- Look at a human being and say,
"You deserve to be under one roof
with the people that you love."
- But does that give you a right to break into my house?
- Exactly. - To break into whose house?
- Yeah. - Our house.
- Because we can take that back and think about
whose house? - Our house.
(cymbal roll echoing)
(slow drumming music)
- Hello, I'm Ernesto Rocha
and I am a proud undocumented storyteller.
- My name is Juan Camillo Gonzalez Chorio Lara.
For the Gringos, JC.
I'm a singer and actor.
- I'm Danyeli.
I'm a spoken word artist and a paralegal,
and I was undocumented for 12 years.
- Jonathon Miranda and I'm pro-wall.
- Hi, I'm Julie.
I'm a grad student and I'm also undocumented.
- Jazmina Savetra.
I'm a immigrant.
I came to this country through the legal process.
(titles whoosh)
- [Producer] The first statement is,
"I feel threatened by the other side."
(footsteps echoing)
- Of course.
- The day after Trump's inauguration,
I found my mother at 6:00 AM trying to find out
how much it would cause to ship our washing machine
to the Dominican Republic.
She said, "I just want you to be ready
in case immigration comes."
Ever since it has felt like my family
and my community have been taking punches,
over and over and over again, trying to prove our humanity,
that we deserve basic human rights.
- I think it was never about a very specific country
and a very specific legal status.
I think it was a fear of everyone who is different.
He put forth the Muslim ban,
and through that process,
a lot of people lost their green card,
their their permanent resident status too.
And after that he came after birthright citizenship.
Undocumented immigrants,
and I think Mexican undocumented immigrants in particular,
were the first to take the hit.
But that category is gonna continue to grow
and it's going to consume a lot of us.
- Well, I feel attacked by the other side
just because I love this country.
Just because I respect the law here.
I feel attacked when I cannot feel free to support
my president because they profile me as a bad person
just because I want the best for the people in this country.
(percussion instruments tapping)
- All right, we said the T word.
As a Latino, I'm already put in this box
that I'm supposed to think this way.
I'm supposed to act this way.
I'm supposed to just assumedly go with my group.
Trump said very specific things
and they get twisted around and presented as, like,
"Well he thinks all people, all Mexicans rapist."
It's like, that's not what he said.
The Muslim ban, it wasn't a Muslim ban.
They're banning specific countries
that were already banned under Obama.
So to call it a Muslim ban is a very wide umbrella
of association.
- I only really feel threatened by is by media.
It is by identity politics as you were,
JC was saying, like first off,
I don't have a problem with the stories you guys have.
You come to America for betterment, but, sadly,
you're a minority of another minority of people that do come
across the border for other, not good intent, purposes.
The reason why you talked mostly
about Mexico is because it's right on our southern border.
It's right there and our border is totally whack.
It's weak, it's nothing there.
That's why I voted for Trump and want a wall
is because, even though,
even coming through the legal process,
I still want you to be protected.
- But also, you know, president Trump had been saying
that he want to help the good illegal people,
the people who really love this country.
I mean because you need to accept not everyone is good.
I mean, you can be here illegally
and be respectful to this country and love this country.
- I think there's a theme here, this theme of legality.
The way in which Trump supporters have used this idea
of legality has been completely incorrect
and dismissive of this country's history.
If you were to use that same argument 60 years ago,
when segregation with legal, you could have said,
"I don't want black people in this restaurant
because the law says that white people and black people
shouldn't be in the same spot.
I have the right to impose that law."
Laws change.
Laws can be unjust.
(titles whoosh)
- [Producer] "I believe in America first."
(footsteps echoing)
- I actually believe America first
but I believe every country should have that anything.
I do want America first,
'cause even though these people are not undocumented
the moment I hope that they gain citizenship
which is hopes ASAP, that they come to a country
that is prepared to give 'em opportunities
and to go for their goals and dreams
that they wish to aspire.
- It's like America first.
It's like we start with the individual.
So, is your life more important than my life?
In my world, my life is more important than your life,
and I do my best to take care of myself.
I fill my cup up,
so that I can fill up your cup.
(percussion instruments tap)
- That's what's first, for me, is community.
I don't stand behind any country.
I can't say that I think Dominican Republic comes first.
I don't.
I think it's people come first.
- America first is such a dangerous concept.
I don't know if you realize
but that's the reason why the world is constantly at war.
America first is about white Americans first.
It's white America first,
versus the few people from all around different countries,
different colors, who are okay with white America first
because they're gonna get the seconds.
And there's always the temptation for me to align myself
in that place and say, "If I just keep my head
down a little bit, then I will be next in line too."
'Cause, guess what?
I am more privileged than undocumented immigrants who come
from Latin America who have crossed the border.
And that is shameful to me.
And I have to, every day, train myself
to put that thought down
because I wanna align myself with people.
And I know you said, "How can I think about another family
when my own family is hurting?"
But why wasn't America thinking
about that when it came into the Dominican Republic?
When it created incredibly uneven trading deals with Mexico?
When it bombed the hell out of my country?
Right? Wasn't that for America first?
Isn't that why I'm here?
(titles whoosh)
- [Producer] "Illegal immigration hurts legal immigration."
(footsteps echoing)
- It's like you're waiting in line to get into this place,
and for you to, you know,
go to the back of the line, stand in line and wait,
and to watch people cut in line in front of you.
It's a big "fuck you" to my family.
It's a big "fuck you" to the whole system.
It's a whole, it's not about a wall.
Fuck the wall.
It's about principles.
- Like, you said it's based on principles.
If even even waited, there would be no need
for a wall, in general.
