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"You Might Get Hit by a Car": On Secret Tape, FBI Threatens American Muslim Refusing to be Informant
New details have emerged about the FBI’s efforts to turn Muslim Americans living abroad into government informants. An exposé in Mother Jones magazine chronicles the story of an American named named Naji Mansour who was living in Kenya. After he refused to become an informant, he saw his life, and his family’s life, turned upside down. He was detained, repeatedly interrogated and ultimately forced into exile in Sudan, unable to see his children for years. Mansour began recording his conversations with the FBI. During one call, an agent informs Mansour that he might get "hit by a car." Mansour’s story is the focus of a new piece in Mother Jones titled "This American Refused to Become an FBI Informant. Then the Government Made His Family’s Life Hell." We speak with Naji Mansour in Sudan and Nick Baumann, who investigated the story for Mother Jones.TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: New details have emerged about the FBI’s efforts to turn Muslim Americans living abroad into government informants. An exposé in Mother Jones magazine chronicles the story of an American named Naji Mansour. After he refused to become an informant while he was living in Kenya, he saw his life and his family’s life turned upside down. He was detained, repeatedly interrogated and ultimately forced into exile in Sudan, unable to see his children for years.
He ended up spending 37 days in a squalid prison in Sudan. After he was released from prison, FBI agents approached him again. This time Naji Mansour decided to record the phone conversation. During the call, the agent informs Mansour that he might get, quote, "hit by a car." On Thursday, the phone recording was published by Mother Jones. Take a listen.
FBI AGENT: If you did have any kind of business going on today or any kind of things like that, you’re going to find how miniscule and worthless it was compared to this fork in the road that you’re about to—that you’re about to take.
NAJI MANSOUR: What are you talking about? No, why don’t you come out and say it?
FBI AGENT: OK.
NAJI MANSOUR: Why don’t you come out and say? What fork in the road are you talking about?
FBI AGENT: Dude, it’s—whatever. Honestly, I don’t care. I’m getting out of here. I don’t care. OK? And it’s—you know, when I tell somebody, "Hey, you know what? If you cross the street without looking, you’re going to get run over," that’s not a threat, [bleep]; that’s advice [bleep], OK? You’re about to cross the street without looking both ways, and I’m telling you, "You know what? You might get hit by a car." That is not a threat. That is a solid piece of the advice. So you don’t want to take it.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a phone conversation of an unidentified FBI agent pressuring Naji Mansour to become an informant. Mansour’s story is the focus of a new piece in Mother Jones titled "This American Refused to Become an FBI Informant. Then the Government Made His Family’s Life Hell."
We’re joined now by Naji Mansour via Democracy Now! from Sudan. And joining us from Washington, D.C., is journalist is Nick Baumann, who wrote the piece for Mother Jones magazine.
Nick, let’s begin with you. Just lay out this whole story.
NICK BAUMANN: As you heard, this is a story about Naji Mansour, who refused to become an informant for the FBI, and sort of what happened to him and his family, especially his family, after he made that fateful decision. And the way I start the story, and I think the best place to start, is with Naji’s mom, who’s a longtime U.S. government employee, and his sister, and they’re in Juba in South Sudan. And it’s the middle of the night, late at night. Juba is a very dangerous place. And they’re actually wandering the streets looking for Naji, because he’s been disappeared. They don’t know where he is. They’ve been told by his wife that—who was held with him and then released, that he’s being held in a blue building somewhere, but they don’t know where that is. And imagine just if this is your child or your brother, and you’re an American living abroad, just having no idea where that person is and having to search for them. And Naji believes—and I think with—he has a few good reasons to believe this—that the U.S. government sort of orchestrated the bad things that happened to him and his family.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Naji Mansour, could you tell us how it is that you’ve later discovered that you came into the crosshairs of the FBI? Why did they begin to target you initially? And talk about those early—the early experiences you had.
NAJI MANSOUR: Well, basically, in 2008, I was working in Dubai in an IT company. And due to the financial crisis, I had come back to Nairobi in late 2008. I had gone early 2009 to cancel my visa, and then I returned to Nairobi. I had, on numerous occasions, offered my place in Kenya, or my—actually, our family house in Kenya to a lot of travelers or anybody who would like to come by. And this is a family tradition that we have. We have traveled most of our lives, and we have been given accommodation, and we have given accommodation.
So, apparently, just after I come back from Emirates, I get a call from a mosque acquaintance in Dubai, who, you know, I knew of, not so much, but we had several conversations. And on some occasion, maybe one or two occasions, I’ve offered him to come over to Kenya, or if he was ever in Kenya, that he should look me up, or something like this. He had called me, and he had asked for me to accommodate two young gentlemen coming by, his friends. I thought they would be coming from Emirates, but apparently they came from England. I kind of—I believed. When I was asking for more information, they had—the phone had cut. So, these two gentlemen happened to be on a watchlist. They had come over, stayed with me. And after about two weeks, my house was raided by local law enforcement. After the raid, which I—I wasn’t there, as can be read about in the story.
After the raid, I secured some legal documentation barring my deportation, which is usually what they do to young men who are married to Kenyan women. Once I obtained this documentation, I handed myself in to the anti-terror police unit, and they had questioned me for two days and let me go. After that, I brought myself to the U.S. Embassy to report this to the consular section, to a person called Mike Fogarty. And he basically brought in another guy called Jeff Roberts, who was the deputy RSO, head of security over there, or deputy head of security. And he basically came in with—very quickly came in with two FBI agents. It was very—it was very candid, but I agreed to sit and talk with them. It was from that time that the FBI was involved in my case.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from the conversation between you, Naji Mansour, and an FBI agent. Here, the agent tells you they’re scrutinizing not only you, but your mother.
