[narrator] So, why here?
Why America?
[woman] My parents came to the United States,
like many immigrants,
in search of a better life.
This was…
the land of opportunity.
This was where an immigrant could find peace and build a family,
build a home.
I was ten years old when I came to America.
For my parents, it represented peace, opportunity
and a bright future.
My parents chose America to ensure that I had the opportunities
that they would not have been afforded living in Palestine.
My parents chose America for the economy, for jobs…
Because I can be an unapologetic Muslim American woman in this country.
My parents brought me to the US in search of better opportunities
and specifically, better education for me and my younger brothers.
[Diane] I grew up with my parents just…
loving this place.
So, I just grew up thinking I was the luckiest kid in the world
because I had a chance to be here and I had the opportunity to…
be born here.
[narrator] So has America lived up to your expectations?
[she scoffs]
[poignant, dramatic music plays]
The 14th Amendment is a promise.
Protection, equality, due process and liberty.
It says this is a country where anyone can build a better life for themselves
and their families.
It imagines an America that is capable of change and growth.
And it's a promise to anyone on American soil, not just citizens.
The authors of 14 chose a specific word,
"person."
Everyone on US soil has their basic rights covered.
This word, "person," is a reminder of our common humanity.
We are all human beings deserving of empathy and dignity.
The 14th Amendment protects all persons
under the jurisdiction of the United States
and guarantees them due process and the equal protection of laws.
The amendment specifically uses the term "person" rather than "citizen",
an important distinction,
because it means that those protections apply to everyone,
permanent residents, immigrants.
Now that gap between who is a person and who is a legal citizen,
that's been a huge area of debate,
and that's part of the battle.
Who counts? And in what way?
As we've seen time and time again,
the gap between the words of 14 and what America delivers
can be enormous.
And that chasm between 14's promise and America's actions
often feels like an insurmountable abyss to a certain group of people:
immigrants.
[gentle orchestral music plays]
Immigrants are
part and parcel of the United States.
They do so many things for our country.
[cheering]
Immigration is one of the strengths of the US.
It's what helped build the country. It brought youth to the country.
We are part of the fabric of this country
with our food, our culture, our traditions.
[Norquist] Immigration brings talent, numbers,
consumers, producers, and makes us a stronger country.
We are the people who make this country better
because we want to be part of its promise.
[cheering]
I wouldn't recognize this country
if it wasn't this mix of cultures.
It gives me joy that we aren't all the same.
[Norquist] People come to the United States to become
legal citizens.
They basically pledge allegiance to the Constitution.
The Constitution is the uniting factor in the United States.
I think people who look in the mirror and see a patriot
should realize that immigration is a whole bunch of people going,
"You're right. You have a damn good country."
That's--
What more praise could you ask for?
When the Founding Fathers thought about citizenship,
they were not thinking about including women, persons of color…
It was a very narrow sense of who could be a fully entitled
citizen of the United States.
However, the Civil War, emancipation and the 14th Amendment
radically transformed the possibilities
of inclusion for citizenship in the United States.
The 14th Amendment's clause around birthright citizenship
is absolutely pivotal in moving us from a white male settler nation
into a future in which there was a possibility for diversity
within our democracy.
["Sweet 16" by Cortes playing]
[Howard] "This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory
of what I regard as the law of the land already,
that every person born within the limits of the United States
and subject to their jurisdiction
is by virtue of natural law and national law
a citizen of the United States."
[narrator] Our American mosaic of cultures and communities today
owes a lot to the 14th Amendment's Birthright Citizenship Clause,
which lays out that anyone born here, belongs here.
It's the most inclusive language possible.
And it is such a radical idea
that, even 150 years later,
people are still getting riled up about it.
Birthright citizenship--
-Birthright citizenship-- -Birthright citizenship.
-Birthright citizenship.
Birthright citizenship was always part of the common law of the United States,
but now it's under attack.
The 14th Amendment is questionable.
Does the 14th Amendment stretch to the position
where anybody born in America is an American citizen?
The text of the 14th Amendment is clear.
We ought to change that policy.
That incentivizes illegal immigration.
It is the law of the land. It is in the Constitution.
Isn't the "anchor baby" law destructive to the country?
I think that, uh, cheapens American citizenship.
Hundreds of thousands of children born to illegal immigrants
are made automatic citizens of the United States every year
because of this crazy, lunatic policy that we can end.
This debate cuts to the core of our deepest American anxieties.
Who is America for?
[gentle music playing]
Fourteen is the first time our country
truly grapples with the meaning of citizenship.