When you come here legally and you got cut off, now you're
in a position of being like in the middle class or even
in the wealth class where now you're paying more taxes
for someone to not pay taxes
and now you're paying for their education,
and that could have gone for your children.
That could have gone for American citizens
and now we're giving it to them.
(percussion instruments tap)
- 'Cause we had a process for a green card in place.
And guess what?
We waited those two years
and what happened was we were denied because they said,
"Your parents aren't making enough money."
That happened two more times.
Every time we were denied,
my parents decided to stay
'cause our entire lives were here.
Our entire community, our church community, our friends.
When you say there is a right way to immigrate here,
and there is an illegal way,
and you use a big fat label on all of that,
you're really obscuring all these diverse details
about people's lives.
- It's a really dangerous rhetoric when you begin
to put good versus bad, legal versus illegal.
Listen, I crossed into this country, I migrated.
I walked with my brothers and my mother.
I was a poor kid who had no shoes.
How could I know that there was a legal process?
And when I came into this country, I absolutely found
out what it was to be entering into that legal process.
I'm in that process now, 11 years and counting.
So what you're doing is instead of looking up
to the systems that are putting all of these situations
into place, you are looking down to the people
most downtrodden.
We did nothing to deserve this.
It is actually the systems that are at play,
that you have to look and reflect and say,
"Why is this happening to your family?
Why is it that your people..."
- But why people doesn't fight to their own government?
Why they wanna fight and demand America.
- And that is insulting.
- [Jazmina] Why?
- That is insulting. - [Jazmina] Why do you guys
victimize yourself?
- There is no victimization. - [Danyeli] Victimize?
- Why can I- - How can you say,
how dare you say that there is a victimization
between my mother making a very real strategic decision
and logical, to say I am going to reunite my kids
together to live under one roof.
- Everyone have their own story and I'm fine with this.
But now we talking about the thousand
of people trying to jump our territory.
- Language is important.
Language is important.
How you discuss the people who are
seeking asylum. - I mean, I'm just
getting tired to, to feel like,
"Oh I cannot say this because they gonna get offended."
I mean I'm offended because I'm an American.
Because I'm follow the law.
I'm offend because I'm a Christian woman,
because I'm a woman with principle, with moral.
With faith.
- Something that's very interesting to me
is when religion comes into place, right?
And we say, "I am an American, I am a Christian."
Yet you are unable to put aside the political
and look at a human being and say, you deserve to be
under one roof with the people that you love,
regardless of what the government decides to call you.
- But does that give you a right to break into my house?
- Exactly. - To break into whose house?
- Yeah. - Our house.
- Because we can take that back and think about,
"whose house?" - Our house.
- Look, whose house? - Whose house?
(titles whoosh)
- [Producer] The next statement is,
"Becoming a legal citizen should be easier."
(footsteps echoing)
- If you look at the way that the government issues visas
it's in a completely political system.
Who gets it?
What time?
How many years?
And so when you think about citizenship,
it absolutely should be easier in the legal process.
But let's not lose sight.
The citizenship also means the way that you move about
in your values and say, "I can be a citizen
of this country because I am a human being."
- And I think we have to recognize
that undocumented immigrant don't want to be undocumented.
If it were up to undocumented immigrant,
that will go, show up, apply for a green card,
and then apply for citizenship and that's it.
The system is currently failing because we are not
appointing people who are able to understand why
people are coming, people who are able to connect
with the different stories that people are bringing forth.
- But the problem is we need all to agree.
But even legal or illegal immigration need to be controlled
because you can see what is happening here in California.
We see our street looking like a third world.
- You know, I would respect that.
I would respect that opinion if I didn't know
that more people were leaving the US than coming in.
That undocumented immigrants are not the one predominantly
committing crimes in this country.
You see that people are more likely to leave now
than come in. - This is funny.
Let me tell you this, I'm sorry to disagree.
When people are complaining about guns, they say,
"Oh we need gun control because even one life matter."
Well the same thing.
Even if they undocumented people having committed a crime,
even one life matter.
And let me tell you this, I have a sister who became a widow
at the age of 34 with two little boys,
because her husband got killed for an illegal alien.
And my brother-in-law's life matters.
(percussion instruments tap)
The wall for me is a message of love from our president
to his people because he want to protect the people
from this side of the wall.
Even you guys.
He wants to protect everyone from this side of the wall.
But we need to understand home is first.
How can I help someone far away
if I'm not able to help the people who is close to me?
- The reason why I am so against the wall,
number one, economically, very infeasible.
And number two, I don't see the wall
as being a physical barrier between two countries.
I see it as a very symbolic barrier between people.
People who are running
for their lives are still going to come.
'Cause, trust me, your desire to live is going
to help you find a way to get over some wall.
You know that's not the problem.
Walls, barricades, barriers
are not the economic, moral answer.
- Everyone in this room can make America great
by finding solutions rather than finding problems.
That's what a lot of people like to do.
We like to point out what's wrong and not trying to figure
out what we can do to make it better.
And we all agree that the immigration system sucks.
Like you do what again?
Like you're into the field of?
- I'm a paralegal but I've been a legal representative.
Okay, and so you know more about it than I do.
I don't know shit compared to you.
So, I want to hear you more,
your perspective and I'm open to that.
That's what America needs more of.
You have something I don't.
You're superior in that field.
And if we look at intellect
before skin tone or before politics
that would open up more doors to make America great
or make America even better.
It's people who are in this country,
who wanna fight for the betterment of it,
is what's making this country great.
(musical chimes ringing)
- I'm kidding! - Come here.
- [JC] I really appreciate that.
- I have so many questions
but I really appreciated your input.
- Yeah.
(musical chimes ringing)