Music] [Music] well welcome to the next episode of the conversation an hour spent trying to address
difficult issues around race and racism in our community and indeed around the world
grateful to have you with us for this episode and always joined by the wonderful the dynamic
honorable one Onjalé Scott Price as co-host hey Onji how you doing hey Rev always good to
see you uh right likewise likewise so listen uh we have an incredible show i think lined up for
our audience today we're going to be looking at immigration and refugees obviously a very timely
topic lots of discussion recently about afghan refugees or what they prefer to be called i guess
evacuees and also what's happening at the southern border of our country that's been going on for
for uh years now and so we have an incredible guest panelist panel set up for you to today to
get into that discussion but first we're going to hear from some people on the street who also have
some very powerful things to say and will give us all quite a history lesson about where we've been
in this country in dealing with immigration and refugees so why don't we take a listen to what
they have to say in response to a question that we pose to them and that is what effect does race
and country of origin what effect does race and country of origin have on u.s immigration policy
that's our first question let's see what they have to say and we'll be back then with our guests
well the history of immigration in the united states is one of the dominant forces shaping our experience of race today while immigration of white europeans has for the most part led to us
welcome into our society immigrants who are people of polar faced a more difficult path to acceptance
much less belonging in our nation so near at the end of the 1800s the welcoming of chinese
immigrants to california abruptly stopped as fear grew that the chinese immigrants were taking over
jobs and caused a threat to society so congress passed several laws to explore chinese immigrants
from their country and society in 1924 congress passed a national origins act establishing a
quota system to limit the number of immigrants entering the united states in order to reduce
the number of these less desirable italian eastern european or jewish immigrants the law deliberately
based the new quotas on census data from 1890s more than 20 years earlier earlier when the
majority of immigrants in the united states were white protestants from northern and western europe
uh subsequently state and local governments not only in the southwest but all across the country
conducted the mexican repatriation efforts of 1930s with support and funding from the federal
government and finally in the midst of the civil rights movement movement congress has immigration
legislation and in the old quota system in 1965. the immigration and national and naturalization
actuary replaced the previous quarter system with a preference system based on immigrants family
relationship with u.s citizens or legal permanent residents and to a lesser degree to their skills
despite the fact that the majority of visas are granted to family members of citizens
and legal permanent residents even those with family connections experience unreasonably wait
times to immigrate to the united states and i have to say that the pandemic has has made these um
waiting times even longer immigrants from uh the four countries with the longest wait times mexico
india china and the philippines can face wait times for more than 20 years depending on family
relationships employment status and other factors well racism is is certainly a stress
a stream that runs through all of immigration history unfortunately
it's a reality and i think we have to recognize that and it goes frankly even broader than race
it goes to ethnicity it goes to religion it goes to gender it goes to what i call the other or the
stranger things that we're not comfortable with and and i think we there's this natural tendency
to tilt in in favor of the things and the people you're familiar with when you're
crafting an immigration policy and i think we have to do our best uh to certainly understand
that that needs to be balanced against the needs of populations that are in many cases dire straits
uh and and need the protection that this country has been so good historically about offering
well we are grateful for uh those very informative educational comments from our guests there on the
street and we want to now hear what our panelists have to say in response to these to the question
that is before us at the moment which is what effect does race and country of origin
play in u.s immigration policy and we are really fortunate to have with us two individuals
with a deep experience long histories in working on immigration and refugee issues i want to
introduce first of all chris george who is the executive director of an organization called
iris which if i remember correctly stands for integrated refugee immigration services and
by way of full transparency i had a chance to serve as an intern with that organization when
i was in seminary at yale divinity school so it's uh oh very important i have some some familiarity
and actually our youngest son also spent some time working with that agency so chris welcome good to
see you again it's been a long time but uh i know you continue to do good work in the immigration
refugee field so what's your initial uh thought response to the question about the effect that
country of origin has in uh on our immigration policy so right so thanks well and um it's
