A presentation on immigration and my writing on the subject presented at a Publicis Sapient / Razorfish workshare 10/16/20 - Robert Stribley

1. Mercedes-Benz Team Workshare
16 October 2020
Immigrant Song
Robert Stribley

2. Prologue
“Everything
is art.
Everything
is politics.”
— Ai Weiwei

3. Coming to
America
• First came to the U.S. in 1980
• My parents’ immigration loophole
• My immigration woes
Trying to look badass in the early 80s,
Greenville, SC
My Story

4. Swearing
In
I was sworn in as a U.S.
citizen on March 3rd, 2004
in Charlotte, NC.
With the gent who swore me in as an American
citizen. Why do I look like Michael Cera?
My Story

5. My Immigrant
History
Despite my convoluted immigration story, I had it much easier
than many immigrants—especially undocumented immigrants
My Story

6. What inspired this project?
16 June 2015

7. Trump’s infamous campaign
kick-off speech

8. Articles
Many of the following were published on both Medium
and The Huffington Post

9. Articles
There Is No Immigration Crisis

10. Articles
Dispelling Myths
• Illegal immigration was in decline, when Trump made his speech
• The number of undocumented people living in the U.S. was at its lowest
point since 2003
• The number of undocumented immigrants here had fallen every year since 2008
• True, there were ~11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., but in
2007, there were 12.2 million
• One study put the number then at 10.9 million for the first time since 2004
• Undocumented immigrants comprise ~3% of the U.S. population
• Immigrants are less likely than the native population to commit violent crimes or
be incarcerated
• The number deportations of undocumented immigrants had grown significantly
under President Obama
• Immigrants aren't stealing our jobs
• Terrorists have not been sneaking across the Mexican/U.S. border

11. Articles
Undocumented
Immigrant Does
Not Equal
Violent Criminal

12. Articles
• Immigrants are less likely than the
native population to commit violent
crimes or to be incarcerated
• For every ethnic group without
exception, incarceration rates
among young men are lowest for
immigrants
• Undocumented immigrants are less
likely to commit violent crimes than
their native-born neighbors
• From 1990 to 2013, the number of
undocumented immigrants did triple
from 3.5 million to 11.2 million
• However, violent crime fell 48%
during that time
• Crime rates have gone down as the
immigration rate has gone up
• Mention of immigrant criminal
activity is a propaganda technique –
compare Iraq and 9/11

13. Articles
No, Immigrants Aren’t Stealing Your Benefits

14. Articles
Immigrants aren't eligible for most benefits
Undocumented immigrants don't receive:
• Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP)
• Disability aka Supplemental Security Income
(SSI)
• Food stamps aka The Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP)
• Health insurance aka insurance via the
Affordable Care Act (ACA)
• Medicaid
• Medicare
• Social Security
• Welfare
They may be eligible for:
• Emergency medical care including ER visits and
Emergency Medicaid
• Schooling
• Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children (WIC)

15. Articles Immigrants typically pay far more in taxes than
they receive in benefits
• Every year millions of undocumented
immigrants not only do pay taxes, they even file
their tax returns
• 2010 report showed undocumented immigrants
pay as much as $90 billion in taxes but receive
just $5 billion in benefits
• Since 50 to 75% of undocumented immigrants
pay taxes, we could reduce deficits by providing
them with a path to legal immigration, enabling
them all to pay taxes
• A 2007 Congressional Budget Report
determined that expanding the number of legal
immigrants could increase federal revenues by
$48 billion over a decade
Undocumented immigrants contribute heavily to
social security, which they're unlikely to ever draw
from
• SSA estimated that unauthorized immigrants
injected $100 billion into the social security
fund over 10 years

16. The Language of
Illegal Immigration

17. “Illegal Immigrant”
• About 60% of undocumented immigrants come here legally and overstay, which isn’t considered criminal behavior
• For the 40% who cross the border illegally, that’s punishable by no more than 6 months in prison and a $250 fine
• In contrast, a first-time federal possession charge for heroin is 1 year in prison and a $5000 fine
• Justice Kennedy upon over-ruling Arizona’s draconian immigration law, SB 1070: “As a general rule, it is not a crime for a movable alien
to remain in the United States.”
• Frank Luntz politicized the term in a 2005 memo to Republicans, advising them to use it to reinforce the document’s prescription for
language: “Always differentiate LEGAL from illegal immigration.”
• Luntz advised against using one particular term: “illegals”
“Illegal”
• An adjective turned into a noun, the term ”illegal” has become a slur
• The British first used it this way to refer to Jews entering Palestine in the ’30s without permission
• Do we refer to anyone else as an “illegal”? Rapists? Murderers? Grifters? Counterfeiters? Drug dealers? Ponzi schemers?

