Wetback Documentary Notes PDF

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Notes taken of the documentary Wetback...

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Nereida Meza Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary ● Most come to the US for a chance at a better life than the one they had at home ● It’s obvious to tell almost all of them live in poverty ● They don’t have any job security. If things don’t work out where they are, they’ll get shut down and everyone is jobless ● People get desperate for anything to sell, they’ll rob junkyards and other cars ● Immigration is the result of an economic system that fails to provide opportunities for the people ● It’s a sign that the employment sections doesn’t work, there is not enough to provide ● Everyday more than 3,000 people from LatAm immigrate to North America ● But less than 300 make it ● “What you earn in a day you spend in a day for food” ● They leave so much behind when they try to cross over ● Blind sports are weak areas along the border where all sorts of illegal activities occur ● There are over 1,000 immigrants missing today ● Because they often travel with little documentation, if they die along the way then they cannot be identified ● There are all sorts of things along the way that can lead to someone’s death ● Immigrants don’t give up because their struggle is greater than their obstacles ● Migrant safe houses try what they can to help them by offering food, shelter, medicine, etc ● They can only stay for 3 days ● Mexico is especially dangerous to cross, and migrants have to be on high alert ● Majority of them are young people, more of them are women ● The Americans are the ones demanding and strong arming Mexico to control their immigration problem ● Every year the number of deaths rises ● The US has implemented “Plan Sur” to send migrants back to their original countries ● The US says they will finance the first year and Mexico the rest after ● “An expansion of the American border down south” ● Some of them try bribing the guards to let them slip past, but more often than not they do not have enough funds ● About 80% of the migrants are robbed or otherwise abused ● The police abuse and steal from the central american migrants and they have no one to report to ● Some Mexican people try to help, but others are scared because the police will do the same to them for helping ● They do incredibly invasive searches on the migrants

● They had ripped apart one of their ID and documentation ● They rob them completely and then throw them in rivers or on roads to be sent back ● Migrants use cargo trains to travel through Mexico because of the lack of passengers, but they are incredibly dangerous ● The trains easily cut off entire limbs, and others are completely crushed ● There are two prolific gangs who target migrants ● The Mara Salvatrucha 13 specializes in robbing and raping the migrants ● They jump and attack out of nowhere ● Mara 13 invented a weapon they call Chimba.” Its a weapon that uses 12- calibre ammo ● They use those and machetes to attack them ● They shot a kid twice for refusing to give them his shoes and they pushed someone off the trains ● The biggest mistake of the Mexican government was to mistake the Mara to be simple street gangs rather than complex organization with strategies, hierarchies, etc. ● The US promised green cards to Salvadoran mercenaries to fight the Mara ● There are people who over to cross migrants across the border but they charge high prices ● There are high spikes of captures after the holidays because they return to Mexico to visit family and try to cross over again ● There are camperas and patrols along the river ● Patrols also surround checkpoints in case they try to go around them ● Ranchers around the border have gotten aggressive and angry at their government for not stopping this, so they take it upon themselves to “protect their land” ● To cross the river, migrants take off all their clothes and put it in a bag, fill the bag with air, tie it with their shoelace and around their waste. Then they go in to get used to the temperature and current and attempt to cross ● American white men are sitting along certain parts past the border to stop migrants ● They call the immigrants terrorists ● Immigrants are good for American capitalism ● They have no medicare, they are underpaid, they don’t file for tax returns, etc ● Police and other authority flex their authority over immigrants because they know that they cannot fight back ● Undocumented workers in the US sent home over 30 billion dollars. These remittances are vital for the economy of their home countries ● Undocumented workers paid over 15 billion dollars into Social Security in 2003 and will never collect the benefits from it...