Dear America

by Jose Antonio Vargas

  There were murmurs that the Obama administration was crafting a policy that would temporarily shield undocumented young Americans from deportation and give them work permits and allow them to drive. I had heard something was up, but I wasn’t sure. Gaby knew more than I did because she had been lobbying the Obama White House. Sensitive to criticism that he was the “Deporter-in-Chief,” Obama and his team had been weighing their options. Part of the equation, I’m sure, was the impending presidential election, where the Latino vote could be a deciding factor.

  Whatever the factors were, on June 15, 2012, the day the Time cover story hit newsstands, President Obama announced the creation of what would be known as DACA, short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Immediately, DACA was deemed “a presidential overreach.” In the Fox News–Drudge–Breitbart universe, it was considered something like “amnesty,” which it most certainly is not. At its idealistic core, one can look at DACA as the most significant development in the fight for immigrant rights since President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. With DACA, nearly 850,000 young undocumented Americans could pursue their dreams. But here’s the realistic version: to be enrolled in DACA, you would have to pay the government nearly five hundred dollars so it wouldn’t deport you for two years from the only country that you’d known as your home. DACA is temporary, and not everyone qualifies.

  Of the thirty-five Dreamers on the Time cover, six couldn’t apply for DACA for various reasons. I was one of them. The age cutoff was thirty years old, and I was a little over four months too old. I was disappointed. My family, especially Lola, was more disappointed than I was. I don’t know the toll that my public life and its concomitant threats and criticisms have taken on Lola. I remember her calling me the day after DACA was announced, when she realized that I wasn’t included.

  “Okay ka lang pa, apo ko?” (“Are you doing okay, grandson?”)

  Yes.

  “Alam ko ang dami mong sinakripisyo.” (“I know you’ve sacrificed a lot.”)

  Not as much as you have, I said.

  I could hear Lola crying on the phone.

  About a week after the Time cover hit newsstands, I was in the security line at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The TSA agent, a twenty-something black woman in a ponytail, gave me a little nod, like she knew who I was. I felt my arms tighten. I grabbed my phone, just in case I needed to call someone right away. When it was my turn to show her my Philippine passport—now the only piece of ID I had to travel—with no visa in it, I was prepared for whatever could happen.

  She smiled when I handed her my passport.

  “You’re Jose, right?” she asked, lowering her voice so no one could hear. “My brother-in-law is undocumented. I actually bought the magazine.” She pulled out the Time magazine from her bag and asked me to sign it.

  19.

  Inside Fox News

  “I should have called ICE,” Tucker Carlson told me seconds before his show went live on Fox News. It was May 2017. I don’t know how serious he was about calling ICE, but the fact that he would even consider such a stunt reminded me how hard it is for some Americans to regard undocumented people three-dimensionally. Tucker was fiddling with his tie as I sat across from him inside his studio in Washington, D.C. Underneath all that bravado is a fidgety guy.

  He added: “That would have been good TV.”

  That’s what I was there for: “good TV.” The fact that it angered me, made me uncomfortable, and threw off my center—all that was irrelevant. In fact, the agitated, nervous energy that took hold in my entire body made me even better for TV. Carlson knew that, and I imagine that’s why he said what he said. Worse, I knew it, too, but couldn’t control my nerves.

  It’s difficult to overstate the role the Fox News Channel has played in framing, disseminating, and cementing the anti-immigrant narrative that was central in electing Trump. No other news channel, I would argue, has dominated a single issue the way Fox News has molded immigration. Though not everyone watches Fox, it’s been the most-watched cable news channel for more than twelve years, shaping the perception of immigrants and our families, especially for people who have no direct interaction with us and know us only through the media they consume. Anti-immigrant organizations with ties to white nationalism (the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies, and Numbers USA, among them) have gone from being considered fringe groups to being viewed as credible sources because of their ubiquity on Fox. News outlets like NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post rely on the leaders of these groups for their “expertise” so that they can claim “balance” in their reporting. These well-funded, well-organized, anti-immigrant groups command the right on a level unmatched by progressives on the left who struggle to come up with a unifying and accessible message.

  On Fox, “illegals” are cast as enemies, a collective “burden” to society, “draining” public programs and “stealing” jobs from native-born Americans. We are the criminalized and criminal Other, thoroughly un-American and unwilling to become American. Though Fox News did not create Trump, it gave him an issue to own and a kingdom to reign over.

  At first I was conflicted about appearing on Fox. I didn’t want to be just another character in their script, complicit in their theatricality. I did not want to be used. But my friend Jehmu Greene, a cofounder of Define American, changed my mind. An unabashed progressive, Jehmu is a paid contributor on Fox News. She’s one of the very few black female voices on the network. “Look, it’s either you’re on Fox dismantling stereotypes about immigration in front of viewers who may call you illegal to your face,” Jehmu said, “or, you can just speak to the choir.”

  I’ve appeared on Fox News numerous times in the past few years, mostly interviewed by Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and Lou Dobbs. Every hit on Fox requires careful preparation, which always boils down to making sure I am sufficiently calm before getting in front of the camera. And keeping my cool translates to controlling my thick and bushy eyebrows, which are the most expressive and most uncontrollable part of my face. The Fox producers who have booked me have been very kind and exceedingly polite, as if they know how much energy it takes for me to appear on their shows.

