Original subtitles

Previously on America Divided.

Where do I go out there?

Go out here and take a look. Do you feel like Purdue is responsible ultimately

for the heroin epidemic?

Absolutely. Purdue Plummer committed a gross act of negligence.

This disease is hollowing out suburban and small town America.

Welcome back to the show. Fans of not being able to go to the bathroom without

your birth certificate scored a victory when North Carolina's governor signed

HB2.

New law that people must use bathrooms of the gender on their birth

certificates. Bathrooms. A lot of people are talking about bathrooms. I signed

that bill because if I didn't, the expectation of privacy of North Carolina

citizens. PayPal today canceled plans for a 400 job expansion. Could lose

roughly $2 billion in federal funds. That violates the federal civil rights

I told you we weren't done with 2010.

My name is Zach Galifianakis.

You know, as an important celebrity, I've been called a lot of things in my

life. Inspiration, genius, visionary, the guy with the beard from that movie.

But the label for which I'm most proud is North Carolinian.

And genius.

With so much love for North Carolina, I have to say these last few years have

been confusing.

North Carolina used to be all about basketball and barbecue, but now...

Now it seems like it's all about bathrooms.

I thought talking about people using the bathroom was a job for comedians.

Why are they so obsessed with bathrooms?

Is all this shouting about bathrooms really about something bigger?

So I call Ari Berman.

Ari looks like your girlfriend's little brother, but he's been writing books and

magazine stories about North Carolina for years. What's up? Well, I'm watching

all this stuff that's going on in North Carolina, and it seems like the tensions

and the energy keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Now there's this

bathroom thing that's going on. And from there, you know, there were lefties,

there were righties.

But we all kind of, there was a balance back then.

Why now does it seem like there's just the shift in one particular direction?

Well, in 2010, Republicans took control of the state for the first time since

1896. A ton of money.

pumped in to local races that really swung the outcome. And that was, in many

ways, the untold story of the election.

And we saw a dramatic shift to the right like we had never seen before in North

Carolina history.

Democratic Party essentially collapsed in North Carolina. It's one party rule,

and so the only opposition to their policies is really in the street.

This was led by the North Carolina end of Lacey Heath.

The fact is, the NAACP is not just organizing in the big cities. They're

organizing in very rural, very white parts of the state.

They can say, it hasn't always been this way. We're a state that invested in

public education, in the environment, that cared about voting rights, and now

we're moving backwards.

After my call with Ari Berman, I want to know why all of this is happening to my

home state.

All this stuff that I'm hearing about, Is it all connected?

And for me, this is not about Democrats or Republicans.

This is coming more from a North Carolina point of view.

It's kind of a southern point of view.

It feels like somehow that North Carolina lost its way.

It's a system that effectively sweeps millions of poor people into second

status. Did we invest in those communities?

No. Instead, we declared war.

What we have today is a wealth gap that is

huge.

The working class has been hammered.

These are human beings. These are people.

What can we do to get that point across?

telling us that we're not doing enough is causing us to explode.

It is not a matter of opinion anymore.

It is clearly exposed.

What do we do? They can only win by

dividing America.

We know that the way things are working are working at all.

That's right.

If you just keep pushing.

If you just keep trying, if you refuse to let the nightmares have the last say,

eventually the dark will break, the sun will come out, and you will be in a

brand new day.

If there's no struggle, there can be no progress.

You started working in this area 20 how many years ago? At least 26, I think

maybe 26 years.

And there wasn't heroin here then?

Oh, no.

But the only thing we had was domestic violence. You know, people get drunk and

then they fight and that's it.

Right. But when this heroin started, that's when we started getting the

burglaries and the shootings and especially robbery.

When did you start to go like, oh, this is an epidemic?

I would say within the last year.

Uh -huh. We started getting a lot of overdose from heroin coming in.

We were not prepared at all.

As I ride along with Officer Willie Hooper on his nightly patrol, he tells

that overdoses are transforming the work of the police.

In the battle to save lives, the police rely on Narcan.

an anti -overdose drug that can bring someone back from the brink of death.

But as addicts overdose again and again, Narcan has done little to slow the

epidemic.

139, go ahead.

