Every year, hundreds of thousands of undocumented people face deportation. Under the Obama administration, the number of deportations has hit record highs. In 2012 alone, the United States deported 409,849 people.
In June of 2013, a video, released by a group called Legals for the Preservation of American Culture, urged viewers to support the deportation of the Statue of Liberty.
The video was a satire, but the issues facing immigrant women are serious.
Right before the project’s launch, the U.S. Senate began debating an immigration reform bill that could help millions of immigrants -- more than half of them women -- gain legal documentation and U.S. citizenship. This bill could help protect the human rights and workers’ rights of immigrants. Breakthrough partnered with the Yes Lab to focus on how this legislation affects women, and Legals for the Preservation of American Culture (LPAC) was born.
LPAC’s video, which features a charming Lady Liberté being interviewed by an obnoxious Immigration & Customs Enforcement officer, received over 400,000 mentions on its first day on Twitter and over 90,000 video views as of this writing. When it was featured on the Situation Room on CNN, the video helped draw attention to the current debates about immigration reform. The satirical video may seem ridiculous, but it helped highlight the ludicrousness of the current immigration system in the United States.
Selected press:
- CNN: Send Lady Liberty Back to France?
- BBC Mundo: La Estatua de la Libertad puede ser deportada
- UPI: Deport the Statue of Liberty?
- HuffPo: Deport The Statue Campaign ‘Promotes’ Immigration Reform That Preserves American Culture
- Univision: La Estatua de la Libertad será deportada
- MSN: Watch Lady Liberty get deported because she doesn’t have papers
