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Hear the Bern

9 - Borders & Boxes: The Fight for Immigration Justice (w/ Viridiana Martinez & Brianna Rennix)

Hear the Bern

Bernie 2020

News Commentary, News, , Politics

4.81.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bernie staffers and DACA recipients Belén Sisa and Luis Alcauter talk about the power of coming out as undocumented. Activist Viridiana Martinez recounts her successful infiltration of an ICE facility, dramatized in the documentary The Infiltrators. Brianna Rennix, a lawyer and Current Affairs senior editor, fills us in on the difference between immigration and political asylum and shares her work on behalf of detained families, including children, in the Dilley Detention Center in South Texas. The Infiltrators on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6885114 Brianna’s Current Affairs article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/waiting-for-the-holy-infant-of-atocha

Transcript

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0:00.0

Secrets, secrets are no fun.

0:04.0

Secret secrets, hurt someone.

0:07.0

Wow.

0:08.0

Thank you.

0:12.0

You might recognize this as a line from the office. A funny scene not intended to be a spark for any real rumination.

0:21.0

But it came to mind as I thought about all the stories I heard this week when

0:25.8

interviewing people for this special immigration episode. The thing that

0:30.5

really struck me about the stories I heard about DACA recipients

0:35.1

asylum seekers and the attorneys who work to secure them rights is the power of the

0:41.2

truth. When the threat of deportation hangs over your head, you live a life

0:46.7

full of secrets. You bond with friends throughout high school, but by senior year you find yourself struggling to make excuses for why you still don't have a driver's license.

0:58.0

The reason, it's illegal in your state for undocumented people to have one.

1:04.0

Driving without a driver license always with a fear then you're going to get pulled over and lose your car.

1:09.0

Maybe even go to prison.

1:11.0

Your friends are all applying to college, but you don't, despite being smart, ambitious,

1:18.1

outgoing.

1:19.6

You can come up with excuses, but the secret forces you to paint a version of yourself that's just, well, a shadow of who you truly are.

1:29.0

The first person I actually came out to as undocumented was my guidance counselor and he looked at me

1:35.4

and just said you know I don't I don't know what to do I don't know how to help you and so I was

1:39.9

left at 1718 trying to figure out what to do after high school when I felt like everyone

1:46.7

was doing what I wanted to do and I felt like I had done everything right and I was

1:51.0

just getting kind of screwed over.

...

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