Original subtitles

College. For me, college was about experimenting with facial hair,

sketch comedy in front of tens of people, and impersonating Michael

dancing, specifically.

For undocumented students, it's different.

Education, not segregation!

Education, not segregation!

Education, not segregation!

I do miss that goatee.

I work in construction.

It's corny, but I really love waking up like really early in the morning and

going to work.

Construction is not what I want to do for the long run.

I would like to...

find a career in helping people, maybe as a social worker.

So you want to go to college?

Mm -hmm. And you want to be a social worker?

I think that speaks to your integrity.

Oh, thank you. That means a lot. Unless you're full of shit.

No, no. You're not full of shit, are you? No, no, no, no. All right, well,

take the compliment, yeah.

This is Mondo. He loves the gym, hanging with friends, and one day he hopes to

go to college.

If he lived almost anywhere else in the country, he could do that.

But he lives in Georgia, where kids like him are legally banned from the state's

top public universities.

And that's all because of one thing.

Mondo is an undocumented immigrant.

Why'd your family come to America?

I came here when I was six.

I don't remember how I got here. I don't really remember much about where I came

from. So are you six, and you're like, Mom?

Dad, I'm making the decision to come to America. There's business opportunities.

I want to get there. I want to get in on the ground floor. No, definitely not.

Definitely not. I was just thrust over here just randomly and then just started

my life here. You came to Atlanta. It's a fashionable city. Yes, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

It's where the players play.

Yeah, of course. Atlanta.

Atlanta. There we go.

Welcome to Atlanta, where in 2010, an unelected panel called the Georgia Board

of Regents passed policy 416.

barring undocumented students and DACA recipients, a .k .a. dreamers, who have

temporary protection from the state's top public universities.

Meaning the taxes they pay fund the universities they can't attend.

Fun fact, before the Civil Rights Movement, those exact same schools

African Americans.

History doesn't always repeat itself, but it does rhyme with faces.

Fortunately, students like Mondo have an alternative. They attend a secret

underground college called Freedom University.

And the school's director, Dr. Emiko Soltis, agreed to take me there.

Why keep it secret?

A lot of people are trying to keep undocumented students out of classrooms.

receive some pretty hateful emails, some threats. And in comment sections,

people encourage others to find us and shoot up our classrooms.

There's actually people saying to shoot up the classrooms?

Yep. And we exist in part because Georgia is by far the worst state to

if you're undocumented. The most punitive, the most discriminatory, the

unapologetic about.

Their hate.

So, on the upside, we're number one.

In discrimination, yep. Yeah, you might want to leave that off.

Emmy Koh and her students are letting us film under the condition that we do not

disclose their location.

Can we just have a moment kind of off camera where we actually talk about just

like safety and stuff like that? With students, 100%. For these students, just

showing their faces on camera could put them in jeopardy. Cameras are off.

Okay. So, as I enter, I don't know what to expect.

Given the scorn from the Board of Regents and the threats from hate

want to know what this radical Latinx madrasa really looks like. We're

approaching X from negative six.

And I say, what is F of negative six?

Oh, it looks like fucking school.

There's music, calculus, and a dozen other subjects taught by artists,

and professors from local colleges who volunteer their time.

Like a lot of Americans, I took school for granted. But these kids know how

difficult it can be to get into a classroom, and they're legitimately

even when their homework is watching failed surgeries.

So when you're in art class, it's easy to forget the hostile environment these

kids face outside.

It was probably fifth grade, and we were talking about our dream careers. I

mentioned to all my friends I wanted to be a doctor, and this girl in my class

told me not to dream so big because the only thing I would ever be was a maid in

her house.

What? Yeah. Was her name Becky? That sounds like a Becky thing to say.

At Freedom Youth, students don't just learn things like math and science.

They're also educated on the context of their own immigration status, which they

then parlay into activism.

Undocumented!

Undocumented!

Undocumented! It's heavy stuff, which today they tackle with trivia games.

Welcome to human rights class today. Today's our big UndocuJeopardy class.

It's an open book battle between my team.

Daka, daka, goof.

I'm the goof. I think I'm the goof.

The boys, with a Z, tacos, a name they gave themselves, and Lily, who was

apparently so good at this game that she plays by herself.

Only 42 % of young adults in Georgia have college education.

That's correct.

In order for Georgia to meet the demands of a global economy, 60 % of Georgians

should have a college degree.

If you have access to higher education, how much money are you projected to get

over a lifetime had you not gotten higher education?

$830 ,492. When we're talking about intergenerational poverty, access to

education has a serious impact.

Final question.

In 1995...

The undocumented population in Georgia was 55 ,000 people. By 2008, the

undocumented population was 425 ,000 people.

This six -fold increase is attributed to what historical event?

The Olympics. Wait, can you repeat that question?

