An hispanic man has challenged Donald Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants in a video experiment posted online. He donned handcuffs and stood blindfolded with a sign “Meet an immigrant. Do you really see me as a drug lord, rapist, criminal?”
Sergio Mejia said the results have exceeded his expectations. “I came up with this idea for a video, only that I didn't know exactly what message I was trying to get across. I more just wanted to see who supported Donald Trump or not,” Mejia wrote in the video’s description on YouTube after it went viral, collecting over a million views in two days. “But as I was filming it, many of the people I met expressed their feeling and emotions towards this subject and it wasn’t until then that I knew what the purpose of this video was and realized it had a much more significant meaning,” he added.
As Mejia stood in the middle of a busy boardwalk wearing a prison outfit, many passersby stopped to say hello, praising the man for his unconventional experiment, willing to shake hands saying they were immigrants too. Some stopped to offer a hug.
“To those who say this video is completely worthless, or idiotic, or that the experiment proves nothing because Donald Trump was talking about illegal immigrants, not those who come here legally. Those who say the legal ones are fine but it's the illegal ones who are the criminals... My mother is an 'illegal immigrant'. So was my father who both came here about 23 years ago. When my father was deported, my mother was left with 5 children to raise,” Mejia said.
He added: “Now at the time my mother had a choice. She could
return to Guatemala or she could stay here... Guess what she
chose? And she chose it because this was her land now. This was
her children's land. The land of opportunity and immigrants! Most
citizens today would run to food stamps or welfare or housing or
government aid but guess what guys? My mother is not a citizen so
she has zero access to that. She worked her butt off! She worked
long shifts and she raised five kids! I see Americans today
struggling to raise just one! And to top it off, she still paid
her taxes!”
A number of Latin celebrities, Shakira among them, lashed out at
Trump last month calling his remarks about immigrants racist.
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"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best.
They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of
problems and they're bringing those problems," Donald Trump
said when he announced his presidential candidacy on June 16 in
New York. "[Mexican immigrants] are bringing drugs, they're
bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good
people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what
we're getting,” he stated.
The US billionaire went as far as to say he would build a wall on
the border and make Mexico pay for it. Many companies said they
have disassociated themselves from the 2016 Republican
presidential candidate.
Mexico announced it won't be sending a contestant to the Miss
Universe contest, partly owned by the mogul. Spanish-language
network Univision and Mexican media giant Televisa have also
sworn they will no longer do business with Trump.