It's written primarily to ensure Black Americans
gain their rights after the Civil War,
but before long, it challenges America's threshold for inclusion even further
by covering immigrants.
Not just the European immigrants arriving on Ellis Island,
but also with a new group of immigrants arriving in the West.
[man] Here it is, gentlemen.
Pure California gold.
Jupiter!
Is there more to be had?
[reporter] An epidemic hit the nation: Gold Fever.
[narrator] In 1848, gold is discovered in California
and the eyes of America turn to the West.
During the Gold Rush in California,
Chinese immigrants first began immigrating to the United States in large numbers.
[narrator] Meanwhile, the government teams up with titans of industry,
deciding that they need the railroads to span the entire country
so we could further expand the Industrial Revolution.
They need workers to build those railroads,
and the overwhelming majority of these workers are Chinese.
[Hernandez] The role of Chinese immigrants
in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad
was the spark for our Industrial Revolution.
And so the laborer is key to the making of modern America.
[Alina Das] The Chinese were coming into the United States
to build homes here, to really establish lives here,
just as every other group of people
who had come into the United States from abroad was also intending to do.
Over the years,
as the United States enters into a fiscal and economic crisis
in the late 19th century,
anti-Chinese sentiment rises.
[narrator] As the economy gets worse,
many Americans find a target for their fear and anger in the Chinese.
[Das] There was this idea that in this racial hierarchy in the United States
that they were a race that could not be assimilated into a white culture
because they were just too different.
You have people that are pushing the United States Congress
to pass legislation
to prohibit Chinese immigrants from entering the country.
[woman] "By not employing them, you can drive them from the country."
"Awake, arise, your work begins anew."
"We will do it through bullets if our ballots fail."
"We will drive these moon-eyed lepers back by steamship and by sail."
"The Chinese must go!"
[man] The Chinese Massacre of 1871
was the product of years of rising anti-Chinese sentiment.
It was one of the largest mass lynchings in the history of the United States.
♪ All the leaves are brown… ♪
There was some kind of altercation, a policeman was called.
-The policeman called for backup. -[gunshot]
[screaming]
A white rancher showed up, chased somebody, got shot.
[gunshot]
And then, a rumor started to spread
that Chinese people were killing white people
and about 500 people showed up,
and they surrounded Chinatown.
♪ California dreamin' ♪
[man] "Dispatch says 100 men are armed with Henry rifles
firing at intervals and regular volleys are heard
firing into Chinese houses at random and from rooftops."
[gunshots]
"The sheriff and civil authorities have given up trying to restrain the mob."
"This will be a lesson to the Chinese not to resist the law officers."
♪ Somebody help me now ♪
The Chinese Massacre is a stain on our history
occurring just a few years after the 14th is ratified,
it goes against the very promise of America.
It is a horrible legacy that many of us don't even know happened,
or what happened next.
[woman] The Chinese Exclusion Act barred from entry all Chinese laborers
and it barred all Chinese, regardless of their occupation or status,
from naturalized citizenship.
And that law was widely celebrated.
People were glad to see our federal government
actually taking immigration into its own reins.
And not only are we going to have federal immigration law for the first time,
but the purpose was an explicitly racist purpose.
The exclusion laws led to horrible things.
It encouraged violence against Chinese.
It separated families.
It marginalized Chinese to menial jobs.
[Das] But this became a story of incredible resilience
where you see Chinese communities becoming incredibly organized
and they did everything in their power to speak out against these racist laws.
[man] "We are here to plead for the 150,000 Chinese residents
of the United States whose liberties are threatened."
"They will be shipped like cattle out of their beloved homes
from the country which they have been taught to love as their own
and dumped upon a foreign shore."
"This monstrous new act astonished us."
"It more than astonished us, because a measure too cruel, too inhuman,
was so willingly and hastily adopted by the American Congress
and signed by a Christian president in the United States,
the land of liberty and home of the oppressed of all nations."
[Ngai] The Chinese sued that this violated their rights
under the 14th Amendment
and they were very savvy about a legal strategy
to push back against discriminatory legislation.
Many of these cases were lost.
But Won Kim Ark and Yick Wo v. Hopkins are the two cases where Chinese prevailed.
[man] The Yick Wo principle says the Equal Protection Clause
covers non-citizens as well as citizens.
If you are here, even if you are here illegally,
they have to give you certain due process rights.
You are entitled to a hearing, you are entitled to a process of appeals
and make your case that you ought to be allowed to stay. That's remarkable.
