Samantha Bee reinvents the Christmas special with immigration policy, song, Jon Stewart doing Bob Dylan

Samantha Bee hosted her very own, very special Full Frontal Christmas show on Wednesday night. The theme was Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. "The reason I'm here doing a Christmas special tonight with a bunch of tasteless ICE puns locked and loaded is that this is a tremendously difficult time to be an immigrant in America," she explained, and her special doubled as a fundraiser for the group Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which has set up a special fund with Full Frontal to help the migrant families separated under President Trump's policies.

The entire special was a mixture of immigration policy and Christmas cheer, with some NSFW language, a dash of politics, and a subplot about Bee's issues with ice skating. "The world is dark," Bee said, but she promised to brighten it with her "half hour of tinsel and trees and carols and skating and celebrity cameos." She started with a song.

Most of the special guests were lumped together in Bee's parody of "We Are the World," the 1986 charity song by America's singing elite. You can watch 1980s film icons like Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, and Jon Cryer sing about eggnog, with newer stars like Olivia Munn and Patton Oswalt — and Jon Stewart channeling Bob Dylan.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

There were helpful segments, like Bee and figure skater Adam Rippon explaining how Americans can legally help immigrants deal with ICE:

Bee also tried to find hope in McAllen, Texas, visiting the bus depot — the "new Ellis Island" — where the luckier migrants are dropped off.

And she visited Lumpkin, Georgia, bringing good tidings (and real estate) outside the largest ICE detention center in America.

Many Christmas trees are grown by undocumented immigrants, Amy Hoggart discovered. She suggested that ICE is endangering future Christmases.

Bee wrapped it all up in her closing message about the meaning of Christmas. Again, there is some NSFW language. Watch below. Peter Weber