That's correct, we're on our way.

Do you feel like the number of ODs that you're seeing is going up?

It's definitely going up, 100%. And the fatality rate is going up, right?

Bring your medic down the alley. They're going to move the cruisers out of the

way.

How much Narcan they give her?

What I'm learning about undocumented people in the Rio Grande Valley applies

them everywhere.

They live life on a nice edge.

They know that millions have been deported, so they're insecure,

exploitation.

Doing jobs no one else will.

They make these sacrifices so that their children can have a better life.

But I'm hearing that over the past few years in Texas, Many families have been

living in fear that even their American -born children, citizens of the United

States, are at risk.

These women are telling me that in the past several years, across the state,

registrars who issue birth certificates stopped accepting the matricula

consular, the kind of ID undocumented immigrants carry.

even though Texas used to accept it and other states still do.

Nor do the registrars accept the certificate of live

birth.

I'm finding this really upsetting a birth certificate is so basic it's your

proof of existence

The thing you need to get all other ID.

What's going on here?

Is Texas trying to make the next generation stateless?

Y ellos cómo se sientan, ¿no?

Pues, a veces es triste y difícil porque, pues, mi niño abraza a los

Dice, tú vas a ir a la escuela igual que yo. Dice, aunque no tengas el papel.

Es muy difícil porque a veces nosotros estamos, a veces quizás en las sombras.

Y no contamos lo que en realidad pasamos como...

But the undocumented families are fighting back.

They filed a lawsuit against the state for denying their babies the citizenship

guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.

Just like with those voter ID laws, Texas says it's trying to prevent fraud.

But even the judge in the case calls this fraud an imaginary concern.

Attorney Jennifer Harbury says it's all part of an anti -immigrant campaign.

Just like the whole offensive notion that immigrants are having anchor babies

they can stay here.

How do you see this issue of anchor babies?

in relation to the Constitution and to the 14th Amendment?

Well, it's preposterous. And let me begin by saying, you know, my father's

family and my father himself are all immigrants. They also came here running

from extinction, let us just say.

So I'm an anchor baby then, right? But under the Constitution, the Due Process

Clause, 14th Amendment, it says anyone who is born in the United States is a

citizen of the United States, period.

If Harbury's right, then how can the Texas policy stand?

And will it?

I grew up around mountain people, and

they're about as conservative as they come.

So if the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has

chapters in these mountains, I want to see these folks for myself.

Sure enough, this NAACP chapter is a little short on the C, unless you count

cake and coffee.

I'll just grab a piece of this and we'll chat.

All of it's free?

It's a donation.

Oh, a donation.

You know, there's always a donation box somewhere.

They always try to get you.

Well, thanks for having me.

They have as many reasons to be here as there are members.

Voting rights. School cuts.

Medicaid expansion, turning back of rights for women and gay people and

Americans. Really, though, they are all sitting at this table because for them

it comes down to one thing, and that's the influence of money and how they

it's hijacked the state.

But couldn't this just be the Appalachian version of hippies smoking

love in hammocks, and complaining because the other side of North Carolina

for once?

After the meeting, one of the members, Tracy Deaton, tells me that if that's

what I think, then she has someone I need to meet. Her father, Leroy.

Like most of the folks at the meeting, Tracy was born and raised Appalachian.

And like most dangerous extremists, Tracy is a high school librarian.

She joined the NAACP when the legislature targeted education for deep

education has always been one of the most treasured institutions in North

Carolina. My family has been in Mitchell County for my kids' ninth generation.

Huge advocates of public education.

Both my parents taught school, my husband's parents taught school.

So I became really involved and vocal with the attacks on public schools.

That was sort of my tipping point.

Any of the parents talk to you about this stuff and agree with you?

The parents I have spoken with are frustrated because the resources have

really cut as far as the bigger class sizes. They tried to do away with

teacher's aides last year, and their salaries were frozen for six years.

My family is deep in local politics. At the time when all this started

happening in North Carolina, my dad was a commissioner.

My brother was on the Board of Education.

My mother was on the City Council.

Under what party?

Other Republicans.

Yeah.

Hi. Okay.