[Ngai] And Wong Kim Ark establishes this principle of Birthright Citizenship.
So, the 14th Amendment really came at the right time
to protect not only the rights of people who were formerly enslaved,
it also was there to protect the rights of the children of immigrants
regardless of their race.
The Chinese litigation was really important
because it really wrote the basis
for our laws regarding immigration and citizenship
that applies across the board, not only to Chinese people.
[Arulanantham] There's a number of cases the Supreme Court decides.
Perhaps the biggest loss is Chae Chan Ping.
That's a case that upholds an extremely unfair
Chinese Exclusion Act statute.
[Epps] Chae Chan Ping was Chinese-born, living legally in the United States.
He lived in San Francisco and he wanted to return to China,
and under the law as it then existed,
he could return to China as long as before he went
he obtained a certificate from the government
that he had lived permanently in the United States
and had a permanent residence.
While he was in China, pressure grew for even stronger action
against Chinese people in the United States,
and while he was literally sailing back in a ship from Hong Kong,
the United States Congress changed the law
and said even if you have the certificate,
you cannot be allowed into the US.
And I think four days after this law took effect
he arrived in the Port of San Francisco.
He presented his certificate and the immigration inspector said
that the United States was not honoring those certificates.
The government itself, under its own laws, promises you that you can come back.
The government ought to be required to keep that promise,
but he was kept in immigrant detention
for a long period of time while this case was pending.
[tense music playing]
THERE ARE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POEMS ON THESE WALLS.
THEY ARE ALL CRIES OF SUFFERING AND SADNESS.
THE DAY I AM RID OF THIS PRISON AND BECOME SUCCESSFUL
[Epps] When you come forward and begin to look at the period of Chinese Exclusion,
this new dialogue enters immigration law.
What the Court starts to say is, "We think of immigration as like war."
So, the idea was that there was going to be this flood of immigrants from China,
and they were going to take America away from us.
And that, just as in wartime,
the government can do whatever it needs to do in order to defend the country.
What the Supreme Court did was, they created this clever argument
to say it's about national security
and therefore it was outside of the protection of the 14th Amendment.
"To preserve its independence
and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment
is the highest duty of every nation."
"It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come,
whether from a foreign nation
or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us."
[Epps] It's not at all clear why, all of a sudden,
we're supposed to be terrified of immigrants from Asia,
but the Court goes down that rabbit hole,
and we've been in it ever since.
[shouting]
-[beeping] -[explosion]
[screaming]
[narrator] The Chinese Exclusion laws don't last a few years
or even a few decades.
This total ban on Chinese immigrants lasts until 1943.
Sixty-one years.
These are the consequences of the Supreme Court
putting fear above the Constitution.
Fear is a tool the opponents of 14's inclusive language use over and over
to discriminate against anyone deemed foreign.
Now, I mean, if we were going to keep it real,
other than the Native Americans,
everyone on this land is descended from someone foreign.
The Chae Chan Ping ruling sets a precedent
for dehumanizing marginalized immigrant groups,
treating them not as persons
but as others who don't deserve the rights citizens enjoy.
And it's a playbook we'll see used across American history.
♪ Give me your tired ♪
♪ Your poor ♪
♪ Your huddled masses ♪
♪ Yearning to be free ♪
The 1920s reflected paradox.
On the one hand, easy tolerance of flappers and jazz,
on the other hand, intolerance and distrust of foreigners.
The nation of immigrants closed its door with strict anti-immigration laws,
but it would be increasingly difficult to shut out the rest of the world.
If you fast forward this period of the 1920s,
this is the same time as Jim Crow
where you're seeing the reassertion of racial hierarchy throughout the country
and it's that same impulse, that same Jim Crow impulse
to hoard citizenship and membership for the white elite.
[Das] You see the advent of national origins quotas,
quotas that were designed to prevent people from outside of Western Europe
from coming to the United States.
The numbers of visas for new immigrants were limited
and then they were allotted in a way that ensured that immigration
would be white for the foreseeable future.
I ask you in the name of patriotism
which loves America, to carry it on to victory.
[reporter] The voice of twisted patriotism
echoes an age-old fear that lay deep in the American past
that a nation carved out of the wilderness
would be lost forever to strangers.
I ask you if you will rise in your places
and pledge with me to restore America to the Americans.
[cheering]
[reporter] Who were these privileged men
who felt that they were entitled to call the land their own?
[narrator] The strategies used to resist immigration are not new.