What did you say? The Olympics. That's correct.

That's right, the Olympics.

Here's a history lesson.

We are less than 24 hours away from the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

As the Atlanta Games were approaching, the city was seriously behind schedule.

So they did what all Americans do when they're short on funds and need a job

done now.

They hired an immigrant.

Immigration enforcement was allegedly suspended, and the undocumented

exploded. After Georgia got its stadiums, it decided it didn't need

anymore and went on to win the gold.

In being complete dicks.

The state spent the following decades enacting some of the harshest anti

-immigrant policies in the nation. And now their new governor has taken up the

torch. I got a big truck.

Just in case I need to round up criminal illegals. Did he just say that?

Yep, I just said that.

Sorry.

It's a bit winded from all the mental gymnastics it takes to justify being a

dick.

Illegal immigration reduces wages and strains public services.

The lack of border control provides a gateway for criminals and gang

members to enter the United States.

Vast quantities of lethal narcotics are flooding through our border. A steel

barrier will help us stop illegal immigration.

Thank you and God bless America.

On the crime.

The amount of drugs I have in my apartment right now?

I'll tell you. I know who brought those drugs in.

I brought the drugs in.

After class, I hitch a ride with Marta and Dania. They're dreamers, a .k .a.

recipients of DACA, which gives them temporary residency, which is more

than many of their classmates have.

Do you have your seatbelt on this time, Jordan?

I do.

Just growing up undocumented, your parents always like, oh, are they going

ask me, like, where are your papers?

I grew up with a lot of fear, like my dad not having a license.

I wouldn't ask him to take me to school events because I was always so scared of

him getting pulled over or something.

What about other students who don't have DACA who are undocumented at Freedom U?

I don't mind picking up somebody even if they're like an hour away or something,

like if it means they're going to be safe.

I feel so blessed to be able to do that for my other friends.

Yeah, DACA is great, but we've been here our whole lives. We don't want just

temporary relief.

DACA is the It's Complicated of immigration statuses.

Uh -huh.

All right.

Marta thinks I'm hilarious, but the situation is serious.

Most young Americans don't give driving a second thought, but for undocumented

students, it can be terrifying.

So ironically, we got pulled over.

Okay. You guys are doing okay?

Like, my heart's racing just thinking about it.

He had a flashlight already out. And right away, as soon as I saw it, I was

like, okay, he's looking for something. And then he asked, do you have any

weapons or drugs in the car?

There was no law broken. No. He just pulled you over.

I don't know. It really scared me because I don't want to think about...

Fuck you, Georgia.

You don't think about the tension or the anxieties that these kids have to deal

with day in and day out.

You ask them a little bit more about their day -to -day, and that's when

stand out.

And you realize, oh, the idea of driving, that in and of itself, is

I never think about drama with driving. Even when I'm speeding, I'm not thinking

about getting pulled over.

Partially because I'm a celebrity.

And when you're a celebrity, all you got to do is blow the police officer and

they'll let you off.

When you're famous, they'll let you do anything.

I wonder why anyone would try to keep these students and their families from

doing something as simple as driving. Or what type of person would support the

current Georgia Board of Regents ban?

I support the current Georgia Board of Regents ban because one way that we can

foster legal immigration and discourage greatly illegal immigration is

demagnetizing the magnets that bring illegal immigrants here.

Do you think Mexicans are made of metal?

I don't understand what that means.

This is Phil Kent, a political operative and spokesman for groups like Pro

-English that support anti -immigrant legislation in Georgia.

When folks like him say, demagnetizing the magnets, what he really means is

making life unbearable for immigrants by cutting off access to things like jobs

and school.

Let's talk specifically about undocumented people here in America.

By the way, to interrupt you, I always chuckle at the word undocumented.

some of the most documented people in the world. It's just that they're fake.

They're fake? Okay, so they're liars. That's one way to paint it. Let me paint

this undocumented. Don't you agree?

The people that I spent the last few days with, they want a better education.

They want to be a part of America.

And they came here when they were very young because their parents were

searching for a better life, a .k .a. the American dream or some horseshit

that. What do they deserve here in this great country that we both get to live

in? I would like to wave a magic wand and have everyone happy. But? Because a

lot of these kids deserve it. There's a but coming. But I think a lot of them

don't. Do you believe this is a civil rights issue?

I'm going to say that the difference between Martin Luther King and the

for equality by African Americans is that they were citizens and that they

disenfranchised and that there was systemic discrimination in the South by

Black Americans, they wanted dignity.

They wanted to be treated as humans. Whereas these are immigrants.

Welcome Charles Black to class, everybody.

St. Charles has not only been a supporter of Freedom University, but he

very active in the Atlanta student movement.

