Canadian says his TV pitch portrayed as Hunger Games for U.S. migrants was misrepresented

When Rob Worsoff recently dusted off an old idea he had for a reality television show about people on the path to United States citizenship, he had no idea of what he was letting himself in for.

The Canadian-born freelance television producer said he brought his pitch to build a show around aspiring immigrants learning about the culture of their new country to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under both the Obama and Biden administrations. He even brought a version of it to the CBC.

Worsoff then put his idea forward to the new Trump administration — but this time the 49-year-old got caught up in a global media and political backlash.

"The spirit of my pitch was completely misrepresented and it's been used as a political football," the Los Angeles-based producer said.

Worsoff said his proposal for a show to be called The American was leaked to the Daily Mail. The British tabloid reported last week that U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was considering approving the project — and described the proposed program as pitting immigrants against each other.

Other U.S. news organizations started reporting on it too, calling it the Hunger Games for migrants.

Noem told a Senate hearing this week that "there are no plans whatsoever to do a reality show."

Immigration has long been political in the United States but it became a flashpoint issue for voters ahead of the election last year. U.S. President Donald Trump promised to bring in sweeping reforms, shut down borders and launch mass deportations.

His administration has taken some highly controversial steps to fulfil those election promises.

There have been deportations to foreign prisons, including in El Salvador. The administration has cancelled student visas and sent foreign-born students to immigration detention centres after accusing them, without presenting evidence, of supporting Hamas and spreading antisemitism.

The Supreme Court heard a case on birthright citizenship after Trump signed an executive order attempting to abolish it in some cases.

Worsoff said he never saw his pitch as political, as either "blue or red." It developed from his own experience as a Canadian going through the U.S. immigration system, he said.

Worsoff grew up in Montreal a massive fan of TV, movies and comic books. He said he'd hoped to become a sports broadcaster and went to school in Syracuse, N.Y., to follow that dream.

On his way to his first official job as a weekend sports anchor for a local news station in Northern California, he hit a fateful fork in the road. He got a call from people who worked on the Howard Stern Show offering him a job as a production assistant in Los Angeles.

"I was literally in Utah," Worsoff said. "I was like going, 'Well, if I go right, I'm going to the redwoods and if I stay straight, I'm going to LA."

Worsoff kept driving straight.

It was the start of the reality television boom and Worsoff worked on some of the most popular shows, pitching others along the way. Breaking Bonaduce led to The Biggest Loser, which led to Millionaire Matchmaker. Eventually, he helped to develop the megahit Duck Dynasty.

"Thirty-five of the shows I've done you've never heard of. I worked on so many pilots," he said.

Worsoff said that sometime around 2005, when he was on his own journey toward United States citizenship, he began tinkering with the idea of a show that would educate people about the process while showcasing what America has to offer.

Essentially, his pitch was to send highly vetted people already on the path to citizenship to travel the country and experience its heritage and culture. There'd be things like a pizza challenge in New York, a pony express challenge in Oregon, a potato challenge in Idaho.

At the time, Worsoff was working with Canadian actor Jonathan Torrens on a short-lived reality show called Popularity Contest based in Texas. Torrens is well-known in Canada for co-hosting Street Cents and for his appearances on Degrassi: The Next Generation and as J-Roc on Trailer Park Boys.

Torrens said he quickly bonded with Worsoff and they became friends. Not long after, Worsoff shared his idea of a reality show about citizenship and Torrens suggested they consider a Canadian version to bring to the CBC.

"The idea was not dissimilar to the one he is trotting out now," Torrens said. "It was seeing the country we sometimes take for granted through the lens of people who would love to have what we sometimes take for granted — which is Canadian citizenship."

They talked a lot about the prize, Torrens said. A fast-track to citizenship would fit with the show's goal of celebrating the country without having anyone actually lose anything, Worsoff said — nobody would be deported or lose their place in line for immigration.

Torrens and Worsoff had a meeting with CBC in 2006 but ultimately the show wasn't picked up.

Torrens said he hadn't thought much about the pitch until it erupted in the U.S. news media last week. Torrens said Worsoff always had "his heart in the right place."

Since the pitch was leaked, Worsoff has faced a tsunami of backlash and hate-filled messages online.

He said he has "the most good-intentioned, heartfelt motivations."

Worsoff still stands behind the idea and said he is "twice as hell-bent" on getting the show made.

He said his idea was always to make the kind of television he likes to watch — shows with good characters and stories filled with "the hopes and dreams, the laughter and the tears and the heart."

"I have never believed more in my show, in my intentions, in working with the government and with working with the industry."