They're the same in the 1880s as they are in the 1930s
or in the 2020s,
emerging whenever people stop seeing 14's inclusive language as a promise
and see it instead as a threat.
The cultural demands of white supremacy
is that we be a monoracial, singular identity.
That really runs against another thread of white supremacy,
which is a more economic thread of white supremacy,
saying that, well, it's wonderful to have a white-only community,
but who is going to do the hard work in this community?
Who's gonna pick all the crops? Who's gonna plant all the crops?
Who's gonna take care of the babies? Who's gonna wash the floors?
And so we have economic demands for white supremacy, as well,
that we have a non-white, laboring, low-wage and, in best case scenario,
removable or deportable population to do the labor.
So, between 1920 and 1930,
about one million Mexican immigrants enter the United States.
Employers had a rapacious need for more and more Mexican workers
to work in the fields and on the railroads across the American West.
Once the Great Depression begins,
it becomes very clear that Mexican immigrants
are unwanted as permanent citizens of the country.
The cycles of immigration are dictated largely by economics
and the law tries to catch up.
The law tries to come up with some rationalization
of why it's okay to bring Chinese in to work on the railroads
and then throw them out.
You see the same thing with labor from Mexico,
which is being brought in and encouraged
and then later, as the economic cycle changes,
we have mass deportation.
[Hernandez] During the 1930s, more than 400,000 Mexican immigrants
were forced to participate in what's called the Repatriation Program.
Mexican workers became scapegoats
by those who thought
that they were taking away jobs from Americans.
[man] "They say that this deportation campaign
is to secure the jobs of North American citizens."
"It's a trick."
"It isn't true."
"It's really nothing more than a racist attack against all Mexicans."
"We are neither illegals,
nor undesirables."
The idea that things are zero sum is the number one fallacy in economics.
If you're getting paid for something, by definition,
you are creating more wealth and income than you're getting,
because some of it goes to who hired you.
You are adding to the net wealth of the country, not taking anything away.
[Epps] As many as 60% of them were actually US citizens.
[dramatic music playing]
[girl] "When we got to the station it must have been dawn because it was dark."
"We were crying. Who wouldn't be crying?"
"Many people were crying."
"We were going to an unknown place."
"What did I know about Mexico?"
"My dad was very proud that we were American citizens."
"He always told people that we were American citizens
and that we didn't belong in that country."
"I started going to school, and girls didn't want me there."
"They said, 'Go back to your own country. You don't belong here.'"
"A lot of people there discriminated against us
because we were American citizens."
"Isn't it strange?"
"Here, the Anglos discriminate against us because we're Mexicans."
"So really, where do we belong?"
"Tell me, where do Anglos belong?"
"They belong in Europe, don't they?"
[Hernandez] Operation Wetback was another traumatic campaign
against Mexican immigrants
putting them in detention,
putting them on boats, on trains, on planes,
and deporting them back to Mexico.
This fits very well within the anxieties and the politics of the moment.
Of course, 1954 is the same year as the Brown v. Board campaign.
Many people were very concerned about
the changing demographics of the country,
and Operation Wetback was one of the responses.
[Rahman] If we think about a case like Chae Chan Ping,
it's a loaded gun that's kind of lying there in wait.
Even though there are nominal protections under the 14th Amendment
of due process and equal protection,
in the Mexican Repatriation or Operation Wetback,
that still takes a backseat to fears about national security
fears about white supremacist ideal of white identity.
Why are you here in this country to work?
Well, I work to make a better life,
uh, over there, in my country.
I work here because I can take care of my family a whole lot better.
[Epps] Mexican labor is just treated as this… this object
to be used when needed and then simply eliminated by mass deportation
of a kind that really seems to be a kind of crime against humanity.
America is rejecting the 14th,
the idea that we are all people,
and embracing "othering" as immigration policy.
And few people in power have embodied this ideology
more fiercely than Harlon Carter,
the architect of Operation Wetback.
Harlon B. Carter was the head of the US Border Patrol
in the US/Mexico border region.
And what's really important to know about Harlon B. Carter
is that in 1931, when he was a teenager,
he came home one day from school and his mother was very upset.
She said that some Mexican kids had been hanging out out front
and she was concerned about them and a possible car theft.
So, Harlon Carter picked up his shotgun and went out looking for the boys.
He found the boys by a local watering hole
and he said, "You have to come back to my house and talk to my mother
so she can figure out what's going on."
One of the young boys in that group was Ramon Casiano.
And Ramon Casiano refused to go home with Harlon Carter.
So, Harlon Carter picked up his shotgun and leveled it at Ramon Casiano's chest.
