If an immigrant decides to try his luck, then, among other things, he will have to eat a taco stuffed with worms (a rolled tortilla with filling), writes the Washington Times newspaper, whose article is published by Inopressa.ru.
With an audience of millions, the Spanish-language television program called Gana la Verde (“Win the Green”) has become the second most popular Spanish-language TV show among Latino viewers in Los Angeles aged 18 to 49. Winners are guaranteed the services of a well-known immigration lawyer for a year in order to obtain a green card. The show's producer, Liberman Broadcasting Corp., does not guarantee receipt of the document: only the hiring of a law firm is promised.
Each show begins with an introduction: six contestants vying for a green card stand behind a barbed-wire fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, while helicopters of the American border
patrol service circle overhead.
The program, which premiered in July, airs in prime time five times a week. During the show, contestants must fend off barking and attacking dogs, eat burritos filled with beetles, jump between 18-wheelers moving at speed, wash windows of skyscrapers, lie in a closed plastic coffin filled with 500 rats, and eat live worms.
A contestant from one of the recent shows, 24-year-old Roberto, says he lived illegally in the United States for four years. In the show, he had to walk along a narrow thin wooden beam over a pit filled with manure. He fell.
“I came here to get official documents,” the guy laments. “But I lost.”
On August 11, KRCA-TV, the Los Angeles television station broadcasting the show, received a letter from several organizations, including the Southern California chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, requesting that the program be taken off the air. The signatories stated that the show encourages foreigners to illegally immigrate and exploits people's “unrealistic expectations.”
“This show plays on people’s fears, gives them false promises, serves as a magnet for people to enter this country without documents, and turns them into potential targets of our government’s misguided immigration policies,” the letter says, signed by, among others, major immigrant rights organizations and immigration lawyer coalitions and bar associations. “We demand that Gana la Verde be immediately taken off the air.”
The letter also notes: although the program does not guarantee obtaining a green card, it claims that participants can get one if they take part in the show. “Every day Gana la Verde demonstrates contempt for immigrants,” the letter emphasizes.
However, Lenard Liberman, executive vice president of Liberman Broadcasting, denied that the show profits from illegal immigrants. He said the company has no plans to cancel the project. According to him, each participant signs a document in Spanish stating that they are in the country illegally. However, the company has no obligation or ability to verify or refute the information provided by participants.
Liberman said that although participants realize they are being offered only legal services, not a promise of a green card, the organizations that signed the letter “probably think they are losing clients.” “We are just trying to help people who are in this country. I don’t know what all this fuss is about,” Liberman said. “If we were giving out breast implants or doing plastic surgery, no one would be upset. But try to help Maria turn from a nanny into a nurse, and a cry goes up.”
Various immigrant rights organizations plan to call for a boycott of advertisers who place ads in the show if Liberman Broadcasting refuses to take it off the air. They also threaten legal action over what they say is false advertising and illegal legal advice.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California has a population of 35.4 million, of which 2.2 million are illegal immigrants, mostly of Mexican origin: this is the highest figure among all U.S. states. The Census Bureau notes that the number of California residents born abroad is 8.8 million, or 26% of the total population.