New York, NY –
Hundreds of students at New York University have signed up to protest a game organized by the school's Republicans club. It'll take place in Washington Square Park and is called “Find the Illegal Immigrant.” WNYC's Marianne McCune has more.
REPORTER: Club President Sarah Chambers says it's not about outing real people who are here illegally. One volunteer will wear a sign that says 'illegal immigrant' and participants in the game will win a prize for identifying him. She says she got the idea from Republican clubs at other universities - whose activities the Republican National Committee Chairman has called reprehensible. But Chambers says this is college activism.
CHAMBERS: Yes it's provocative, but that's what gets people out, discussing. We're going to be handing out information and discussing it.
REPORTER: Freshman Dahlia Rubiano Yedidia helped organize a protest against the event. She says people are hurt and threatened and she can't see how this could provoke a constructive conversation.
YEDIDIA: They're turning people into animals; they are dehumanizing and criminalizing them by saying it's ok to run around and catch someone and get a prize for it simply because they do not have papers in this country. Even though New York City, New York University and half the world runs off of undocumented labor.
REPORTER: A spokesman for NYU says the game seems calculated to produce outrage, but that the university supports free speech among engaged students and scholars. For WNYC, I'm Marianne McCune.
Marianne McCune is a staff reporter for New York Public Radio (WNYC 93.9FM/AM820) and contributes regularly to National Public Radio and Public Radio International. She thinks of the New York Metropolitan Area as the center of the world because that's how she covers it: more than a third of New York residents were born in another country and Marianne reports on the resulting cultural, economic, and political links between New York/New Jersey and almost everywhere else on earth.
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