Politics & Governance / Public Policy / Immigration & Refugee Policy

"Illegal" Is a Lie: How the U.S. Invented Undocumented Immigration

Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal

Aviva Chomsky

What if "illegal immigration" isn't a crime as old as borders, but a deliberate legal invention designed to exploit cheap labor? In Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal, historian Aviva Chomsky dismantles the myth that some people are just born "illegal." She traces how U.S. law, especially after 1965, turned migrant workers into criminals—not to stop migration, but to create a disposable workforce with no rights. The video walks through the real story: how open borders suddenly closed, how mass incarceration and private prisons profit from criminalization, and why even programs like DACA trap millions in a permanent second-class status. By the end, you'll never hear the word "illegal" the same way again.