  Still, there was no preparing me for that moment when O’Reilly, in November 2014, told me on-air: “You and the other people here illegally don’t deserve to be here. That’s harsh, it’s harsh, okay?”

  Was I supposed to respond with “okay”? It was only my second time on O’Reilly’s show; the first had been a satellite interview. O’Reilly is like everyone’s cranky uncle, as brash and boorish in person as he is on-air.

  Our interview was on the same day President Obama announced that he was expanding DACA, which would protect more immigrants, including older Dreamers like me and undocumented parents of children who are U.S. citizens. I was caught off guard by what O’Reilly said. All I could do was repeat it inside my head—except I actually verbalized what I was thinking.

  “I don’t deserve—” I said on-air.

  O’Reilly, as he is wont to do, interrupted. “Okay? You don’t have an entitlement to be here.”

  I corrected him.

  “I don’t feel entitled to be here,” I said. I tried hard not raise an eyebrow, not to seem visibly angry or upset. “This is where I grew up, this is my home, my family is here.”

  For weeks the exchange clouded and corrupted my mind. The only thought that cleared it was when I finally said to myself: What has O’Reilly done to “deserve” to be here? I only wish I could have thought of that question and asked him on-air.

  I was even more unprepared two years later, when producers added a last-minute guest to the lineup of an interview I was scheduled to do during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Originally, the interview was supposed to be between Kelly and me. But before I went on-air, I was told that another guest was added: Laura Wilkerson, whose son, Josh, was killed by an undocumented immigrant. Produ
cers sat us next to each other during the live hit.

  “Let me start with you, Laura,” said Kelly as I sat uncomfortably in my chair, knitting my eyebrows. As a group of people, Kelly calls us “illegals” or “illegal immigrants.” In person, to my face, she always refers to me as undocumented.

  “You want a harder stance on illegal immigration,” Kelly continued. “And you’re sitting next to Jose, who is himself an admitted undocumented immigrant. I mean, is it hard to look at him and say, ‘I want you kicked out’? You know, ‘I want the Trump plan that would lead to you being removed’?”

  My stomach dropped. I could feel myself shrinking. I wanted to walk out of the interview. To this day, I don’t know how I managed to stay seated.

  “I think if you’re not a United States citizen, you don’t have a seat at the table regardless, especially where you’re making laws,” Wilkerson responded. I could feel her vitriol, wrapped in such profound loss. “You just don’t have a seat at the table.”

  But I was seated right next to her. We were sharing a table.

  At the moment, the only thing I could do was turn toward her and acknowledge her pain.

  “I’m really sorry about [your loss],” I said. “We’re at the mercy of congresspeople, Congress members who haven’t done anything.”

  “It’s not up to Congress to do something,” Wilkerson said. “It’s up to you to get in line and become an American citizen.”

  She continued.

  “There is a law. It needs to be enforced. Close the borders. Enforce current laws and, you know, welcome to America if you come in the front door.”

  “Actually, ma’am, there is no line for me to get in the back of,” I said to her. I told myself: Look her in the eye. Don’t cut her off. Be polite. I continued: “That’s why we need for something to happen. I’ll be here twenty-three years next month—”

  “Then you’ve had plenty of time,” Wilkerson said.

  “If there was a process, I would have done it.”

  Kelly interjected and told Wilkerson that I was brought to America. A few seconds that seemed like hours passed before Kelly asked Wilkerson if she favored any sort of path to legalization for immigrants like me.

  “Get in line, and come in and tell us who you are,” Wilkerson said. “We have a right to know who’s in this country. So that’s the only thing I believe. You know, they’ve put themselves in harm by coming here.”

  There was no time to respond to what Wilkerson said.

  I wanted to keep repeating: there is no line.

  I wanted to scream, over and over again: THERE IS NO LINE! THERE IS NO LINE! THERE IS NO LINE!

  I wanted to tell her that when it comes to harm, she has no idea, just like I have no idea what it’s like to lose a son. Indescribable, the harm, all around.

  20.

  Public Person, Private Self

  I’ve never considered myself an activist. In fact, I wasn’t sure I knew the word’s exact definition, so I looked it up. According to Merriam-Webster, “activist” is both a noun and an adjective. An “activist” is “a person who uses or supports strong actions (such as public protests) in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” Whatever the definition, and leaving aside what I support or oppose, my public declaration of being undocumented was considered a form of activism by people from the left and the right.

  Since I am visible on social media, the attacks and demands from all sorts of people—from the left and the right, from people of all backgrounds—run deep.

  On any given day, people who’ve seen me on Fox News or read about me on conservative sites like Breitbart News, the Daily Caller, and Newsmax send private and public messages demanding my arrest and deportation. In the first days and weeks of the Trump presidency, tweets like “Christmas came early this year. It will be even earlier next year when @joseiswriting becomes Deportee #1” and “Hope your bags are packed @joseiswriting” started flooding my Twitter feed.