When Ramon laughed and pushed aside the barrel of the shotgun…
[he grunts]
[gunshot]
[Hernandez] …Harlon Carter pulled the trigger and shot Ramon dead
on the streets of Laredo.
Harlon was tried for the murder. He was convicted of it.
It was later overturned on a technicality.
But a couple years later, Harlon Carter joins the United States Border Patrol,
comes up in the ranks of the organization,
and by the early 1950s,
he's the head of the US Border Patrol in the US/Mexico border region
and he is the mastermind of Operation Wetback
and its traumas of 1954.
Harlon Carter later leaves US Border Patrol
and becomes the head of the National Rifle Association.
And what Harlon Carter does at the NRA is of critical importance.
Harlon Carter takes the NRA from being a gun enthusiast organization,
a hunters' organization,
into a massive political organization and association
that's about protecting gun rights at all costs.
They use their media to assassinate real news.
They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler.
They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows
to repeat their narrative over and over again,
and then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance.
All to make them march, make them protest,
make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia,
to smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports,
bully and terrorize the law-abiding
until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs
and stop the madness.
And when that happens, they'll use it as an excuse for their outrage.
The only way we stop this,
the only way we save our country and our freedom
is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.
I'm the National Rifle Association of America,
and I'm freedom's safest place.
Fear-based messaging is used to unify a group
against a perceived dangerous and scary enemy.
And one of the words these messages employ over and over is "criminal."
[Das] From the beginning,
our society has chosen what to criminalize and how to criminalize it
based on race.
Immigrants have always been targets for criminalization.
One of the first laws that really targeted drugs
was an 1875 San Francisco ordinance against opium dens
because they were associated with the Chinese.
You see this with cannabis.
Cannabis was discussed as a new potential medicinal remedy
that had these other potential benefits,
but when it became associated with Mexicans,
and we started calling it "marijuana",
that's when you start seeing, again, federal legislation
that criminalizes marijuana use.
Seeing the way that people of color are demonized,
and how calling someone a criminal and then calling them "alien."
When you combine those terms together,
you're creating a class of people who are denied the rights
that the 14th Amendment was designed to protect.
Throughout our nation's history, we have seen interplay
between discrimination against Black people
and discrimination against immigrants.
[Hernandez] As Jim Crow was legitimized across United States,
you have a parallel system
and in the American West Jim Crow becomes Juan Crow.
[intense music playing]
Looking at the future, that history very much plays out in the 1990s
with respect to mass incarceration.
The worst laws that we've seen in immigration
since the national origins quotas
are the 1996 laws that were signed by President Bill Clinton.
All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected
but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed
by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.
-[indistinct shouting] -The jobs they hold
might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants,
the public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers.
That's why our Administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more
by hiring a record number of new border guards,
by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before.
That law mandates the jailing of immigrants
in the refugee context, people coming here and trying to obtain asylum
and, of course, also in the interior, people convicted of crimes.
It does not matter if you have children here,
if you have lived here and made one mistake in your life.
None of that matters. No discretion. You have to be deported.
And you have to be jailed while your deportation case goes forward.
No person can be deprived of their liberty without due process of law.
That's the word in the 14th Amendment,
and yet we're sending people to prison
and then banishing them from the country
without giving them lawyers,
without any of the process that's afforded to people
who are sent to jail in the criminal system.
[Das] Because of our fear, we've become used to the idea of deportation
and it has justified the rise of the deportation machinery
that we have today.
One of the most effective ways
that human beings justify and rationalize atrocities against other people
is by refusing to see them as a person.
We call them a lot of things,
anything to avoid what they are,
a human being.
[voice 1] Thugs.
-[voice 2] Drug smugglers. -Super predators.
[voice 4] Immigrant invaders.
-[voice 5] Gang members. -[voice 6] Illegal aliens.
-[voice 7] Rapists. -[voice 8] Bitch.
-[voice 9] Trannie. -[voice 10] Radical.
[voice 11] Faggot.
-[voice 12] Spics. -[voice 13] Kike.
[voice 14] Terrorist! Terrorist! Terrorist!
[voice 15] Nigger!
[brooding, crumbling noise echoing]
One by one, we are finding the gang members,
the drug dealers
and the criminals who prey on our people.
We are throwing them out of the country
or we're putting them the hell, fast, in jail.
[cheering]
The 14th Amendment says if you're born here,
you're an American and you can't kick Americans out.
And then if you wanted to deport the people already here,
each and every one are entitled to due process.