I understand that you and your family come from more of a Republican

Right. People just choked when you said that.

What do you mean by that? I changed my affiliation from Republican to

unaffiliated. Right.

Walk us through when you came to the point where you're like, I cannot be

associated with this group.

There were several things that played into it. They started picking away at

educational system. And teachers became the whipping boy. Education became the

whipping boy.

The other thing was some of the health care issues.

And it really became personal.

I'll try not to get emotional.

Tracy and Sam have a very autistic child.

And the demands to meet his needs medically, socially, family,

everything is just tremendous.

And as an example, when he had to go to the dentist and he didn't understand

that they're going to put a mask on your face or they're going to put a drill in

your mouth or they're going to do this. He was uncontrollable, unconsolable.

So they needed to put him to sleep. Well, insurance wouldn't pay for it.

And it was $750 or so to have him put to sleep. So they had to put this child in

a straitjacket.

Tracy had to get at his head and hold his shoulders and head. And Sam had to

to his feet and hold his feet.

Leroy tells me there was a bill proposed that would have made the insurance

companies pay for the kind of care his grandson Zeke needed.

That sat on our senator's desk, his committee, for three years.

But what made you connect that dot?

that the reason Zeke's not getting proper care is because of what's

going on politically.

Politically, that they're taking care of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

That's who finances their campaigns.

I mean, see where their campaign contributions came from, and you're

see pharmaceuticals, and you're going to see insurance companies. They're all in

bed together.

And we're talking to people that used to be Republicans.

Yeah. You too. Yeah. Yeah. And still want to be a Republican. So this

that you're saying to me seems like common sense.

It does to me too. No matter if you're lefty, righty. Righty, we're all humans.

We're all humans.

That sounds more like the North Carolina where I grew up.

But it seems like you can't take it for granted anymore that North Carolina is a

place that educates its kids or takes care of its disabled.

It feels like some kind of basic decency is missing from all this.

The problem is, I'm still not any closer to really understanding why.

Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out for myself, but I found someone who

is.

It's been a couple of weeks since my trip to Dayton, but I'm still reeling

the experience.

I learned so much about the origins of the addiction crisis, but now I want to

know, why Dayton?

I've read that two economists at Princeton University have come up with

intriguing insight into the crisis, which might hold the answer.

A connection between the rising death toll and middle America's economic

decline.

Professors Anne Case and her Nobel Prize -winning husband, Angus Deaton, have

long studied inequality, poverty, and health.

So the mortality rates in middle age in all of the European countries and among

Hispanics and blacks in America has been falling at about 2 % a year.

And that's been going on for 100 years. But in the late 1990s, among white non

-Hispanics, the rates started to rise at about half a percent a year.

So the rest of the developed world continuing to fall, suddenly you see

wedge building between whites in America and all of the sister countries we

might compare ourselves to.

When you had that moment of discovering that it was higher there, was that

surprising? You know, at that point we almost fell off our chairs because this

is not supposed to happen. We really thought we must have made a mistake.

So give me an idea of what the scale of this problem is.

From year 2000 to 2014, if the death rates had stayed at what they had been

1999, about 200 ,000 people in middle age would not have died.

And that's why it's equally split between men and women.

Cancer and heart disease continue to go down. So we think, okay, it must be

traffic accidents that have gone up, or it must be murders that have gone up.

They're still going down. And then there it was, and it's accidental overdoses.

Almost in lockstep, suicide and drug overdoses are going up in tandem.

And cirrhosis and alcoholic liver disease have also risen really

When we put those together, we think of them as being all deaths of despair.

Is it about the decline of working class jobs?

The working class have been hammered with a high school degree used to be

to get a good job with benefits, with on -the -job training.

A lot of those jobs went overseas, and they're not coming back.

Sandra, one of the moms I met, says she's gone to Edinburgh City Hall four

and still hasn't succeeded in getting a birth certificate for her baby.

She's hoping things will be different if I come with her.

All things that if you're undocumented are impossible to get.

So then parents who are undocumented but their children are born here in the U

.S. can't get their kids birth certificates?

But isn't that enough to be considered an American citizen that you were born

the United States?

I'm not denying that at all.

