AMERICAN BOY

‘SNL’s’ Breakout Star Goes Scorched-Earth on Trump’s Immigrant Crackdown

Marcello Hernández called out MAGA for accusing his community of being criminals—when they are the real “creepy” ones.

The breakout star of Saturday Night Live is going hard at the MAGA movement for painting immigrant families like his as criminals. While Latino immigrants like “fun, exciting crimes that belong in movies,” he jokes that “white people do creepy crimes from documentaries.”

Marcello Hernández, who is of Cuban and Dominican descent, delivered his comedic message in the final moments of his debut Netflix stand-up special American Boy, released on Wednesday.

“I’ve been watching the news now for the first time in my life, because they’re talking about us,” Hernández, who generally stays away from politics and is probably best known for his recurring SNL character Domingo, tells the crowd.

“Every time I turn on the news, there’s a white lady and she’s like, ‘The immigrants are coming in here and they’re doing crime,’” Hernández says. “And I’m like... maybe we are doing crime, but the biggest crime that we’re doing is working illegally, which is a pretty solid crime.”

“There are a lot of Americans that don’t want to work legally, you know, so we are filling a void there,” Hernández jokes. “We’re helping out.”

Hernández, 28, notes that it bothers him “to hear, you know, white people talking about the Latinos like we’re scary.” He argues that, if anything, white people are scarier.

“If you’re white and you think that Latino immigrants are coming to America to grab a bunch of little kids and put them in a basement, no, that’s your thing,” Hernández remarks.

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He continues, “We don’t do that type of crime. We don’t like our own kids. Why would we grab random kids? That’s not interesting to us.”

Hernández, who joined the SNL cast in 2022, asks his viewers to “be racist for a moment” and imagine a typical “Latino crime.”

“Latinos do fun, exciting crimes,” he argues. “I’m driving the plane and it has a little bit of cocaine. That’s a fun, exciting crime.”

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He jokes that these “fun” crimes stand in sharp contrast to some of the high-profile crimes committed by famous white people, alluding to the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking scandal that has dragged in both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

Hernández concludes, “So let’s remember this when we judge, and when we put blanket statements on the Latino immigrants: Remember that Latino immigrants do fun, exciting crimes that belong in movies, and white people do creepy crimes from documentaries.”

The pointed jokes come just as Netflix is attempting to take over Warner Bros.—a merger that will need explicit approval from the Trump administration.

Hernández spends most of his set talking about his experience growing up with his Cuban refugee mother and in a nearly all-female household.

SNL fans will recognize much of Hernández‘s material here from his “Weekend Update” appearances, such as his 2022 segment explaining his mother’s “sandal” approach to discipline.

Most notable in American Boy are the connections to Hernández‘s recurring “Protective Mom” sketch, which joked about Latina moms not sympathizing with or believing their kids’ mental health problems.

Ultimately, American Boy makes for a fun introduction to Hernández’s comedy for those who don’t regularly watch SNL. However, if you’re one of the many SNL fans who believe that Hernández lacks comedic range, his debut Netflix special probably won’t change your mind.

Michael Boyle

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