Bill, I think you're wrong about the 14th Amendment.
-[man 1] This is a flat-out invasion. -[man 2] Illegal invasion at our border…
-[man 3] It's an invasion. -[man 4] It is an invasion.
[Trump] An invasion of drugs and criminals and people.
[sobbing] Government, please put your heart.
Let my parent be free with everybody else. Please, don't leave.
The rights of families to be together are often denied to people of color,
certainly to slaves.
The Chinese Exclusion laws.
Native American children were taken away
and then put into boarding schools.
The incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans,
even the Muslim ban.
There's undoubtedly a very strong moral connection,
if not a legal connection,
between the history of slavery in this country
and today's failure in our law
to recognize that so many deportation cases
are also cases of family separation.
And because it takes a particular kind of dehumanization
to look at people through the lens of the law
and ignore the fact that they are part of a family.
[Cuison-Villazor] The Trump Administration use what's called Zero Tolerance policy.
Zero Tolerance refers to the policy of separating families
as a way of deterring other families from coming to the United States.
It is the State using something which is so punitive
as to be absolutely… corrosive.
So, when the State, a state that's supposed to be a civil society,
decides that they will use children as weapons,
you can't pretend to have any rights in that context.
It is, in fact, torture.
[child cries]
I want to go to the jail.
You want to go there?
You don't love me.
Who told you I don't love you?
You're not my mom anymore.
Someone who comes to our country because they couldn't come legally…
Jenri?
they come to our country because a dad who loved their children
was worried that their children didn't have food on the table.
And they crossed the border 'cause they had no other means to work
to be able to provide for their family.
Yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony.
It's kind of a… It's, it's a…
It's an act of love. It's an act of commitment to your family.
[Sarsour] I've been to the border,
with families separated from their children by our government,
and what I tell people all the time is, if you were safe in your home country,
if you thrived, had everything you needed to protect yourself and your children,
you wouldn't leave your home.
Think about what you would risk for your children.
Whatever answer you come up with is the same answer
that folks from Central America and other parts of the world
risk it all to bring their children here
to give them better opportunities so that their children can thrive
and be embraced and be loved for who they are.
[poignant music playing]
[Guerrero] One moment.
That's all it takes for your entire world to split apart.
For me, that moment came when I was 14.
I returned home from school
to discover that my hard-working immigrant parents
had been taken away.
In one irreversible instant,
in the space of a single breath,
life as I'd known it was forever altered.
My mom and dad tried desperately to become American citizens
and keep our family together.
They pleaded, they planned, they prayed.
They turned to others for help.
And in the end,
none of their efforts were enough to keep them here in the country we love.
After my parents were snatched away, no government official checked up on me.
No one seemed to care or even notice that I was on my own.
What kind of country do we want to be?
One that violates the rights of children?
Or do we wanna be an America that values children and families
and the freedom to be who we are?
[cheering]
[man] "Your broad republican domain is a hunting ground for men."
"Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely,
but for men guilty of no crime."
"Americans have, within the past two years,
been hunted down
and, without a moment’s warning, hurried away in chains,
and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture."
"Some of these have had wives and children dependent on them for bread."
"But of this, no account was made."
"The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage,
and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included!"
Over the years, I've faced this question
about the so-called line that immigrants have to stay in.
The truth of the matter is that this line is nothing short of a myth.
Even when you ask people that say,
"You should stand in line like everybody else,"
if you ask them to point to where the line starts,
they themselves, as American citizens, don't even know.
It creates this idea that the line not only is there,
but that it's orderly and that it works.
If you stand at the border of the US,
a big sign says, "Help wanted, jobs available."
Another says, "Don't cross the line."
We really need to get our laws in line with reality,
so that you don't have the friction of people wanting the workers,
opportunity being there, and a law saying, "You two can't get together."
There are so many ways that we should do the work
of eliminating the vestiges of Chae Chan Ping
from our immigration system.
So, of course, I'm glad that we no longer have Chinese Exclusion,
that certain country-specific prohibitions have been removed,
but our work isn't done.
Empathy is not just about us as individuals having empathy.
We need to be a nation of empathy. Empathy needs to be codified into law
and the ways in which we treat people who seek us for refuge
and seek us for safety.
[narrator] So, do you still believe in the promise of America?
No.
Because that promise has always been a lie.
But I do believe that we can build something new,
a dream that is…
compassionate,
inclusive,
and one that understands its duty…
to repair, to repay, and to heal.
I still believe in the promise of America.