What I'm saying is, if she is a mother and she's not a U .S. born, then this is

what we require from her.

And so her next option is what?

In a case like this, I can refer her and have her send all the documents that

she's got to Austin, see if Austin will accept that.

Okay.

Is there anything that I can help you all with? Yeah, actually, yeah. I'd love

for you to clarify this document.

If you go through the state of Texas, yeah.

Then they will accept that ID and other forms of proof of residence?

Yes. And when did they start handing out this form?

It's been years.

Well, she's been here four times and she said no one has ever given her this

form or explained it to her. She probably didn't ask the right questions

don't know if...

She understood or not.

These are in English.

Do you have the applications in Spanish?

These applications are in English. Let me see if we have it in Spanish.

Okay. Thank you.

Apparently the state does not

operate in Spanish.

So it has to be translated.

Okay. That seems crazy, doesn't it?

State of Texas.

Attorneys for the family suing the state told me that parents have mailed in

these exact documents and still have been denied birth certificates.

Months later, Texas agreed to settle the birth certificate case and loosen up

the ID requirements.

Attorneys for the families believe they've won a victory, but say they

won't know for a while.

The state has nine months to comply with the agreement.

After my time in the mountains, I'm hoping Gene Nickel can help me get to

bottom of the changes I'm seeing in North Carolina.

Nickel is a UNC law professor who has made speaking up for North Carolina's

his mission in life.

So, of course, the Internet trolls say he's a fraud and the legislature wanted

him fired.

We have in North Carolina the fastest growing poverty rate in the country.

And we have folks who took over the government four or five years ago and

decided, looking at that, OK, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to usher in the largest cut.

unemployment compensation in American history. We kicked 100 ,000 people off

food stamps. We're going to kick 500 ,000 people off of Medicaid.

And then studies out of Harvard indicate that that single decision means that

every year, probably 1 ,000 people in North Carolina are going to die.

The world is upside down in this theology.

It seems completely opposite the way it needs to be.

I think it's fair to say that we have a government which is presently operating

in bold contrast and opposition to the fundamental values of the people of

Carolina. But not to get too political, because I'm just a serious journalist. I

know, I know.

That's right, bad Jesus.

Yeah, some people know me from The Hangover. Those days are long gone.

How do these people get in power? What is the...

When we step back and look at these policies and we go, how were we fooled

tricked or how does that happen? How does it happen? Well, you know, part of

is money and politics. The relationship between money and politics drives our

politics, makes political leaders and campaigns more congenial to those who

powerful economic interests. There's just giant social study that's been

released, finding once again that the interest of the bottom quarter of

Americans.

Has no impact.

Not a little impact. Not underrated impact. Has no impact on the outcomes

of the legislative process in the United States Congress.

Citizens United sort of blew the roof off.

It said for the first time in American history that corporations can spend

unlimited amounts of their treasuries on American political process.

The dollars spent by large corporate interests in our politics.

They're very wise investments. They pay heavily. In North Carolina, they

typically want two things. One, they want tax breaks, but they probably weigh

even more heavily on the regulatory side. So they want to make sure that we

don't have what they consider strangling regulation.

So one of the ways that plays out in North Carolina is powerful economic

interests trumping environmental concerns.

After listening to Case and Deaton, I feel compelled to return to Dayton.

As I pass empty lots and boarded up buildings, I keep hearing Anne Case's

deaths of despair.

It's hard to reconcile what I'm seeing with what I've learned of the city's

past. The Silicon Valley of its day.

Dayton once claimed more patents per capita than any other U .S. city.

It was a thriving middle -class community.

But beginning in the 1970s, the kind of work that once made middle America

thrive began to disappear.

Dayton held out longer than most, but in more recent decades, its industry and

its population began to dwindle.

Now the city and its workers have struggled to find an economic future.

We are excited to have you here to learn more about this great opportunity to be

in on the ground floor with this growing, innovative, global company.

Thank you. All right. How's everybody doing?

All right. Good?

All right.

So our facility is the world's largest facility for making automotive

glass. It's right here. Right here in this area.

After we hire you, you're going to be put under like a 90 -day probation

It's $12 an hour.

