WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — One late afternoon in mid-May, a half dozen Hispanic day labourers were paid US$20 (S$27) each to parade in front of the White House on camera, holding signs with slogans like 'I Love Biden' and 'I Need Work Permit for My Family.
YouTube influencer Nick Shirley speaks with a day laborer Elpidio Matute as Shirley and Brandon Buckingham stage a protest in front of the White House in Washington, US, May 15, 2024.WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — One late afternoon in mid-May, a half dozen Hispanic day labourers were paid US$20 each to parade in front of the White House on camera, holding signs with slogans like "I Love Biden" and "I Need Work Permit for My Family.
Their self-shot dispatches from American cities and the southern border with Mexico portray migrants in the country illegally as dangerous and burdensome, and part of a plan to grow the ranks of Democratic voters. While Shirley started by making prank videos as a high schooler in Utah and only recently began focusing on illegal immigration, other pro-Trump influencers are more established and explicitly partisan.
He smiled and laughed with several of the migrants and swapped stories with one Venezuelan man about their respective trips to the Darien Gap, the jungle that blankets the Colombia-Panama border and a major route for migrants heading to America. While arrests for serious crimes across the city rose in 2022, they remained steady in 2023 and have fallen slightly in 2024, according to New York City Police Department statistics.
The videos are frequently shared, amplifying their message. In a February video from Denver, Shirley asked migrants if they supported Biden and several said they did. Shirley posted about it on X, saying "Confirmed: Migrants for Biden 2024." Elon Musk, X's owner who has 182 million followers, responded to a post highlighting Shirley's report with an exclamation mark.
He said he did not think migrants living in the US illegally would try to vote in November but that "if they are given the opportunity to vote, they're going to vote for Biden, because he's the reason they're here."
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