And the reason why that is,
is because at the very core of that promise is hope.
Hope that you will have the opportunity to pursue your dreams,
and, ultimately, the hope that we as a nation
can continue to progress for what is just.
I don't have any other choice but to believe in the promise of America,
because my life is here,
my family's here, my daughter's here.
My future's here.
And, by God, I am as American as anyone else,
and as an American I will fight for America…
until the end.
The 14th Amendment ensures that we can be full Americans,
but why do we work so hard for that? What's so special about being an American?
Calm down, America. I'm just asking a question. Calm down.
Well, look at our history. Look at slavery.
Look at how we treated Black people after slavery.
America has wronged Native Americans, women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants,
every marginalized group in this country.
It's why they're called marginalized. Otherwise, they'd just be called groups.
So, what's the point?
The point is the promise.
Are the founders old white guys who only wanted freedom for white guys?
Maybe.
But if that was their intent, they should've written it down.
Big mistake.
But they wrote, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
They made that promise, and that's how you end up freeing slaves.
When the second founders wrote the 14th Amendment
they put the word "equal" into the Constitution.
Another promise.
That's why we're here.
That's why we work so hard to be Americans.
Because of the guarantee of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
and the promise of the 14th Amendment.
America, I'm gonna take you at your word.
And that word is "equal."
Words have power.
As we've witnessed, words can change the world.
"We the People."
The 14th Amendment is a promise
that we can be an inclusive, diverse, equal society,
but it's also a commitment that we the people make to each other
to form that more perfect union.
We have to choose to bring 14 to life.
[intense, poignant music plays]
[cheering]
Here we are at 150 years of the 14th Amendment
and we're long overdue
for moving the 14th Amendment from the fringes
to the center of our conversation about American democracy.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…"
"…are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
Our entire vision of what makes this country a democracy
and so important,
so many of those values and principles are deeply embedded
and emanate from the words of the 14th Amendment.
"No state shall make or enforce any law…"
"…which shall abridge the privileges or immunities…"
"…of the citizens of the United States."
[emotional instrumental music]
The Declaration, the Constitution, the rulings of the courts,
are filled with words like "equality" and "justice for all" and "liberty."
We have a Pledge of Allegiance that has these words.
And the 14th Amendment was intended to make that vision real.
"Nor shall any state deprive any person of life…"
"…liberty or property without due process of law…"
"…nor deny any person within its jurisdiction…"
"…the equal protection of the laws."
It set a north star.
It's a north star that remains as yet out of reach for too many,
and so much of modern America
has been around a fight and a struggle
to make the ideals embodied by the 14th Amendment a reality.
The 14th Amendment has been the bulwark of possibility,
but it has never been a guarantee of real justice in this country.
[man] The South was set upon
by the vulturous carpetbagger and federal troops,
so that the infamous, illegal 14th Amendment might be passed.
The Bible and the gun carved America out of the wilderness,
made it the greatest white country on the face of this Earth.
[chanting] White lives matter!
It is obvious today…
that America has defaulted on this promissory note
insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
[voice breaks] It's amazing…
why we keep loving this country,
and this country does not love us back.
[crowd boos]
[man] This man kneeled on a man's neck
for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Can you imagine that?
[man] They want people of color to be talked about
as being thugs and we're bums…
And my people, as an immigrant, we're rapists--? You know what?
We built this country!
[crowd cheers]
And I got news for them!
-We ain't going nowhere! -[crowd cheers]
We're not going nowhere!
The 14th Amendment can never do the work
that we as individuals have to do
to live up to our values.
And if we don't have values that are committed to equality,
then the 14th Amendment will remain a principle and a possibility,
but it will not guarantee and ensure equality in this country.
The Constitution is a living document. It belongs to the people.
We have the power to continue pushing,
to make sure that the courts understand the law as we understand it.
The meaning of the 14th Amendment is really fought out on the streets.
It's a product of people like Frederick Douglass.
It's a product of the Civil Rights Movement.
[Obama] Because of what they did the doors of opportunity swung open
not just for Black folks, but for every American.
Women marched through those doors,
Latinos marched through those doors,
Asian Americans, gay Americans,
Americans with disabilities, they all came through those doors.
Activists today have to know the law, we have to know history,
know the Constitution,
because these are the things that we are pushing for change on.
My goal, my hope, is that
people talk about their Second Amendment rights.
Even little kids know their First Amendment rights.
My dream is that people know their 14th Amendment rights.
I'd love to hear people saying, "That violates my 14th Amendment rights."