FBI AGENT: What I’m trying to say is, you don’t want to come into the embassy to do it, fine. You know, I—we said we’d do it outside of the embassy. This isn’t a—meeting hasn’t been a priority to you. In fact, you haven’t wanted to sit with us since we’ve talked, since I’ve been back in country. OK? You say you want to get things resolved, I say there’s scrutiny on you. There’s scrutiny on your mom. She’s employed by the consulate, and yet you don’t want—or she’s employed at the consulate through a contractor, and you’re saying you don’t want to come to the embassy, and there’s a good—there’s good reason for that. So I said—
NAJI MANSOUR: Yes.
FBI AGENT: —do you need us—
NAJI MANSOUR: Exactly. My position hasn’t changed.
FBI AGENT: Which—Naji—OK, understood.
NAJI MANSOUR: My position hasn’t changed. Scrutiny on my mother has nothing to do with anything, unless you’re making a threat. And currently, I told you the situation here, [bleep], that in this country, I’m kind of like—have you heard of the expression "beggars are not choosers"? I’m on contract.
FBI AGENT: Well—
NAJI MANSOUR: I’m on contract. So I’m not giving you any illegitimate excuse. While you’re here, I’ve bent over backwards, and I really don’t—I really don’t like your tone.
FBI AGENT: Naji—
NAJI MANSOUR: I don’t like your tone, [bleep]. I don’t like your tone.
FBI AGENT: Naji.
NAJI MANSOUR: You have scrutiny on me, for what? What do you have on me? You have nothing on me. I’ve done nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Naji Mansour, speaking with the FBI. Naji, can you talk about what happened next?
NAJI MANSOUR: Well, basically, if I can recall—I haven’t heard the tape in a while, but basically another FBI agent came on the phone. At that time, I was very angry because they had—they had basically started to pressure me to meet with them at a time that I was in a meeting. Just to put things into perspective, I have—at that time, was in Sudan for about a month. I’m basically starting my life over, trying to do random jobs, and they were pressuring me to meet at a time where I just couldn’t make it. And I hadn’t refused to meet with them, but I just refused to meet with them at that time. And I had told them that I could meet with them later, but they were really pushing for me to meet with them. And I kind of got insulted. I was already—you know, I was already apprehensive to the idea of meeting them, because of what I was told about them being involved in my—in my detention in Juba.
So, afterwards, another agent, Amar—sorry, another agent came online, and he told me that, you know, I should come—he doesn’t buy into my lies, or something to that effect—and I should meet with him, and if I don’t, my life will change. And that’s when I told him, "Come out and say, what are you talking about, which fork in the road will I take?" And he basically—he wouldn’t go on into detail, but he said that there will be a series of events that will take place, and then he’s out of it. And sure enough, after that conversation, four days later, my mother, a government contractor working in Juba, was fired from her position, one day after she signed a new contract with her company.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Naji, you mentioned your detention in Juba. Could you talk about what was the pretext or the reason that you were detained and what happened to you during that period?
NAJI MANSOUR: Shortly after the raid at my house in Kenya, about a month or so, I went to Uganda to visit my two older children. And on my way back into Kenya, they refused me entry. So I had went to Juba to stay with my mother, who was working there. And at the same time, it was in the plan to go there and to start a rugged laptop business that I had already previously been engaged in. Basically, I was there for about two months, living in Juba, going for meetings, and quite free.
About two months into me being there, my mother decided to go back to Kenya for—I think for a business meeting or some type of business travel. And then my—I used the opportunity for my wife to come over and visit me. And one day—she was only here for—she was only there for about five days. And one day before she was supposed to travel back, two security men, or state security men, showed up at my place and said I needed to come in for questioning. We were like, "Fine, no problem."
By that time, I kind of already had an idea why they wanted to question me. But, I mean, I would imagine that whatever happened in Kenya spilled over into Juba. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why, why at this point. And we went in. And we weren’t really seriously questioned, but around the end of the day they basically threw us in a dark cell, separate—two separate dark cells. And they didn’t really—you know, they didn’t really tell us anything. They never accused me. They never charged me of anything. They wanted to know what had happened in Kenya. I told them. And then basically I just repeated the entire story to them very openly.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know other people who have been pressured in the way you have, Naji?
NAJI MANSOUR: I have come across other people who have been pressured. During my experience with an organization in Kenya called the Muslim Human Rights Forum, we came across several people who were pressured in different ways with regards to, you know, becoming informants. And they—them being under detention at the time was used as kind of a form of duress in which to get them to accept becoming an informant.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Nick Baumann, could you talk about—put this in the context of FBI efforts around the globe to target Americans who are abroad, who they, in one reason or another, want to turn to provide them information because they may suspect they have ties to terrorist groups?
NICK BAUMANN: Sure. So the FBI is very concerned about what it would call homegrown terrorism, or terrorism by American citizens. And it’s especially concerned about people going abroad to receive training or meet with terrorist groups, and stuff like that. And because of this, and because of its sort of huge need for informants—it has about 15,000 informants in the United States, basically one in every mosque in America—it’s always trying to recruit informants. And one of the ways it does this is it applies pressure on American citizens, usually Muslims, who are traveling abroad. One—you saw a recent lawsuit in which a number of American Muslims charge that the FBI and the government were using the no-fly list to pressure them to become informants. Basically they’re told they can’t return to the United States unless they cooperate with the FBI.
