Written By Amanda Green and Daniel Truly
Directed By Jonathan Kaplan
Three children are murdered, all of them "anchor babies" of immigrant families, causing SVU to investigate the Center of Immigrant Services for an employee with an axe to grind. An anti-immigrant talk show host also gets involved when his hate speech is cited by the defense as the inspiration for the murders.
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: It's Fin who mostly has this episode to himself where the murders the three immigrant children bother him.
- Asshole Victim: The episode ends with Randall Carver shooting Joe dead after getting him acquitted. Considering Joe was a racist scumbag who went after children due to them being "anchor babies" and secretly told Carver he was going to kill again, it's safe to say nobody was sad the son of a bitch was dead.
- Categorism as a Phobia: Joseph Thagard had killed a lot of immigrant children and was overtly racist with his serial killing being an obvious hate-crime. But Randall Carver somehow managed to convince the jury that the man couldn't help it - that his racism should be regarded as a mental illness. Carver took the case because he had seen his father "swept by evil forces" (his father was a Klansman) and believed the same thing happened to his client, but he murdered Thagard after learning that he fully intended to kill again.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Clouded his judgment may be, Carver does make a good point of the fact that as long as racist pundits like Garrison continue to spread their bigotry via the Internet and the airways, there will always be those who go over the deep end and act on them.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Randall Carver, a defense attorney, succeeds in getting his client Joseph Thagard, who was charged with murdering the children of immigrants, found "not guilty". Joseph whispered to him his intent to continue murdering, disturbing him greatly and leading Carver to kill him.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Cragen tries calling Fin out for disregarding his orders, Fin, in turn calls him out on allowing Elliot and Olivia to get away with "bending the rules".Cragen: When the Chief of Ds gives an order, we follow it.