Once you become a Fumio employee, you automatically get $12 .84.

$12 .84.

Plenty of opportunities, ladies and gentlemen.

Plenty of opportunities.

Here's the railroad tracks.

And nothing really has moved into this area?

No. I mean, other than FUYA.

This whole area was basically GM. I mean, at one point, like city blocks

city blocks.

How many jobs would you estimate that this supported at one point?

I'm sure well over 10 ,000 people.

Smaller manufacturers, which there's quite a few around here, too, that were

like part suppliers.

Right. So when the truck plant closed, they closed.

And then because they closed, this place closed. And it's this domino effect

that ripples out from the center of GM for miles and miles, frankly, and I'll

update the mechanic down to, you know, a pizza place up the street.

This whole area used to live or die basically by this plant.

Matt Clark is an organizer for the IUECWA.

the union that represented workers at the storied GM Moraine truck and bus

plant.

It is now home to the Chinese auto glass manufacturer, Fuyao.

This bar that we're in right now would normally be a pretty hopping place.

it was. I mean, you know, the first factory job I had was almost right after

high school. I got hired in right next door here at Moraine Assembly.

And this place was crowded.

It's changed drastically.

And by like 2006, plants are closing.

So now all of a sudden, people can't pay their mortgage.

At the same time, you can't sell a house because the housing market is crap.

So then you end up with all these foreclosures. Everyone starts bailing

right. Now what you have is abandoned houses.

everywhere all through Dayton. And abandoned houses means, you know, an

unfortunate element growing within that drug use and this influx of

drugs, particularly heroin.

If I'm wanting to stay in Dayton to work, where am I looking to get one of

jobs that's like a job where I can have some kind of house and a family? I think

that's... It's increasingly difficult here.

Obviously, the new employer that's moved into the old Marin Assembly Plant is

doing foo -yow. I know quite a few people that are working in there. When I

to those people, they say, this is nothing compared to what we had, and I'm

making half of what I used to make. Let's talk about the young people.

What are they looking forward to? What are their expectations, the 2 .5 kids in

the house and all that stability?

It doesn't seem like that's out there. It's not.

They probably had parents that worked at those plants or other family members or

grandparents, whatever the case may be, and they see what happened.

I mean, let's be honest. If I'm an 18-, 19 -year -old kid in Dayton, if I was to

drive over here and drive around here, it would not look like a bright and

shining future for me.

I think, unfortunately, there is a sense of despair and a nasty sense of anger.

I think in terms of almost feeling...

betrayed in a way. And I think a lot of people in this country right now have a

hard time placing that anger. Right, but I see this generation really paying the

price. A lot of them that we've met that are the ones that are dying of heroin

overdoses. I don't know how it gets better just yet.

I'd like to see something done about the illegal alien problem that would be so

sensitive and so understanding about labor needs and human needs that that

problem wouldn't come up. As we have kind of made illegal some kinds of labor

that I'd like to see legal, we're doing two things. We're creating a whole

society of really honorable, decent, family -loving people that are in

of the law. And secondly, we're exacerbating relations with Mexico.

They're talking about putting up a fence.

Why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible

for them to come here legally with a work permit, and then while they're

and earning here, they pay taxes here.

And when they want to go back, they can go back, and they can cross and open the

border both ways.

Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. didn't quite open the border. But as

president, each did extend legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants

living in the U .S.

So how did we go from that to this?

Listen, we should enforce the law. How do we enforce the law? Yes, we should

deport them. We should build a wall. We should triple the border patrol.

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.

They're not sending you.

They're not sending you.

They're sending people that have lots of problems.

They're bringing drugs.

They're bringing crime.

They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

criminals and rapists.

I've seen multiple studies which indicate that violent crime among

immigrants is actually lower than in the general population.

I need to talk to someone who can explain the attitude shift.

So I'm going to meet with Dan Stein, the head of a group called the Federation

for American Immigration Reform, FAIR, a lobbying group based in Washington, D

.C. They believe we're letting too many people in.

both illegals and legals.

Given where I've been, I decide to start with the babies.

You've used the term anchor babies.

Can you tell me what you mean by that term?

It's an anchor. It's a grappling hook. It's an attachment.