And this sort of phenomenon that we’re talking about in this case, which is sometimes called proxy detention, is where American citizens are actually picked up by foreign governments and either questioned in a similar way to what the FBI is interested in or actually questioned by the FBI itself while in foreign detention. And there are a number of other similar cases like this that I’ve reported on. Actually, the way I heard from Naji in the first place was I had reported a story about Yonas Fikre, who was an American who was living in Sudan and told the FBI he wasn’t interested in becoming an informant and was later arrested when he was traveling. He was arrested in the United Arab Emirates. And he says that he was detained and tortured there and asked questions like the questions that the FBI had asked him. And Naji emailed me after he saw that story, and he said, "I had a similar experience." And so that’s how I actually found out about Naji’s story in the first place. So—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to—I want to go to that. In that article, you write Fikre "was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and punched, [and] held in stress positions while interrogators demanded he 'cooperate.'" This is Yonas Fikre talking about how FBI agents had tried to make him an informant.
YONAS FIKRE: They told me there was a case pending in Portland, Oregon, where I was living, and they needed my help. And I was kind of surprised. I said, "What case is there?" And they said, "Well, we can’t tell you. You have to accept—you have to be willing to help us, and then we can tell you. We don’t work like that." They would give me money, that I would live a good life. They asked me, "Don’t you love your family? Don’t you want them to have a good life? You will make good money. You know, work with us." And I made it clear to them. I told them I plan—I don’t plan to be an FBI informant or to be an undercover—whatever plan they were trying to do. But I told them that if there’s any question—if there’s anything that I know, you know, I would tell you guys. But as far as like me going in to anybody and trying to be secretly bringing any kind of information, that I would not do.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Yonas Fikre talking about how FBI agents had tried to make him an informant. Nick Baumann, talk also about the significance of these clips that we have played of Naji Mansour and the FBI.
NICK BAUMANN: So, I think the significance here is that a lot of these cases, you just sort of have to take the word of the people who are making these allegations. And in Naji’s case, it’s actually pretty well documented. You have this long interview that he recorded with the FBI agents in which they sort of confirm, or at least corroborate, some of his allegations. I obtained a document assessing—this intelligent document regarding his detention, sort of confirming that he had been detained when he said he was detained and for how long he was detained. I talked to, you know, Kenyan officials who confirmed his problems there. So there’s really a lot of corroboration for the story.
And in terms of—I don’t want to—I don’t want to be naive. Of course, you know, it’s not totally uncommon for law enforcement to pressure or even threaten people that they want things from. But I think the thing you have to keep in mind about these recordings is that these FBI agents, they’re not—they’re not stupid, and they know that they’re in Sudan and they’re talking on the phone, and there’s a good chance that Sudanese intelligence is listening. And there’s also a chance that their conversation is being recorded. And so, this is—these are things that they were willing to say, knowing that they might have been recorded. So, what your listeners and viewers have to think about is: What would they have said if they didn’t think there was a chance that they were being recorded?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nick, the—I’m wondering if you’ve gotten responses from the FBI, not only about the effort to try to get to him to be an informant, but also to threaten and target family members if he refused.
NICK BAUMANN: Yeah, so that’s the strangest part of this, right? That—let’s say you take the—you don’t believe Naji, and you take the worst-case scenario and you believe that he really knew that these guys who were staying in his house were bad guys, and, you know—and he’s a bad guy himself. Even if you believe all that, that doesn’t necessarily mean that his family is guilty at all. His mother is a longtime employee of the U.S. government, has worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development for years and years, had a security clearance, handled baggage for Laura Bush when Laura Bush visited Kenya. And, you know, his brother was a marine who served two tours in Afghanistan. His sister also worked for the government. And all these people have had trouble with the law since Naji refused to become an informant. And as you heard earlier, Naji’s mom lost her job. And the question is, you know: What justifies that? And the government, in general—the FBI, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development—none of them are really willing to answer those sorts of questions. They were willing to sort of talk generally. And the State Department did confirm that they had—they confirmed Naji’s detention and confirmed that they had visited him in detention. But in terms of the firing of his mom, there’s not much information they were willing to give.
AMY GOODMAN: Naji Mansour, if you could, in this last 30 seconds we have, explain why you’ve decided to come for the first time on national, international television? The significance of releasing these FBI calls, for you?
NAJI MANSOUR: Basically, personally, I had wanted to come out with this since I was detained in Juba. And I had actually told the embassy to do so, to—they had a form, and I told them to alert everybody, including the media, including my state senator, everybody. Unfortunately, they did not do so. And afterwards, when—after I was released, my mother had some concerns, because of what would—you know, the blowback that would come to us if I did go to the media. But four years on, this is still happening. The government is still asking me out for coffee, last time I went to the embassy to renew my passport. Basically, this is not going away, and we need to make it stop. I want my life back. We want our lives back.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, Naji Mansour, speaking to us from Sudan, Muslim American, says the U.S. government retaliated against him and his family when he refused to become an FBI informant. And, Nick Baumann, we will link to your piece, senior editor at Mother Jones. His new exposé is "This American Refused to Become an FBI Informant. Then the Government Made His Family’s Life Hell."
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, The Yes Men strike again.