great to see you again and um you probably didn't think i would still be with iris uh 16 years later
but but i am it's it's great work i mean it's not every day that um you can get up and say
hey i'm going to welcome persecuted people from all over the world and help them start new lives
in this country so it's very rewarding work but when i think about the topic of race and
immigration or race and refugee resettlement my my thoughts go to the previous administration which
tried to pervert and and destroy the the the essence of the refugee resettlement program
which is a humanitarian program to save the lives of people who've been persecuted
help the most vulnerable the most who need to be resettled bring them to the united states
and help them restart their lives the previous administration actually ran a campaign to
vilify refugees and it seemed that the combination of racism and xenophobia um was especially toxic
um at one point then president trump said why are we bringing people from these
uh i won't use the bad word these s uh whole countries in africa why don't we bring more people from norway um so my thought when we
have this topic of race and and immigration or race and refugee resettlement and my thought is
we need to make sure this never happens again or we uh have a president an administration that can
have such a a an enormous impact on what might be one of our finest most noble oldest traditions
of welcoming people who have been persecuted to this country we need to democratize
the refugee resettlement program especially the decision making and we need to make sure
that those who are are making those decisions uh are more representative of this country are more
diverse um so those those are my initial thoughts it's really it really goes to kind of process
thank you yeah no thank you chris and i um first of all i'm glad you're still at
irs 16 years later and the fact that you're you're still there
affirms that when i served on the committee that uh called you i selected you to be
the executive director uh we did a really good job so i'm glad i'm glad you're still there
that's that's that's very it's very kind of you to say that so i have you to blame on my bad days
uh that's why i'm here okay that's why i'm here so uh yeah i think the the way you summed
it up i i as you were sharing about the previous administration uh and i was like well that sort of
crystallizes it right there that's like boom why do we have people from these [ __ ] countries why
don't we have more people from norway uh coming i was like that's what this show is about today
in a nutshell right so helen let me uh bring you into the conversation here helen
is someone that i don't know as long as chris less than a year i've known helen but she's come into
falmouth and jumped in feet first especially in in helping to deal with refugees and evacuees and
immigrants into into this community so and i know helen you have a background in having worked with
catholic charities in their refugee resettlement program and with the center for new americans
and interfaith works of central new york so you've been at this uh some for some time so give us your
initial uh thoughts as we welcome you to the conversation absolutely uh and i and i thank chris for the things he said because they're they're they're right on
but that was the piece that i was going to get to if i had time because i want to start about
16 years back ironically that's been about my stretch in the refugee resettlement world too
and maybe further than that because refugee resettlement started here uh basically around
the time of the second world war and dealing with the holocaust those were the primary
first times this country all but belatedly opened their arms in welcome and the history of refugee
resettlement started out as largely faith-based communities and all faiths got on board
helping to welcome and to resettle people who had been traumatized people whose lives were risks
and people who were basically homeless by loss of country or loss of permission to be in that
country and it was an incredible partnership and gradually government became a partner
they started out as about a five percent financial partner frankly they ended up
being a larger share than that but it was always always and i think chris would affirm this as well
and are until the last administration this was a bipartisan humanitarian commitment
on the part of the american people and somehow that's gotten shipwrecked
and i know that uh uh we have brought many people of many colors and many faiths to this country and
i my perhaps naive belief is for a long time racism as such was very much kept at bay and
our higher and better selves and better better aspirations better goals and humanitarian efforts
took the lead in the refugee resettlement world and in immigration work groups such as the the
cubans who came as a special category they weren't actually refugees they were
humanitarian parolees but given permanent status and the haitians after the first earthquake
were given temporary parolee status that was never upgraded to permanent which uh
may have been a somewhat racist issue it felt that way to me but uh something has gotten lost
in how our government has been given if you will at the executive level too much power
and something that has always belonged to all the people of this country and their highest and best moments yeah thank you helen yeah i've got so many
thoughts running through my mind right now i want to follow up with chris and you on but