And he was also one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s eight students at Morehouse

College. What does Dr. King mean when he states, but today, more than ever, the

black person realizes that while studying, he can also act to change the

conditions which cripple his future.

I think the fact that the students that he was teaching and the students that

were paying attention to the movement were so eager for the change that they

were willing to risk their lives and also risk arrest. I think that's very

courageous of them.

I mean, a lot of people connect Freedom University with the civil rights

movement and see a lot of parallels.

As somebody who was on the front lines, I was wondering what parallels you see.

I grew up in Miami, Florida.

There was no college in Miami that I could attend because of my scan.

So what that amounted to was serious brain drain from those communities.

So that is a definite parallel between the experience that you're having now.

That's a very good question.

We discussed last week that we wanted to move forward with a direct action on

February 12th at the next Board of Regents meeting.

of a direct action is that anytime you're disrupting a public hearing,

could potentially arrest people for criminal trespassing or disrupting a

government assembly.

But you do have a huge community of people who are willing to support you,

in for you, and get arrested.

I'm a little nervous today at the Board of Regents day. I mean, what is so...

What's so scary is a lot of these kids don't know what could happen. I think

just walking into a space where there's going to be a police officer, that's not

a small thing.

When I used to go to Board of Regents meetings as a kid, I remember, I'm

kidding, I never went to a Board of Regents meeting as a kid.

Here's what I know.

To protest policy 416, students have chosen to make and wear butterfly wings,

symbol of migration.

It's nerve -wracking, it's scary, but then at least I'll have this to know

I fought as hard as I could.

To mitigate risk, the students have asked for the help of allies like local

pastors and educators, anyone who can leverage their citizenship and status as

protectors. What can people like me, or specifically me, do to help out a

situation like this?

Listen. Say that again?

Listen. Listen. Okay. Show up and find where you are most powerful.

If that means you have a show on Comedy Central.

use that power to amplify the voices of undocumented youth.

And I'd like to call to order the February meeting of the Board of Regents

the University System of Georgia. Good morning, everyone.

And the meeting will now come to order.

Dear Lord, we ask that you provide us with strength and provide us with the

ability to continue to do what we have to do. In your name we pray. Amen.

Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you, Mr. Bradley.

We call upon your power and presence to move the moral conscience of

these leaders that they would allow us to overcome segregation in education

again today by allowing undocumented students, undocumented young people to

participate fully.

In George's system.

God,

your word says that your young ones will have visions and your elders will have

dreams. So we pray that you can allow these students to live their dream. We

want education, not segregation.

I am not a man of faith. I am a godless comedian.

So I can't speak with any kind of moral authority towards the board. But I can

say that education, not segregation.

Thank you. Education, not segregation.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't think that's right.

Either we're going to leave or we're going to arrest you. That's what we

want to do. So I'm asking you nicely, could you please leave?

We pray this is a nation under God.

We're getting arrested.

We're getting jammed.

Not segregation.

Officer, where are we heading?

Probably not good.

Nine people were arrested this week for disrupting a Georgia Board of Regents

meeting, among them the former Comedy Central host, arguing that students'

immigration status did not matter.

We're the city of the dream, and we're not living up to that dream. We're not

living up to who we are as the state and the city of civil rights.

We have to do it. I'm thinking about it.

Change takes time, but it's not impossible.

We're not going to sit down. That's exactly what the wings are for. We're

to fly. We're not here to sit down.

Sit down means to, like, give up.

Are you talking to me or your family?

You, Ben. You're my one phone home.

Okay, I love you too.

I had been in jail for 12 hours, but my spirits were high knowing that the

students were safe, although I'm sure they were struggling in my absence.

Pinch, and then twist.

Put it together, and then twist those two together.

Jail is no joke.

I did have to drop my pants and cough to see if anything would fall out of my

anus.

That really happened today. If you never thought twice about going to college,

driving a car, and can make jokes as you get arrested... All the times I wanted

to try a city bike, and my hands are tied.

You've got some privilege, and you can use it to stand up for those who aren't

so lucky. Hell, some people even dedicate their whole lives to doing

this. Personally, I'm not quite there yet.

I mentioned I had to squat bare -ass to cough to see if something fell on my

ass. I did, I did it, like right away. That's like the first thing they do.

If Martin Luther King's calculations are correct, the arc of the moral universe

will bend toward justice.

Although, I may have done my math wrong.

As of today, the Board of Regents ban on undocumented students still stands.

But that doesn't mean they've lost the fight.

Georgia's losing.

Like, maybe we're going to go out there and become lawyers and doctors.

And, like, we're not going to come back to Georgia where they didn't want to

give us the opportunity. So what do you get?

You guys, we have a really important announcement to make as well.

I applied to Prescott College in Arizona, and I got accepted.

Tell them that you won in DocuJeopardy twice.

Trouble in my head.