Posing as U.S. Officials, Yes Men Announce Renewable Energy Revolution at Homeland Security Congress
The culture jamming activist group The Yes Men have struck again. Earlier this week, members of the group spoke at the Homeland Security Congress posing as U.S. government officials. At the conference, they announced a fictitious new U.S. government plan called "American Renewable Clean-Energy Network" to convert the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. After the announcement, The Yes Men and indigenous activists led the audience in a large circle dance to celebrate the fictitious plan. We air excerpts from their action, including the speeches delivered by "Benedict Waterman," undersecretary of policy implementation at the U.S. Department of Energy, and "Bana Slowhorse," a Bureau of Indian Affairs official with the "Wannabe Tribe." The group joins us in studio to talk about their action. Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum are two members of The Yes Men, and Gitz Crazyboy is an activist fighting tar sands extraction in his Native lands.TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, yes, The Yes Men have struck again. Earlier this week, members of the activist group spoke at the Homeland Security Congress posing as U.S. government officials. At the conference, they announced a fictitious new U.S. government plan called American Renewable Clean-Energy Network to convert the United States to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. This is a member of The Yes Men who identified himself as Benedict Waterman, undersecretary of policy implementation at the U.S. Department of Energy.
BENEDICT WATERMAN: Thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure to be here and an honor to be making this announcement here. On behalf of the Department of Energy, I’m very excited to announce today a great new plan. It’s beginning a process that will do nothing less than convert the United States’ energy grid into one that’s powered entirely by renewable sources. We’re going to do it in only slightly more time than it took to win World War II.
American Renewable Clean-Energy Network, AmeriCAN, is part of President Obama’s Climate Change Action Plan. It will put ownership of energy production directly in the hands of small companies, local entities and entrepreneurs like yourselves. The U.S. currently generates around 10 percent of our energy from renewable sources, placing us 113th in the world. By 2030, America will produce 100 percent of our energy from renewables, establishing us once again as a beacon of innovation and progress and as a global leader in confronting the supreme challenge of climate change.
BANA SLOWHORSE: There’s always this thing of like, well, how long will it last? Everybody asks that: How long will it last? How long will this green movement go on for? How long will mankind use and utilize this energy? And I think about that and the sentiments of our ancestors that signed the treaties. I’ll echo their words: As long as the sun shines, the river flows, the grass grows, the wind blows, we will have energy, and we will have these jobs.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Gitz Crazyboy posing as an official from the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Homeland Security Congress. He’s actually an indigenous tar sands activist. After The Yes Men spoke, they led the crowd in a line dance.
DRUM CHIEF FOUR FEATHERS: [echoed by line dance] We are home. We are here. Said, we are ho-ho-home. We are here-here-here. We are here. The sun gonna shine. The wind gonna blow. That’s all we need. To continue to grow.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, to find out more, we’re joined right now by three guests. Gitz Crazyboy, who we just heard from him in the tape posing as an official from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, actually an indigenous tar sands activist. Andy Bichlbaum is with us, of The Yes Men. He posed as Benedict Waterman, an undersecretary of policy implementation at U.S. Department of Energy. And Mike Bonanno, member of The Yes Men, played the assistant to Benedict Waterman. We only have 30 seconds, but this congress, the Homeland Security Congress, what is it?
ANDY BICHLBAUM: This is a Congress that is about contractors who want to get government contracts to do usually things like fortify the border or, you know, other homeland security issues. They pay a lot of money to go, and we got in and gave an announcement that the U.S. was going to convert to entirely renewable energy by 2030. This was the Department of Energy—I was from the Department of Energy, and I announced the sweeping plan, teaming up with the Department of Defense and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to convert the entire U.S. to renewable energy by 2030, which is entirely feasible. And everybody was thrilled.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And they believed you.
ANDY BICHLBAUM: They—yeah, believe it or not, they believed me. This—this didn’t dissuade them.
AMY GOODMAN: The congress—this National Homeland Security Congress has lobbyists, military contractors, and they believed you.
ANDY BICHLBAUM: Absolutely believed.
AMY GOODMAN: And they danced with you.
ANDY BICHLBAUM: And they danced with us.
GITZ CRAZYBOY: In celebration, they danced.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno and Gitz Crazyboy, we leave it there.
Watch Part 2 of this interview.
That does it for today’s show. I’ll be speaking tonight at Dartmouth, 5:00 at Moore Hall. Check our website at democracynow.org.
Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American
As comprehensive immigration reform has languished in Congress, undocumented immigrants have increasingly come forward to share their stories in order to call attention to the need for a change in federal laws. One of the leading voices has been Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. In 2011, he outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in an essay published in The New York Times Magazine. He chronicles his experience in the new film, "Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American."TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to turn right now to the immigrants’ rights protests.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, well, throughout the world Thursday, millions marched in the streets to celebrate May Day, a workers’ rights holiday that has its roots in the United States, when unionized immigrant workers successfully organized to demand an eight-hour workday. Many of the day’s events in the United States focused on the need for comprehensive immigration reform. This is Dominique Hernandez of the New York State Youth Leadership Council speaking at a May Day rally here in Manhattan.
DOMINIQUE HERNANDEZ: My father worked a lot and really, really hard for me to actually be able to pay an education. Undocumented youth are not eligible to get any financial aid. And that’s what we’re working on right now. Of course it affects me directly when my father is unable to get a better job and when I’m unable to get a job because I am undocumented.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, as immigration reform languishes in Congress, undocumented immigrants have increasingly come forward to share their stories in order to call attention to the need for its passage. One of the leading voices has been Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. In 2011, he outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in an essay published in The New York Times Magazine. Now a new film chronicles his experience. It’s called Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Jose Antonio Vargas of The Washington Post.
