Alicia Keys Film Imagines Americans Fleeing to Safety of Mexico: ‘What If We Were the Refugees?’

Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys celebrated World Refugee Day on Monday with the release of a 12-minute short film that follows the singer as she attempts to flee a fictional, war-torn Los Angeles for safety in Mexico.

“Fighting intensifies today in the United States across Southern California,” a news broadcaster says in the video, entitled Let Me In. “Thousands of U.S. citizens are fleeing towards the Mexican border seeking refuge from the violence.”

“Mexicans citizens are gathering,” the new report continues, “to protest the immigration of thousands of American refugees.”

Keys’s video is meant to get Americans to imagine what it would be like if they were forced from their homes in order to escape religious persecution or an oppressive government.

“I was stunned when I learned that there are more refugees living in the world today than at any other point in history, and half of them are children,” Keys said in a press release accompanying the release of the video. “Creating this film really allowed us to imagine, what if we were the refugees? What if we were the ones torn from the arms of our families and loved ones? How would it feel if this were happening to us?”

The film’s YouTube description says it “reimagines the refugee crisis as if it was happening on America’s shores.” It also includes the artist’s latest song, “Hallelujah,” off of her upcoming as-yet-untitled album.

The film also urges viewers to sign a pledge to support “the world’s refugees.”

Millions of refugees have fled from Syria and the surrounding region in recent years, where a deadly civil war has raged since 2011. The White House announced Monday that as many as 65 million refugees remain displaced around the world.

It was reported over the weekend that more than 50 State Department diplomats have publicly criticized the Obama administration’s policy in Syria and have urged the president to order military strikes on that country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

 

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson