Eddie cautions everyone not to confide that they have someone staying with them as the Immigration Board pays informers to find illegal migrants, and will deport them.  The problem is Eddie’s paternal relationship with Catherine because he is possessive and controlling.  He refuses to accept that she is no longer a child but able to work and make her own choices.

Dominic West is very powerful as the pater familias, refusing to acknowledge his own impotence difficulties with his wife and the incestuous sexual attraction he feels for his niece/daughter.  This problem might have raised its head anyhow but the catalyst is Rodolpho, the peroxide blond younger illegal, who seems unmanly to Eddie because of his manner and his liking to sing.  Eddie also criticises the way Rodolpho spends his first wages on clothes and shoes and records instead of sending money to Sicily to support his brother Marco’s malnourished children, at which point we can all agree with Eddie’s misgivings. 

The other red flag is the ease with which a proposed migrant can get a passport if he marries an American national. So when Rodolpho invites Catherine out on a date Eddie suspects his motives and his heterosexuality.  Catherine of course has no experience of a boyfriend and her sheltered existence has not equipped her for the real world.