REPORTER: Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: I lived the American dream, building a successful career as a journalist, but I was living a lie.
I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told a lot of people. I’m actually an undocumented immigrant.
Immigration is stories. So here’s my story. My grandparents legally immigrated from the Philippines in the mid-1980s. My grandfather decided that he was going to get his grandson to come to America. One morning, my suitcase was packed. I was 12. It’s been 18 years since I’ve seen my mother. So, I’m launching a whole campaign about what it means to be an American and the fact that I am an American. There are 11 million undocumented people in this country.
In 2010, undocumented people paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes.
COLOMBIAN IMMIGRANT: My name is [inaudible]. I’m from Colombia.
NIGERIAN IMMIGRANT: From Nigeria.
BRAZILIAN IMMIGRANT: From Brazil.
GERMAN IMMIGRANT: I’m an undocumented immigrant from Germany.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: We mow your lawn. We work at your houses. Maybe we’re your doctors. Maybe we’re nurses. We’re not who you think we are.
MITT ROMNEY: People who have come here illegally should not be citizens of the United States.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: So what happens in Iowa if you discover, as a cop, that somebody is an undocumented person?
NEWS ANCHOR: A major blow for immigration reform today, the Senate voted against the DREAM Act.
LAWRENCE CALVERT: I’m a conservative, and I’m a hardcore Republican, but I don’t agree with them on this.
STEPHEN COLBERT: You’re an illegal alien.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: No, I’m an undocumented immigrant.
STEPHEN COLBERT: No, you’re an illegal.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: No, but wait, no, actually, this is—
STEPHEN COLBERT: I think I’ve broken the law just having you in my studio.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: No, this is—
ANTONIO TAGUBA: Who is really the Americans? I would say people who came here to do good for this country.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: We dream of a path to citizenship. We dream of contributing to the country we call our home. I have this fantasy that I get a green card, and I fly, and that my mother will be there waiting for me.
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American, written, produced and directed by Jose Antonio Vargas, who joins us now in our New York studio. The film opens tonight in New York at the Village East Cinema, coming to theaters all over the country. It’s set to air on CNN this summer.
Jose, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about the—your journey, and your journey now in the context of what’s happening in Washington, D.C.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Well, thank you for having me here. I actually live just a few blocks away, so it’s always nice to be here.
I’m more convinced now than I was three years ago, when I outed myself, that before we change the politics of this issue, we have to change the culture of this issue. Right? I’ve done about 200 events in 42 states, traveling around the country while filming this film. And the fact that people still think we’re all, quote-unquote, "Mexicans," if there’s anything wrong with being Mexican, and the fact that people think this is, you know, a Latino criminal issue, right, tells us kind of the long ways we have to go. And I have to tell you, like, for me, the most tragic thing doing all the traveling is how many people, after they find out that I’m Filipino, people say "illegal" and "Mexican" interchangeably. I mean, I have to say that that’s, for me, the most tragic thing. And that’s a big cultural problem, right? People think that just because you happen to be brown or Latino in this country, you’re not even supposed to be here, even if you were born here. And so, I really wanted to make a film—and this is why I wanted to direct the film myself—you know, to make a statement, right? And to me, the film is a cultural statement, not a political one. I worked pretty hard to make sure that it isn’t overly political, just so I can play it in places. I’ve done some—couple of tea party screenings, and doing a lot more conservative kind of oriented events.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But you started out, as I understand it, to make a film about the DREAMers.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And somehow or other, you then decided, reluctantly, to focus on your own story. Could you talk about that transition?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Very reluctantly. Well, first of all, I mean, I—after, you know, the privilege of outing myself in The New York Times—I mean, it was a 4,000-word essay, and I just—after that, I thought I was done. I didn’t want to have to say anything more than that. And so, originally, my—actually, my original idea was Inside Job for immigration. Charles Ferguson’s film was an original inspiration. And then, when I started filming, I was like, "Huh, do I really want to overpoliticize this issue?" So I’m like, Waiting for Superman meets the DREAM Act, right? At least that was my conception in my head. And then, about a year into filming, it kind of shifted. One of my filmmaker friends said, "You can’t do this film and not put your mom in it." Then I decided to send a film crew to the Philippines. I mean, how do I direct a film if I can’t even go to the Philippines to film her, right? So I sent a film crew. And then—
AMY GOODMAN: Because you can’t leave this country.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Because I can’t leave the country. I’ve been here since I was 12, 18 years—21 years this August. So I sent a film crew. Then the footage gets back, and, you know, as you saw on the film, there’s like, you know, footage of my mom just looking straight into the camera. And that was just—you know, I’ve seen more of my mother in this film editing her than I have in 21 years. So it’s just very surreal, I have to say.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So then you made the decision to focus more on your own story—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —and the impact on your family of the—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —of your immigration status.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: But this is what happens, right? This is how you—how do you explain—I couldn’t write, you know, 21 years of not seeing her. I could not write that. But in some way, the film shows that, right? Like when she and I Skype for the first time on film, that’s the experience and the reality for so many, you know, immigrants of this family who are separated from their families all across the world. So I wanted to capture that kind of experience. And I think the film does that.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your own experience. You talk—you said you came to this country at the age of 12.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Age 12, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Your mother sent you here.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: My mother put me on a plane with a stranger, who I thought was my uncle. But, you know, we’re Filipinos: Everybody’s an uncle. So I thought everything was fine. I got here when I was 12. And then I thought, you know, my grandparents, my mother’s parents, treated me like I was one of their own. And then, four years after I got here, I went to the DMV to get a driver’s permit, and that’s when I realized that the green card that my grandfather had given me was fake. So that’s when the lies kind of started.