It's a foot in the door. And I don't understand why that's derogatory, by the

way, but some people seem to feel it is, but it's descriptive of the fact that

it provides a foot in the door. I think people come to this country and then

have the babies so that they won't get kicked out.

there are many, many reasons why people come to this country. Nobody comes to

this country devoid of understanding or information about how U .S. law works.

I recently saw a clip of the 1980 presidential debate between George

Bush Sr.

and Ronald Reagan where they talked about immigration and spoke of...

undocumented immigrants in this country being good people, hardworking people,

people that we should find more kindness and compassion.

I mean, these are the words that came out of these two conservative heroes'

mouths. What has changed so dramatically that

between then and now?

It isn't fair to attribute border anarchy.

to compassion.

It's not a compassionate position to say that anybody can just run into the

country and be expected to be treated like everybody else.

The conversation around who these people are has gone from

hardworking immigrants who are here to make a better life for themselves and

their children to something very, very different in this present day. First of

all, 1980 was a very long time ago. And I'm here to tell you that the American

people have been incredibly hospitable, generous, and open in going through some

of the biggest demographic changes in any nation in the history of the world.

And here we are today having a debate right now over whether or not the

government even has the credibility to control our borders.

Okay, so the reality is that at the moment there are 11 million or more

undocumented immigrants living in this country.

What is your wish for that 11 million?

What would you, if you had your way... Some of them could probably stay. Some

them will have to go home. So are you saying they should be removed?

Well, not all at once, but there's a process by which you encourage people to

leave. Some people would be put in deportation proceedings. Some people

back home.

Nothing about the law, nothing about Congress, nothing about the American

have ever said, the way you immigrate here is to break the law and then wait

around for the next amnesty program.

I guess we're at an impasse.

Where I see refugees and people struggling to make a better life for

children, Dan Stein sees lawbreakers, pure and simple.

But could it be that cut and dry?

I'm going to be meeting a young woman whose story I've heard is anything but

straightforward.

In North Carolina these days, it's easy to forget in the middle of all of our

political battles, we've been fighting an environmental battle, too.

When you take a closer look, though, you quickly understand that, like so much

of what I've seen since I came home, it's hard to separate one from the

A spill in North Carolina, thousands of pounds of ash dumped into the Dan River.

One of the largest spills of coal ash ever reported in American history.

Officials estimate that as much as 82 ,000 tons of ash were released into the

river. And it's been spreading ever since.

So I didn't know what coal ash was either, but if you think about it, it's

of simple. Coal ash is what is left after you burn coal.

This stuff has been piling up for decades.

They keep a lot of it in what are pretty much lakes of coal ash mud.

In the big spill, one of these coal ash lakes dumped into the Dan River.

The ash contains heavy metals and hexavelic chromium, the Aaron Brockovich

chemical, and it's kind of radioactive.

If it's in your groundwater, it is probably a pretty good recipe for cancer

heart and lung disease.

The coal ash belonged to North Carolina's governor, Pat McCrory's

former employer, Duke Energy. His administration has, over the last year,

shielding his old company from lawsuits filed by local environmental groups.

So sorry about this, but here are some numbers that I learned about Duke and

Governor McCrory.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory worked for Duke for 29 years.

The year before McCrory decided to run for governor, Duke gave the Republican

organization that helps governors get elected $15 ,000.

The year of the coal ash spill, they gave that same organization $3 million.

And here are four more numbers. I'm sorry. Stay focused.

After the spill that poisoned the Dan River, the state fined Duke, a $23

company, a little less than $100 ,000.

That's like someone making $60 ,000 a year and getting fined 30 cents.

It seems to me like the $3 million, that was a pretty good investment.

When the Duke Energy Plant began its operations in the early 1970s, fly ash

would fall on our land, rooftops of our homes and our vehicles and cover them

worse than the pollen in the springtime around here.

We could write our names on the cars because it was just that thick.

As a child, I had problems with my bladder.

My mother developed heart problems.

They ended up causing her death on September 28, 2014, of a massive heart

attack.

You can't drive two miles in either direction of the power plant without

a family that has dealt with such illnesses.

