Accent-Based Citizenship Checks Raise Profiling Concerns (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: What do you mean if I'm from this country?

[00:00:01] Speaker 2: I can hear you don't have the same accent as me. That's why I'm asking you.

[00:00:03] Speaker 1: Oh, so you're going by accents now?

[00:00:05] Speaker 2: We just heard that that agent saying, I can hear you don't have the same accent as me. That's why I'm asking you, which I think is a pretty stunning thing to hear. I mean, then, so you're talking to them. You talk about the woman first, then there's him. And then, actually, Greg Bovino, right? The guy, the top guy at the time on the ground of all of this, shows up by your window. And you've shared some more of that exchange. Let me play it.

[00:00:31] Speaker 1: The big boss over here. What's going on? They're just harassing people based on skin color, man. Are we in Germany? No, no, no, come on. What do you guys want to do today? You guys want to take me in or something? Oh, that depends. Are you an illegal alien? Illegal alien? Man, yes. I might be from another planet. Okay, well, if that's the case, if you're from another planet, that counts, too. Well, if that counts, well, I'm an alien, guys. Let's do DNA tests and shit. You got a lab? We can run some blood tests, see what the hell I have. You guys shooting at people, man. Somebody just got shot. For what? Why did you guys shoot that lady? Answer me that. There's an officer today that shot a lady in the head, dude. Really? For what? I don't know why they do that, man. You got all this stuff. You could've just got her, man. She's not gonna fly out of the country. Like an alien. Like an alien. With a spaceship. With a spaceship. Yeah.

[00:01:19] Speaker 2: So, obviously, you sound confident there, Afmeh, but I can only imagine. Obviously, this is hours after Renee is shot and killed, and you're sitting there feeling that, guys already told you that because of your accent, you have to prove you're an American. Greg Bovino walks up. Did you feel scared a bit that things could go wrong?

[00:01:39] Speaker 1: I mean, it was very obvious to me by the way Border Patrol was acting with me unprofessionally that they really didn't care about my identity. There's something else other than what was obvious that was going on. So, when he said, you know what? I know you're not an American citizen, and I demand that you show me proof of that American citizenship verification, documents, whatever. I need that. What's making me ask you this stuff is, you do not sound like me. You don't have the same, and then he pointed to his face, you don't have the same accent as me. So, I was shocked. I was startled. I said, we're using accents now to verify citizenship? Are we using, it was just absurd to hear that, you know, for the first time in my life. I'm like, accents? Wow, there's so many different accents in America, right? There's the Spanish accent, there's the Italian accent, there's the Boston accent, there's the Texas accent, there's the Arkansas accent, which I'm not a big fan of. But then again, this guy chose to say, you gotta sound like me to be a US citizen. So, I was like, hey, I'm not gonna partake in this nonsense. What I'm gonna do now is, I'm gonna use the same energy he's using towards me on him.