And then a year after that, thankfully, for me, I discovered journalism. And the only reason I did it—you know, we didn’t have books at home. Writing wasn’t like a—I come from a lower-middle-class family of, you know, workers, service workers. But writing, for me, was interesting because it meant that my name would be on a piece of paper, you know, like Juan González, New York Daily News. I figured that was a way to just exist. And so, I thought if I could be in the piece of paper, that meant that I’m here, right? So I thought I could just like keep doing that. And that’s what I did for 13 years, ’til I was 30.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, then, in your time in The Washington Post, which I’m sure was covering immigration problems and the undocumented—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Actually, no, I ran away. I mean, I remember the guilt I felt during the 2005—you know, during the 2005—those rallies that happened, right?
AMY GOODMAN: In 2006, yes.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: I mean, I must have been the only Jose anywhere in the Washington, D.C., newsroom, and I wanted to run away as fast as I could.
AMY GOODMAN: Did your employers know you were undocumented?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: No, no, of course not. I mean, I lied. I lied on the forms. And that’s what really makes my case more complicated, because when I outed myself in The New York Times and also in the film, I admitted to that, because I had to, right? I mean, I feel like what’s really lacking in this issue is a sense of intellectual honesty, right? There’s a great documentary called Harvest of Empire, for example, right? I mean, I watched that documentary. So—
AMY GOODMAN: Juan’s film actually just aired on the Capitol Tuesday night.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Oh, great.
AMY GOODMAN: Yeah.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: But, like, how do we have a conversation about immigration and not include that conversation? You know, I mean, there is—and the public—you know, my travels have really shown me that the American public is ready for an honest conversation on this issue, not the same talking points that we hear over and over and over again.
AMY GOODMAN: So what was the response to you outing yourself, both in your workplace—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Well—
AMY GOODMAN: —at The Washington Post and also the U.S. government?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Well, you know, I decided actually that—when I outed myself, I basically left all of my jobs. You know, I thought about this pretty carefully. So, I can’t be employed by anybody, but—this is where it gets really interesting—I can actually employ people. So, I have an LLC. That’s why—you know, I made a film, and I hired, I don’t know, 40 people total, probably, to just do the film. So, it’s been really interesting that way, because now I’ve been forced to become an entrepreneur that way.
But the reaction from the journalistic community, in general, has been rather interesting. I feel like somehow they just took away my journalistic—kind of like, "Hey, here, you’re not a journalist anymore. Now you’re this advocate activist thing." And my question to that is: What do you think am I advocating for? And why is it that when people of color or gay people or women, you know, say something, it’s called having an agenda, and yet, when other journalists say it, it’s called having an analysis? You know, I think that’s really an interesting question.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a clip from your film, Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American. In this scene, Jose Antonio Vargas is speaking on the phone with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: My name is Jose Antonio Vargas. Last summer, I wrote this kind of big essay for The New York Times Magazine, my coming out, basically, as undocumented. And I haven’t heard from anybody. So I’m calling you guys to get some information on kind of what my status is. No, I don’t have an alien number. I mean, yeah, I’m—I mean, I’m undocumented. I don’t have—you know, I don’t—are you planning on deporting me? Why or why—I mean, again, like, are you planning on deporting me? Why or why not? And—OK, so I’ll put that in the email. And then, how do you decide whether to start deportation proceedings against somebody, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Jose Antonio Vargas. Take it from there.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Well, actually, that was because—so, I guess I was surprised that no one contacted me. So here I am. I admit to everything. My lawyers were like, "Get ready." Then nothing happened. And as we all know, a thousand people get deported every day. There’s been two million deportations in almost five years. Here I am admitting to everything. I mean, I was kind of hoping—not hoping, but like, OK, what are they going to do? I was surprised by the silence. And so I contacted the editor of Time magazine, at the time, Rick Stengel, and I said, "I want to write a story about why they haven’t deported me." So that’s actually that scene from that. That scene is from the film when I called ICE myself and said, you know, "What’s up? I haven’t heard from you."
