As-salaam alaikum, everyone!
My name is Bassem Youssef.
In my native Egypt, I was a surgeon—
until the Arab Spring, when I realized my country itself
had fallen ill. So I created a comedy show to help the nation heal.
The people liked it, but the government, not such much.
And before things got worse, I left for the land of the free.
Now I can learn from the best.
After all, this is the United States of America—
the greatest democracy on Earth. Right?
A lot of people in this country are in love
with making America great again.
No one's exactly sure what that means,
but they know that greatness will come back
as soon as you get rid of all those undocumented immigrants.
Now, where I come from, there are tons of problems...
wars,
civil unrest,
government corruption,
religious extremism,
But, immigration isn't one of them. Why?
No one wants to come to the Middle East.
But everybody wants to come to America.
Putting out the Unwelcome Mat
As an immigrant, I'm part of the problem.
So I thought if I could just help solve the problem,
Maybe after Trump's wall goes up,
he'll let me stay on the side with all the outlet malls and reliable Wi-Fi.
Here's the problem. You're selling yourself too well.
Yeayeah! It's a party in the U.S.A.!
This amazing 5,000 square foot
five bedroom, three bathroom cabin
is truly a carpentry masterpiece
You won both showcases and
a million bucks!
You won both showcases and
a million bucks!
No wonder there are about 11 million undocumented immigrants
living in the United States.
Why don't they take a tip from my part of the world,
where everything is falling apart.
Show people another side of America,
where the streets paved with gold
maybe have a few potholes in them.
And in order to see what we
had to work with,
I went to speak to Casey Dinges.
Basically, you write the report card that tells us
how good or bad the infrastructure in the Untied States is.
The average of all the 16 grades in 2013 was a D+
So shockingly bad...
So, say the U.S. was a high school student.
Which college would they be admitted in?
I don't know if there's some community colleges that might take you on.
University of Phoenix actually accepts everybody.
We still have a long way to go in terms of addressing all these issues.
I mean, just look at bridges. 1 in 10 are structurally deficient.
200 million times per day, people are taking trips
over structurally deficient bridges.
Hmm... You guys are a lot further along
in project Crapify America than I thought.
But you still need something –a place, a town, a city,
an icon of decay,
to be the poster child for your
"You've got to be crazy to come here" campaign.
And I've heard such a place exists.
The town of Flint, Michigan has the right idea.
For years, it's ranked among
America's most dangerous cities.
In 2012 alone, Flint's approximately 100,000 residents
experienced 62 murders, 106 rapes
and 662 robberies.
Every day, Flint works hard to make itself less inhabitable.
But nothing has worked as well as their latest strategy.
Poisoning the water.
Sure, it sounds like such an obvioius solution once you hear it,
but it wasn't as easy as just tossing
a few handfuls of anthrax into the reservoir.
I wanted to talk to one of the people on the ground.
a citizen leader, like Beulah Walker.
to learn how impressed
the locals are with Flint's innovative
anti-immigration strategy.
18 months of dirty,
brown, corrosive water,
there was no warnings, there was no boil alerts,
people started getting sick.
Babies were going to the doctors, women were miscarrying.
What will happen if this continues?
People are going to die.
So far there's 11 deaths in Moore County.
Let's talk about the problems that Flint has.
It has unemployment, crime, water crisis.
Does it have an illegal immigration problem?
No, it does not.
So people don't want to emigrate to Flint?
No, no one wants to. I wouldn't.
You think this is kind of a silver lining? Keeping people out?
Where I come from, it's just much more straight forward.
We just go and bomb the whole city down.
That's horrible.
It's faster.
Since Flint began poisoning it's citizens, a growing number
of American communities are now
climbing on board the toxic train.
The people of Jackson, Mississippi
are facing a scary and unfortunately
familiar sounding crisis over lead
found in drinking water.
The states of Alabama, West Virginia,
Kentucky, all reporting extensive
exposure to lead poisoning.
And poisoned water is just one idea.
You could poison the air!
Like they did in California.
Methane gushing out at 70,000
pounds an hour, and the gas is
making people sick.
The Gulf Coast is probably ready for a fresh oil spill.
And who says lead is the only thing to put in the water?
Look what happens when you live near fracking.
I can often hold a standard kitchen
match to my water, just like that.
Holy s**t!
There you have it, America.
Your infrastructure is failing across the board.
Now that you know that, you need to make
sure that aspiring immigrants know it, too,
so they don't come here.
Here's what I propose:
Go to the nearest bridge that's falling down in your town.
Take pictures of it. Post them on social media.
Instagram the s**t out of it.
Let them be a warning.
Your own special way of saying "Don't come here."
We're just as f**ked as the place you came from.
That's all it takes, America!
Just keep doing nothing, and the
whole place is going to fall apart
before your very eyes.
Today's Flint is tomorrow's Baghdad.
But without the Arabs.