The Coalition For Immigration Reform and Equality at Dartmouth (CoFIRED) is a student organization that was founded by Eduardo M. Najera Ortega (Class of 2014) and Óscar Rubén Cornejo Cásares (Class of 2017). CoFIRED serves to advance the rights of undocumented students at Dartmouth College and undocumented peoples of the Upper Valley. CoFIRED aims to spread awareness of the complexities of the undocumented experience and unite forces that support a comprehensive immigration approach at Dartmouth. One of their first objectives was to drop the “I-word.”

The Freedom Budget is a statement made by minority students at Dartmouth that seek to eliminate sources of oppression at the college. An important provision in the Freedom Budget was made by CoFIRED – the library catalog system should change the term “illegal” to “undocumented” in reference to immigrants. This was one of the first major efforts in the overall subject change petition.

After the initial denial of the subject change petition, the American Library Association heard about CoFired’s efforts, and the Subject Analysis Committee reviewed the subject heading “Illegal aliens.”  They later released this recommendation to the Library of Congress to change the subject heading:

“Resolved, that the American Library Association (ALA), on behalf of its members: urges the Library of Congress to change the subject heading Illegal aliens to Undocumented immigrants.”

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) along with 35 cosponsors opposed the Library of Congress’ move to change the heading to “Noncitizen.” They introduced HR 4926, also known as the Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act, to demand that the Library of Congress retain any subject title with “Illegal” and “illegal aliens”. The bill was never passed but presents clear indications of Republican sentiment towards the topic.

On this date, Democrats debated the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill in Congress. They argued that the Library of Congress is an independent department that conducts its own “anti-partisan” review process, and Congress should not interfere with its process. Representative Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-FL) remarked, “My amendment seeks to keep politics out of the Library of Congress’s subject heading process rather than set the Congress up as the word police.”

The House of Representatives passed the FY17 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill by a vote of 233-175. This bill included the provisions that were introduced by the House Appropriations Subcommittee which demanded the Library of Congress maintain the “illegal aliens” subject heading.

In the months following the contentious subject heading debate, this issue gained mainstream media attention from major news publications such as the New York Times (NYT), Washington Post, and PBS. For instance, the NYT published an article describing Melissa Padilla’s story, and how her actions at Dartmouth eventually led to a civic movement in Washington D.C. The coverage of this story by reputed news organizations like the NYT raised much-needed awareness about the plight of undocumented individuals in America today.

The film follows these students as they sought to challenge the way in which non-citizens are classified. They claimed that the heading “illegal aliens” is both inhumane and undermining since a human cannot be illegal. The film guides us through the efforts of these activists as they sought to change the conversation and advocate for immigrants in the country. The term is still used today throughout the federal government, especially the Library of Congress, to classify the works of non-citizens of the United States that are here without any legal protection from deportation.