My father was a 32 -year veteran of the Department of Environmental Quality.

I started with the division in 2004.

I was proud of my job, and I was proud of my agency.

But I walked away from all of it in 2013 because I could no longer in good

conscience stay with an agency that was being dismantled and redirected into a

pro -corporation, polluter -friendly agency.

DEQ press releases these days read more like a re -election ad than

environmental position statement.

We are just tired of people dying and that's not necessary.

The people that are in position to make decisions to move things are not

listening.

So evidently there's something else involved that stimulate them and that

be money that is placed in their pockets.

I serve as Duke Energy's Environmental Affairs Director for North Carolina.

is a complicated issue, but we're focused on trying to get it right.

The people are tired of this being politicized. We are dying with...

undrinkable water, then we won't help. We don't care about your re -election

bids or none of that. We won't help because we're dying.

To see the heartache in my child's face because she knows I'm sick,

that's heartbreaking for me.

I don't want the next generation to have to face the same things that we're

facing now.

And that's why I'll continue to speak up for justice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had three strokes, and then I had a heart attack.

I had to get cysts put in my heart.

These are the mounds of coal ash right here to my left.

Covered with grass.

That's all coal ash underneath that?

Yeah.

Do you know most people on both sides of the road?

Yes, I do.

The Harrison's residence right here, their father had lung cancer. And

the house right here.

Him and his wife both passed away from cancer.

Now we're getting ready to approach Goolsby's trailer park.

They received do not drink letters.

This whole trailer park is contaminated water.

And what's the explanation behind it? They want to say it's naturally

That's what they want to say.

If they do know, then why?

Then what is that?

If they know and they don't care.

Money? Greed? The almighty dollar.

It's the root of all evil. It's what it says in the Bible.

And I do believe it.

Because they'll do anything for it.

This is where my mother, Annie, is laid to rest.

And as far as your mom's legacy and as far as your mom, what do you think she

needs you to do?

Continue. I mean, I just can't give up.

It's that simple.

It's that simple.

Even though the birth certificate case has been settled

for now, I hear that there are many Americans who are struggling to prove

full citizenship.

And I'm going to meet a woman in New York who says this happened to her.

Claudia Palacios is an activist for immigrant rights and considers herself a

radical, which you might find surprising because for years, Claudia was a United

States Marine.

What did you do when you were a Marine?

I was a combat photographer.

Oh, wow. So I would embed in different teams and just capture what was

happening. Where are you from originally?

My parents migrated to the state of Texas.

So you're first generation born in the U .S.? I am, yes. I'm first born and

first generation indigenous Mexican migrants, yes. And were you born in a

of traditional Texas hospital?

No, I was not. Due to fear of deportation, my mother chose not to.

give birth in a hospital.

I was born through a midwife, and midwifery in Texas is very common.

They're allowed to file certificates, and then those are presented to the

of Texas, and then you're supposed to, like, get a vital record. It says that

you were born in U .S. territory.

You're granted, like, social security and all these other things, but what

you're not granted is a birth certificate.

So when you signed up for the Marines, what documents did they ask you for?

This is actually the paper that I gave to my recruiter.

And it's what was signed by the midwife.

I mean, this is enough.

And I joined as a citizen, not as a migrant, not as like anything else. I am

a citizen.

When I joined the military, my mother and little sister decided that like they

were going to migrate back to Mexico. And at that point, I was in Okinawa,

Japan. I applied for a passport.

And that was the first time I was denied.

It was unreal.

It was very unreal.

Claudia's story seems unreal to me, too.

But the more people I talk to, the more I see that there's a whole class of

disenfranchised people living among us.

I thought it was a mistake. And I provided additional information that

wanted, and there was just rejection after rejection.

It's been a struggle of...

almost 10 years now.

There's paths for citizenship through naturalization, through the military,

I don't belong to any other state. So how could I start that process?

So I'm basically stateless.

What does that mean for your life personally?

I haven't seen my mother and sister in years.

Last time I saw them, I was still in the military in 2010.

So it's going to be six years now.

If I'm viewed by the country as a citizen, where does that leave me?

It's very scary.

Claudia's story is so strange and so sad.

