attorneys Rebecca Eichler and Charlene D’Cruz had driven a Volkswagen bus to intercept 5,000 migrants in central Mexico in 2018, I knew that I had to make this movie,” said filmmaker Bruce. “By centering the film around brave attorneys often working for nonprofits or completely pro bono, we show true, modern-day heroes standing up to insurmountable odds.”

From setting up a mobile legal aid clinic in the middle of a migrant caravan, to forcing border guards to follow the law and accept a blind woman into U.S. custody, to crossing the border to counsel African migrants stuck in Tijuana, to standing up to human traffickers in a makeshift refugee camp along the Mexican side of the border, to giving legal advice in the hot Mexican sun to families desperate to see American soil — viewers watch the attorneys’ surreal journeys.

The film features the stories of several asylum-seeking individuals or families as they try to navigate the U.S. immigration system while stranded on the Mexican side of the border due to U.S. government policies. The asylum seekers were all forced to flee their home countries to avoid persecution and violence at the hands of their governments or of bad actors who those governments were unwilling or unable to control.