Last week, Waging Nonviolence editors Eric Stoner and Bryan Farrell presented the first-ever Waging Nonviolence Award at the Plural + Youth Video Festival to Aliens vs Predators, which dramatizes the struggle faced by undocumented high school students in America—from being shut out of higher education to becoming targets of military recruitment.
Aside from the pointedly hilarious title, we were impressed by the ability of these young videomakers—who were students at Manhattan’s Julia Richman Education Complex—to not only raise an issue that is tragically overlooked in this country but also speak out against violence in favor of education.
Also deserving of recognition is the youth media advocacy group Global Action Project, which assisted the students in the production of the video. Please show your support for the video and its message of awareness by sharing it with your networks.
Here are some pictures from the event:
LEGAL immigrants can enter the US military and earn an expedited path to citizenship for their service.. LEGAL immigrants can go to college at in state rates.
What part of ILLEGAL is so hard to understand? I am all for people around the world coming to America to chase the American dream LEGALLY.
The title is hardly hilarious. It’s frankly insulting.
Was that the only entry?
Killion, so glad you find our little site important enough to warrant an immediate response. I’ll try to respond with some thoughts of my own later on. Perhaps in the mean time, we could be so lucky as to have a reader as dilligent as Killion give a perspective that defends the undocumented…
I’m anxiously waiting for someone to “give a perspective that defends the undocumented…”
If we are speaking generally about the issue of undocumented workers then the discussion about what they bring to the economic table is also important.
In general when typical undocumented aliens come to America they come primarily for better jobs and in the process add value to the U.S. economy. Also most immigrant families have a positive net fiscal impact on the U.S., adding $88,000 more in tax revenues than they consume in services. The consensus of the vast majority of economists is that the broad economic gains from openness to trade and immigration far outweigh the isolated cases of economic loss. In the long run, as has been documented in recent years, the gains are even higher.
Would you view these statements as being to liberal on immigration issues?
Generally when you lift information from a source it is polite to site it..especially when it’s nearly word for word. I especially loved this: “The consensus of the vast majority of economists…” Sounds awfully like a argument to authority fallacy to me.
“Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.”
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
Anyway, one would think that illegals aren’t taking well paying jobs (by American standards). Are they taking away many jobs from the middle class or the wealthy? If anything they make the situation better economically for those demographics, depressing wages on low skill jobs. I thought liberals claim to be champions of the working class/poor?
This is a complex issue, that can be argued in economic, national security, societal arenas, ect, but one thing that can’t be argued is that illegal immigration is AGAINST THE LAW.
Wow!!! What an awesome movie!!! You go, ʻōpio (youth)!!!