[man] "I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart
and stand up for what you truly believe."
"In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace,
the way of love and non-violence is the more excellent way."
"Now it is your turn to let freedom ring."
"When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century,
let them say that it was your generation
that laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last."
"Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America
by getting in what I call good trouble,
necessary trouble."
[reporter] In a massive win for immigrant rights,
the Supreme Court's ruled against President Trump's attempt to end
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program
that protects nearly 700,000 immigrants from deportation.
Your fight shows that America, Americans in this nation have hope.
Never lose your hope. Never lose your fire.
We don't always have to wait
for the powerful to give us our rights.
We can demand our own rights.
[reporter] A historic ruling from the US Supreme Court today
outlawing job discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender identity.
The case involving Aimee Stephens.
She worked at a funeral home, came out as trans,
started presenting as a woman and was fired for it.
Don't let anybody else tell you what you should be or what you are.
As long as we hold on to the politics of fear and anger,
we will never be great in the way that we are intended to be great.
We will never fulfill the promise of our Constitution.
But if we reject the politics of fear and anger,
if we actually embrace the hope of the 14th Amendment,
if we accept the challenge of the 14th Amendment
to truly be a great society where everyone is equal,
where every human being's dignity and rights are protected and respected,
then I think there is a great America to come.
[hopeful instrumental music]
Throughout this journey,
we've seen the sacrifices that the heroes fighting for true and lasting equality
have made and continue to make for all of us.
Equality is a commitment.
It is a daily practice.
We have to choose to honor each other every single day,
even and especially when it's not easy to do so.
We have to decide if we are willing to do what's necessary
to make the promise of the 14th Amendment a reality.
And if we commit to take that journey together,
then, as Frederick Douglass once said,
"Our glory as a nation will be complete."
"Our peace will flow like a river,
and our foundation will be the everlasting rocks."
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Fighting to set us free ♪
♪ King had a dream that we gotta keep ♪
♪ Love is the road of humanity ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ No matter your point of view ♪
♪ We are the future We'll see it through ♪
♪ It all starts with me and you ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
[raps] ♪ Super, mmm ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, what it look like ♪
♪ We 'bout to shine like stars On a good night ♪
♪ Open their minds like art Born out the hood, light up the dark ♪
♪ Listen, here goes a shot Out of a rocket ♪
♪ Imagine living Like nothing can stop it ♪
♪ The vision that drives your decision To aim for the target ♪
♪ Imagine the freedom to thrive Being worn like a garment ♪
♪ Stitched with a little tolerance Picture a world where all of us ♪
♪ Acknowledge each other And smile at our differences ♪
♪ Knowing that when you fly as me The sky is still limitless ♪
♪ Celebrating variety We found our new genesis ♪
♪ Ooh, I feel amazing Ooh, what can I say ♪
♪ But my mama's mama dreamed of a day That resembled this moment ♪
♪ Found our way to the pyramids Just by following omens ♪
♪ Livin' life like I'm still a kid I'm a king on my throne ♪
♪ Which passed down to me, if I'm honest ♪
-♪ 'Cause we are, we are ♪ -♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Fighting to set us free ♪
♪ King had a dream that we gotta keep ♪
♪ Love is the road of humanity ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ No matter your point of view ♪
♪ We are the future We'll see it through ♪
♪ It all starts with me and you ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
♪ Look around, every one of us
♪ It's in between But love, it holds us ♪
♪ And overtakes the ones who won't ♪
♪ Rejected ones are the cornerstone ♪
♪ We're rebuilding on the precipice ♪
♪ Of tearing down all your prejudice ♪
♪ Gonna trample the malevolence ♪
♪ Equality's our inheritance ♪
♪ 'Cause we all got a story Fighting for our glory and peace ♪
♪ Glory and peace ♪
♪ No matter your color, religion Your lover or creed ♪
♪ 'Cause we all gotta rewrite What isn't right, oh ♪
♪ We can't discriminate or eliminate ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Fighting to set us free ♪
♪ King had a dream that we gotta keep ♪
♪ Love is the road of humanity ♪
-♪ We are the promise ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ No matter your point of view ♪
♪ We are the future We'll see it through ♪
♪ It all starts with me and you ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Fighting to set us free ♪
♪ King had a dream that we gotta keep ♪
♪ Love is the road of humanity ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ No matter your point of view ♪
♪ We are the future We'll see it through ♪
♪ It all starts with me and you ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ We are the promise ♪
♪ Promise, promise ♪
♪ We are the promise… ♪