18. “Alien”
• “Alien” is a term calculated to “otherize”
• Used since the 18th century in legislation and by the courts, “alien” means “of or belonging to others” in Latin
• In 1920, The New Republic surveyed people about that word and their responses were “uniformly negative”
• They described an “alien” as “a person who is hostile to this country,” “a person on the opposite side,” “an enemy from a foreign land”
• We also use this word to describe extraterrestrials, who we often perceive as strange, terrifying and often violent
• Its first federal use came when we developed legislation to determine who could become a citizen
• Limited to those who were a “free white person” and codified in our 1790 Alien Naturalization Act
• The term is more likely to be used to describe Mexicans and Central Americans than Europeans, though 10s of 1000s of European
immigrate here illegally, too
• Writer Geoffrey Nunberg suggests that when we say “alien,” we really mean “brown people who snuck in”

19. “Undocumented Immigrant”
• Some complain this term is politically correct as it allegedly intentionally obscures the fact that such immigrants are here illegally
• This might best be used for those immigrants who entered the United States legally, but allowed their Visas to expire
• However, you could argue that categorizing an immigrant as illegal for a one-time action — perhaps perpetrated many years ago —
isn't just dehumanizing but it’s also inaccurate
“Unauthorized Immigrant”
• Allows for the possibility of an “illegal” status without assuming illegality and doesn’t carry the baggage of that other, increasingly
loaded term
• NYT Lawrence Downes suggested “unauthorized” was a better term than “illegal” or “undocumented,” since it contains “the possibility
of reparation and atonement” and allows “for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense

20. Articles
Our History of Blaming Immigrants for Disease

21. Articles

22. Articles
What Happens to a Dreamer Deferred
+
Chain Migration Is Just Immigration

23. “What Happens to a Dreamer Deferred”
• My parents immigrated via a loophole of sorts, a religious freedom clause
• You can also come here by buying your way in or by lottery
• So why not grant citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants, who
may have lived here for decades?
• This is their home. They are fellow citizens without the documentation.
“Chain Migration Is Just Immigration”
• I came here via chain migration
• Academics coined the term “chain migration” as far back as the 30s but it
wasn't used popularly until about 2017, when Trump blamed chain migration
for an attempted terrorist attack
• We already limit how it works: Caps on married children and adult siblings and
how many people can come from a single country
• No one qualifies just by applying. Once you qualify to apply, there is additional
paperwork, affidavits of support, medical reports, security checks, fees and so
on and the process often takes many years
• Critics essentially weaponized the term, as they did the term "illegal"
Despite the name, green cards used to be pink
Articles

24. Articles
What Is the Immigration Industrial Complex?

25. Articles
This Time of Siege
You can’t do it, I squeak from inside.
You can’t make me feel at home here
in this time of siege for me and mine, mi raza.
Legalized suspicion of my legitimacy
is now a permanent resident in my gut.
— from “ICE Agents Storm My Porch” by Maria Melendez Kelson

26. Articles
Eradicate ICE
We didn’t need ICE for
centuries, and we don’t need it
now

27. Articles
Undocumented Americans
We have to move beyond
pretending citizenship is an
unusual, special right we grant
to lucky DACA recipients and
confront their critics with the
fact that, if an adult resident
arrived here when they were
three, this is their country
now. The only one they’ve ever
truly known. The only one
they remember and belong to.

28. Articles
A Beach DividedThe U.S. and Mexico stand in stark contrast
where their edges meet at the Pacific Ocean

29. Articles
We Deport Veterans
Hector “Hex” Lopez behind his desk at the
Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Center in
Tijuana, Mexico.

30. Articles
The Invention of Illegal Immigration

31. Articles
In Harm’s Way
How U.S. Policy for Handling Migrants Violates
International Criminal Law—As Well as Our Own

32. Number One Response
“What part of
‘illegal’ don’t
understand?”*
*honestly, most of the responses have been good,
with a lot of good, you also get some notably
unprintable responses
“Illegal Immigrants =
Immigrated Illegally by
sneaking over the border.
Cased closed, the mystery is
solved.” — comment on
Twitter
“Illegal the opposite from
legal…means there breaking
the law to me simple and
clear.” — comment on Twitter

33. How this project grew:
• Facebook – Immigrant Song
• Twitter – @VivaImmigrants
• Podcast – Immigrant Song, 8
episodes
• TikTok – 32.4K followers
• NYU class in international law
and resulting paper
• Completing NYU certificate in
Global Affairs
• Photography – every photo in
this presentation, used in i-D,
Vice magazine, elsewhere
Articles …
• ~20 articles
• 100,000+ views on Medium
• Many more on Huffington Post
• Cited on Wikipedia, in legal briefs, college
papers
• Interviewed on Chicago news radio
Results

34. Where Are We Now?
• Legal immigration is down—13% from 2016-2019
• Internal deportations are up*
• ICE arrests of non-criminal undocumented immigrants up
• No help for DACA kids
• Historic rise in asylum seekers and refuges rejected
• Along with the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which breaks
(and our own) laws
• Ongoing family separations
• Impact of travel/Muslim bans upon immigrants
• We’re living in the middle of a human rights crisis
*Overall deportations were actually very high under Obama, partly due to a change in definition of
because he attempted to leverage a crackdown on immigrants to make progress with DACA. He eventually
from “interior removals” to focus on border removals.

35. • Research
• Support
• Vote
What Can You Do?

36. Books
• No Justice in the Shadows – Alina Das
• Deported – Tanya Golash-Boza
• Targeted – Deepa Fernandes
• From Deportation to Prison – Patrisia Macias-
Rojas
• Killing the American Dream – Pilar Marrero
Documentaries
• Immigration Nation (Netflix)
• Living Undocumented (Netflix)
Other Resources

37. Thank you