This is one version of a life without papers.

You may find yourself stranded in your own country with no way to see your

family.

And Claudia also reminds me that there are so many people we hardly ever think

about.

They may be professionals, or pick our food, or be a U .S. Marine.

They may not have papers, but they're here, and they are part of our country

too.

I'm told I will see some fresh approaches in one of the most unlikely

the city.

Called Twin Towers by the locals for the two towers reaching up from St. Mary's

Church, the neighborhood was traditionally a tight -knit working

neighborhood.

It's now the epicenter of Dayton's drug epidemic.

Here I find two exceptional women working to ensure the community's

As part of her work at the East End Community Center, Emily Sirico takes a

message of hope out into the community, telling anyone who will listen how to

find treatment.

Specifically in East Dayton, we have had a lot of overdoses happen in the last

few months.

And so a team of us have been going out to respond, to try to capitalize on an

opportunity with that individual to get them into treatment.

I'm Emily. I work with East End Community Services. Nice to meet you.

Ellen Mays walks the halls of Ruskin Elementary, where she runs an after

program for Dayton's neediest children.

Her goal is to help a new generation escape the clutches of addiction.

I want to welcome everybody to the third annual Miracle Maker musical.

How long have you guys known each other?

Seventh grade. Seventh grade, yeah.

That's really fantastic.

I've been in this exact area with a dealer, an addict, the police.

How do you guys see this community?

I see a group of people that want to take their community back.

I spoke to Joe Hale, who's a lawyer who's been fighting this crisis for a

time. And when I asked him what he felt like could be done, he said he didn't

feel like there was a solution. What do you think?

There is a solution to it, and the solution is tackling poverty.

Living in poverty is trauma.

It's 100 % trauma, especially with children.

Easton first started and they went around to the community asking, what can

do for you? The family said, our children have no dreams.

Give our children some dreams or show them how to actually dream.

The goal is to give them the opportunity to explore their talents, their

passions, what's going to prevent those particular children from ending up in a

cycle of drug abuse.

I think that that in and of itself can just be huge.

We have to take an integrated approach to the problem.

Nonprofits are coming to the table. The city's coming to the table. We have

neighbors coming to the table. We have the hospitals, the sheriff's coalition,

all these different groups coming together.

We can tackle this.

Giving up is just not an option whatsoever.

And we owe it to somehow figure out what we can do to make a difference in the

lives of others.

You don't walk away from a situation.

You do the most you can. And you bring...

your whole power pack with you to do that, you know?

Because collectively we can do much more.

It sounds like the gentleman you spoke to is feeling disheartened because he's

lost a battle, a pretty big battle. But we might have fallen once or failed

once, but you get back up and you try again until we find the solution. What's

the alternative?

For now, the determination of people like Emily may be the only thing holding

the line against the epidemic.

On a cloudy spring afternoon, many of them gather for the opening of a new

treatment center in the Twin Towers, looking for shared strength and their

shared purpose.

They'll need it.

The cost of failure, of doing anything less.

is only too clear.

Just

like

we ask addicts to do the hard work of recovery, we too must do the hard work

fight this plague.

When I look at what we've accomplished through this sort of collaboration, I

really do think everything is going to be okay.

It's been a better part of the year getting to this grand opening. I thank

all for being here today, and I hope that this program and our efforts live

to all of our expectations.

I gave him four milligrams.

We've had 40 overdoses in the last two weeks right in this community.

We've lost a thousand bodies in the past four years.

And we're still sitting around the table trying to figure out how to solve this

problem.

We got to quit kicking the can down the road and blaming the feds and blaming

the state.

This isn't brain surgery.

How much heroin does he use? How long was he in that room?

We are better than this.

I'd like to say help's on the way. Maybe it will be.

But don't lose faith.

Stay strong.

Time on America Divided. People are getting elected through unconstitutional

voting laws.

Why can we not out the people that are in power? They drew the redistricting

so that Republicans couldn't lose any kind of competitive election.

Aren't domestic workers protected?

What do you say to a family that says, I can't afford overtime?

It is true that there is a limit to what families can afford and handle on their

own. You're saying if they can't afford me, they're not going to use me. It's

about money.