Outernational debuts powerful new video about immigration
27 June, 2012A new video by New York political punk rockers Outernational couldn’t come at a better time.
“We Are All Illegals” drops just days after the United States Supreme Court issued a mixed ruling on Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 law and about a week after President Barack Obama announced a new immigration policy that promises to bring temporary relief to undocumented youth.
Featuring Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman/Rage Against the Machine), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Rene “Residente: Perez Joglar, and produced by pop/Latin rock producer Thom Russo (Alejandro Sanz/Aterciopelados), the compelling video also spotlights Outernational fans from around the world mouthing the song’s hard-hitting lyrics. Much of the scenery seen in the video was shot while the band was on its “Todos Somos Ilegales/We Are All Illegals” tour throughout the Southwest borderlands.
Lead singer Miles Solay says as the band sees it, there is no “so-called ‘immigration problem,'” rather there is a capitalism problem.
“We hope to spread the ‘We Are All Illegals’ music video to all corners of the US, as well as throughout Latin America with the purpose of sending a clear message that the very notion of any human being deemed illegal is obscene, absurd, and obsolete,” he says. “We are also making it abundantly clear that there is a growing force of people who refuse to sit idly in the face of ominous laws. One day it will seem as ridiculous for a human being to be deemed ‘illegal’ by a government as it now seems for one person to own another person.
“Just as many different kinds of people need to fight back and get justice for [slain African American teen] Trayvon Martin, many different kinds of people need to stand together with our immigrant brothers and sisters. Until that day in a future society, we hereby declare, ‘WE ARE ALL ILLEGALS.'”
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