And the woman on the other line, we couldn’t—we couldn’t, you know, record her, for legal purposes. And at one point I said to her, "You know, look, I’m on deadline. I need a comment." And she said, "We can’t comment on your case. No comment." And I actually think that’s a metaphor, in general, for how the American public thinks of us right now, like, you know, "No comment." Like, you all know we’re here. You know we go to the same grocery stores and the same church. We go to your schools. We work with you. We drive on the same freeway. So what are you going to do with us? Right? And as you know, that’s what we’re battling right now in Congress. But what is the role of states and cities? I mean, to me, that’s a really important question, which is why here in New York, you know, the municipal ID bill hopefully passes through. Why can’t Andrew Cuomo pass the state DREAM Act? It’s a surprise to any—to everybody. And what can we do, you know, right now, for example, to do drivers’ licenses legislation in the state?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you, in terms of the response of the politicians—part of your experiences as a Washington Post reporter was covering some of the Mitt Romney campaign—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —and being in—and, of course, Romney staked out a position early on as part of the chorus—
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Self-deportation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The chorus of the self-deportation group. Could you talk about your experiences then?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Well, you know, I actually covered Romney the first time he ran for president in 2008—in 2007 in Iowa, and then I came back four years later, now as an undocumented immigrant holding a sign. I actually crashed a Mitt Romney rally. So that was interesting. It was the first time in my life that I ever like held a sign, because, you know, as a journalist, I was trained to never do that. So it was a very surreal experience, actually, holding that sign. But that—when I crashed that rally, what was so interesting was just, again, you know, the general lack of information that people have on this issue, right? This man was like, "Why don’t you just get in the back of the line?" And I have to tell you, that’s probably the number one—the two number—two things that I always get asked is: Why haven’t you gotten deported? I don’t know; ask the government. Number two: Why don’t you just make yourself legal? Right? Which is such an outrageous question. And in the film, as you know, we actually go through the form and show people, oh, I can’t even get past line two. You know, this is why—people think that we just get on the corner of 23rd and Sixth and, like, get in an office and fill out a form. It doesn’t work like that. That’s why we need reform to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to your film, Documented. In this scene in Cullman, Alabama, you interviews a Republican farmer named Lawrence Calvert.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yes.
LAWRENCE CALVERT: I own 32 acres here.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: And are you born and raised here in Alabama?
LAWRENCE CALVERT: Yes, born here and raised in Alabama. I don’t farm on the scale that I did at one time, for the simple reason that I’m getting older. Paco is the nickname of my Latino worker. And it’s a friendship, and he works for—with me also. I’d rather say he works with me than for me.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yeah, yeah.
LAWRENCE CALVERT: If I go to Paco’s house, his three children come hug me just like my grandkids come hug me. That’s one of his little—his little son, the youngest one. But I, for some—I’ve accidentally erased the other. But Latinos are—are scared. If they’re here illegally, they’re scared. If they’re here legally, they’ve got family members that they’re scared for. But the idea that if I’ve got Paco in a vehicle with me, then I’m liable also and I can be arrested, well, that’s telling me who my friend—the state of Alabama is telling me who my friends can be. I’m a conservative, and I’m a hardcore Republican, but I don’t agree with them on this. I think you’ve got an immigration problem, but this is no way of solving it.
AMY GOODMAN: Farmer Lawrence Calvert in the film Documented. As we wrap up, how his views fit into the national picture here and where we’re headed?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: You know, I mean, I hope if every Republican can have a conversation with Lawrence Calvert. I mean, that man speaks to this issue with more nuance and sensitivity than, first of all, most of the Republican leaders in the state of Alabama and some of our own Republican leaders in Congress.
AMY GOODMAN: You showed this film at the college of Paul Ryan?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yeah, Miami University, actually this past Monday. About 200 or so kids showed up, mostly white, mostly conservative. It was wonderful, because I think, for them, you know, they’ve grown up thinking of this issue as another thing. One woman actually said to me afterwards—she just kept shaking her head. She said, "This is not what I thought it was going to be." And I said, "Well, because it’s not what it is. It’s not what you think it is." Right? And I think that’s our job. You know, that’s the job for me of culture at Define American, you know, this media and culture campaign that I run. Like, this is our job, is to elevate this issue and take it out of this political realm that we’ve kind of stuck it in.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Jose. And you are now headed around the country as the film opens?
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: Yes. We’re going to be in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, all throughout May and June.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll link to your schedule at democracynow.org. Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker, his new film is called Documented: A Film by an Undocumented American. It’s opening tonight here in New York at the Village East Cinema.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll go to Sudan, and we’ll also speak with Mother Jones reporter Nick Baumann about the federal authorities’ threat against a person who refused to collaborate with them. Stay with us.
Juan González: Respect Key in "Landmark Agreement" Between NYC & Teachers Union
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m Juan González. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Juan, your piece yesterday and today in the New York Daily News, key to finally getting it done: respect.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, well, the—most people have heard by now that the New York City teachers’ union negotiated a landmark agreement with the de Blasio administration this week where 100,000 members of the union, after going four-and-a-half years without any pay raises or without a contract, have reached a new contract with the city. And it’s really a landmark agreement, considering the bitterness that has existed between not just the teachers, but all the city unions, who have been without contracts dating way back into the last years of the Bloomberg administration. So it’s going to be a huge change.
I think as the—the respect issue, which I raised in my column, I think was the key to it, that the—that not only the teachers, but all the other unions in the city, for the first time now have a mayor who’s actually respecting the collective bargaining process, treating them as equals, sitting down to try to negotiate how best to deal with the education system and with the wages of the workers in the city. So I think that the willingness of de Blasio to give and take with the unions, some innovative ideas about cutting huge amounts of the cost of healthcare insurance for city workers, made it possible for—
And also, the other thing which I raised, most people are not aware of, New York City’s tax revenues are booming. Just in the first four months of this year, the city was running $700 million over projections on its taxes, largely because of the great year that Wall Street had last year and all the big bonuses that came due this year. So, suddenly, the city is finding itself flush with unexpected money. So not only was Bloomberg willing to negotiate with the unions, he now has—I mean, with de Blasio willing to negotiate with the unions, he now has money that he didn’t have previously. And so they were able to work out 18 percent increases for the teachers over nine years. Now, half of that has already passed, so it’s really only—
AMY GOODMAN: It’s retroactive.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: It’s retroactive, and then another four-and-a-half years in a future contract. And a whole host of other reforms, over teacher evaluations and over how you—how you fire teachers that have committed misconduct, were all dealt with in the contract. And so, even the business community is lauding the mayor because he was—he managed to do the retroactives, but spaced them out over future years so the hit to the city’s budget is not that great immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: As the rest of the country looks at the de Blasio administration as a—really as a kind of weathervane for things to come, whether a progressive agenda can succeed.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I think the main thing to understand is, in most places around the country, unions are giving back stuff. They’re not getting increases, and they’re forced to being—to pay more higher co-pays for their health insurance. This has not happened in this situation. So it is possible to do it when you use creativity and when labor and management cooperate in a respectful tone.