  Once news reports started circulating that officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement are targeting “high-profile illegal immigrants,” a slew of messages landed on my feed, most from users who don’t use their real names or real photos on their profiles. Usually, I ignore them. But this tweet from John Cardillo, host of a daily show, America Talks Live, on Newsmax, and whose account is verified by Twitter, was hard to ignore:

  Hey @joseiswriting,

  Tick tock

  “ICE Detains Illegal Immigrant Activists.”

  Often, I ignore the tweets, Facebook messages, and e-mails. To deal with how personal people online can get, how cutting and revolting their language is, I’ve thought of myself as the subject of a news story. I try, as hard as I can, to look at the hateful words and the deplorable phrases with distance and detachment. They’re not talking about me. They don’t even know me. This “illegal alien” person they’re describing with such vulgarity is someone else. It’s not me.

  Not all the reaction, online and off, is negative. After my first appearance on The O’Reilly Factor in June 2012, I received an email from Dennis Murphy of Omaha, Nebraska, who described himself as the founder and former state chairman of the Nebraska Minutemen, which had merged with the Nebraska Tea Party. “I was positively impressed by your interview with Bill O’Reilly,” Murphy wrote. “You now refer to yourself in your blog as ‘an undocumented American,’ which I believe is a fair and accurate assessment.”

  And sometimes the people who follow me on Twitter and watch me on Fox News are not at all who I think they are, in the same way that I’m not who they think I am.

  “Is it you? Are you the ‘illegal’ guy on Fox?” said the tall, middle-aged white man in khakis and a striped white shirt and oversize black coat. He and I were standing in the Delta Air Lines terminal at Tampa International Airport, waiting to board a flight to LaGuardia Airport. It was February 2015. I had just given a speech at the Black, Brown & College Bound Summit for African American and Latino students at a hotel in downtown Tampa. I was headed to New York City for meetings.

  Sometimes, because of TV appearances, I get recognized in public, mostly at airports and Starbucks. It’s been about 70–30: most people are supportive, and many of them “come out” to me as undocumented. Some get a little aggressive, asking why I have still not gotten deported. More often than not, I engage in conversations. But I was too tired to engage that afternoon in Tampa. Instead of answering, I half-nodded, then walked away, lugging my carry-on bag.

  I’ve spent more time in airports and planes than in whatever apartment I was living at. I changed apartments four times in the past seven years (New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles), as I traveled to countless cities and towns in forty-eight states, doing more than a thousand events: speaking at panels, giving speeches, visiting schools, meeting with all kinds of people from all backgrounds. I fly so much, especially on Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, that I often get upgraded to first class, as I was that afternoon.

  A few seconds after I boarded the plane, as I was stowing my luggage, the white man in the oversize black coat grabbed my left shoulder as he walked by. “I didn’t know illegals fly first class,” he said.

  I sat down. I wasn’t sure if anyone else heard him, but the woman clutching her iPad across the aisle must have seen my face. I was upset. I’d been used to all the words, but that was the first time I had been touched, and I didn’t know how to react. I felt violated. I was mad. I put on my headset and tried to get lost in my thoughts with Ella Fitzgerald and Joni Mitchell. That didn’t work. A few minutes later, after the flight had taken off, I stood up and headed to the bathroom, even though I did not need to go to the bathroom. I wanted to see where he was sitting, which was near the middle of the plane, in a middle seat between two women. He didn’t see me looking at him. At least I don’t think he did.

  What was his story? Why did he think it was okay to grab me like that? Did it make him feel good? Feel better, stronger? Superior?
What was going through his mind when he decided that his hand should land on my shoulder? What else did he want to say? What else did he want to do?

  And what should I do?

  I bought Wi-Fi access and got on my personal Facebook page, which only my friends and relatives can see. I summarized what happened and ended the post with: “This is gonna be an awkward flight.”

  “Awkward for whom?” wrote my friend Tricia. “You’re the one flying in style while he gets coach. As it should be.”

  I wish I could listen to my friend Glenn, who wrote: “You upset him, just by being yourself and doing the right thing. You win! Don’t give him one more thought or one more second of your time.”

  This wasn’t about winning or losing, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him in that middle seat. I’m a big guy and his shoulders were bigger than mine. Not fun for the middle seat.

  Todd chimed in: “Ask the flight attendant to send back some champagne to him and watch his head explode.”

  Should I tell the flight attendant?

  I didn’t know what to do until I read what Graciela wrote: “So you’re in First Class and he’s not? Sounds perfect.”

  After reading that comment, I decided to talk to the guy.

  Once we landed at LaGuardia International Airport, I grabbed my bags and waited for him to get out of the plane. He was surprised to see me waiting outside the terminal.

  “I’m Jose,” I said.

  “Eric.” I asked if it was Eric with a c or Eric with a k, and it was the former. He wouldn’t give me his last name.

  I told him that I got upgraded to first class because I travel so much. The upgrade, I said, was free.

  “Must be nice,” Eric said.

  “Yes, it is,” I said, feeling upset at myself for wanting to explain myself. I don’t owe this guy an explanation. Why am I talking to him?