Headlines:
Ukraine Launches Major Assault on Separatists in Slovyansk
Ukrainian forces have launched a major assault to reclaim the eastern city of Slovyansk from pro-Russian separatists, sparking the worst fighting since the month-long, pro-Russian uprising began. Pro-Russian forces have shot down two Ukrainian army helicopters, killing the pilots. At least one separatist has also been killed.
Drugs Injected into Prisoner’s Groin During Botched Oklahoma Execution
Oklahoma has released new details on the botched lethal injection of prisoner Clayton Lockett. An account provided by corrections chief Robert Patton shows the execution drugs were administered by a catheter inserted in Lockett’s groin after medical personnel spent nearly an hour searching for another vein. More than 20 minutes after the injection began, a doctor noticed the blood vein had collapsed and the drugs had leaked. The doctor called off the execution, and Lockett was pronounced dead 10 minutes later, 43 minutes after the injection began. The account also shows Lockett was Tasered earlier on the day of his execution for refusing to be restrained and taken for x-rays. Click here to see more Democracy Now! coverage of "Execution Chaos."
Reports of Military Sexual Assault Up 50 Percent
Reports of sexual assault in the military have increased 50 percent. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the rise means more victims are choosing to come forward following efforts to address the issue. Hagel said he has ordered further steps.
Chuck Hagel: "They also require new methods to better encourage male victims to report assaults and seek assistance. With estimates that men comprise more than half the victims of sexual assault in the military, we have to fight the cultural stigmas that discourage reporting and be clear that sexual assault does not occur because a victim is weak, but rather because an offender disregards our values and the law."
U.S. Names 55 Schools Under Investigation for Handling of Sexual Assault
The Obama administration has released a list of 55 colleges and universities that are under investigation for possible violations of the federal Title IX law because of their handling of sexual assault complaints. The full list, never before made public, includes private schools, like Swarthmore and University of Chicago, public universities like Penn State and Florida State, and Ivy League schools like Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton. On Thursday, students rallied at Tufts University to protest Tufts’ decision to back out of a government agreement to improve its policies after the government told the school its current policies violate Title IX. Click here to watch our interviews with a former Tufts student and a Brown University student who reported rape at their schools.
White House Issues Report on Corporate Use of "Big Data"
The White House has issued a report calling for limits on how companies like Facebook and Google apply the data they collect on users. In particular, the report expresses concern about how so-called big data could be used to entrench racial or gender inequality if people are denied opportunities based on digital snapshots. It also calls for Congress to amend federal privacy law to "ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world." The report does not address massive data collection by the National Security Agency.
Seattle Mayor Unveils Plan to Phase In $15 Minimum Wage Hike
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has unveiled his plan to phase in a $15-an-hour minimum wage, more than twice the current federal minimum. But depending on their size, Seattle businesses will have between three and seven years to implement the rise. Socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who ran on a platform of a $15-an-hour minimum wage, opposed the mayor’s plan. She criticized it on Huffington Post Live on Thursday.
Kshama Sawant: "It has several components that actually are on the big-business wish list. A four-year phase-in for big business? Why does McDonald’s need four years to bring their workers out of poverty? Let the CEO of Starbucks, let the CEO of McDonald’s come to City Council and justify why they need to keep their workers one day longer in poverty. There is an 11-year phase-in for other businesses. Every year of phase-in is another year that a worker has to live in poverty."
Workers Around the World Protest on May Day
Workers around the world took to the streets Thursday to mark May Day, with marches and rallies across Latin America, Europe and Asia. Here in New York City, immigration attorney Reena Arora was among those who gathered in Washington Square Park to demand rights for workers and immigrants.
Reena Arora: "One of the biggest problems facing the immigrant community is wide-scale wage theft. So we have a number of day laborers and domestic workers and workers in all different industries who are not paid their wages at all, just absolutely robbed of their earnings, and there’s no recourse for them because often their claims are so small that no lawyers want to help them fight for their wages back, and there are increasingly numbers of threats of deportation and other ways that make them extremely vulnerable as a workforce."
Brooklyn Teachers Refuse to Administer Common Core Test
At a May Day rally in New York City’s Union Square, teacher Rosie Frishella said she was among those standing up against academic standards known as Common Core, which have been federally approved and adopted by states including New York. Teachers at Frishella’s school in Brooklyn are refusing to administer an English Language Arts test designed to measure Common Core standards.
Rosie Frishella: "My name is Rosie Frishella. I’m a 12th grade English teacher at the International High School at Prospect Heights. And today I stood with 29 other teachers and staff members, and we’ve refused to give the ELA performance-based assessment. The reason we refused to give it is because the first assessment was traumatizing for our students. They were demoralized. They put their heads down, and they cried. It was way above their reading level. And the city was careless and took no consideration in the needs of English language learners. And we refuse to demoralize our students."
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