let me bring our co-host and co-producer of the conversation into this conversation angela scott
price einstein what are your thoughts or what questions do you have initially for our guests
well i think our guests have a lot more experience in history than i have so i am
really looking forward to hearing what they have to say because i don't know a lot about this topic i attended a university amber riddle in florida that was very diverse we
represented almost every country on earth so i had friends from all over and hearing
their experiences with trying to get green cards and trying to get permanent status after finishing their degree quite a people i know it was difficult but i didn't recognize
how difficult it was in general and then when i think about the differences between
the friends who i have who are black and brown who came from ghana nigeria and barbados and how
much longer it's taken them to get their status than some people i know who came from germany it does make me wonder you know what is that like why is that but i also know i recognize that most
getting getting green cards and getting permanent resident residency status is very time consuming and can be very costly if people don't have the access and so that that's that becomes a
barrier to the countries that don't have as much money which generally can be the black and brown
countries but i'd really like to pass it back to hear more from our guests because i know that
i always learn a lot we do these shows but i know i'm going to learn quite a bit today
yeah thank you andre let me let me um maybe toss this question to our guests
it's something with which i've um i know wrestled but thought about um often and i don't hear a lot
of conversation in the public square about it but there is this this situation and angie was just
talking about it where he seems like if you are from a certain uh region of the world some certain
part of the world uh you get uh maybe preferential treatment you get you know easier access quicker
access than if you are from other parts of the world you know i think about uh when the war
was going on uh in bosnia bosnia herzegovina and you know there was an effort to bring in people
as refugee refugees from those war-torn countries that seemed that that process seemed to go without
much resistance i didn't hear much resistance from people in congress or the political world to that
and yet we look at something like what's happening at our southern border where
people are climate refugees or refugees from the climate crisis and and other terror in their lives
it seems as though every roadblock in the world is put up to keep those brown and black folks from
being able to come into their country so chris i'm going to talk toss it back to you and am i on to something there or am i or what do you think no i i think you definitely are i um i
i don't think any sensible person can say that race does not play uh a part
in our immigration policies and immigration decisions um it um
it is a factor in public sentiment and it is a factor in in political decision making
and if you look at the southern border just recently the treatment of dark skinned haitians
was just an abomination border guards on horseback
using whips to control people it just immediately uh you know horrified us and and and conjured up
you know um the history of uh of of brutality and slavery um in this country i don't think
uh lighter-skinned people would have been treated that way you're you're absolutely right
at the southern border many of the people who are trying to get into the united states
have legitimate claims for refugee status when the claim is made in the united states it's called
applying for asylum um and they are not given the opportunity to make that claim to state their case
and that really goes against u.s law and a long tradition in this country whenever anybody enters
the country no matter how they entered even if they entered uh you know without passing through
inspection points uh swimming across the river or being smuggled into the country it doesn't matter
when they're there and they present themselves to border guards and they
say i want to apply for asylum they have to be given an opportunity to make their case to to
tell an authority that they are fleeing persecution that they meet that that
international law definition of a refugee someone who is fleeing persecution in their home country
persecution because of their race their religion their nationality membership in a particular
social group or their political opinion and when they're denied that opportunity um we are really
violating our our fundamental principles and and also the universal declaration of human rights so
the the severe treatment seems to be um
against people of color and we are treating more leniently leniently those who have some kind of a
connection with the united states for example look at afghanistan and i'm not saying that
the families from afghanistan don't deserve um to be rescued from the taliban or resettled in
this country but you might not be aware of this the entire refugee resettlement program
has come to a halt so that we can bring in people who are described as our allies
um so people who are from the democratic republic of the congo or refugees from sudan um are
basically being told hang on um you're gonna have to wait longer as though waiting the four
years during the trump administration wasn't long enough you're going to have to wait longer because
we're bringing in people who uh were allies of the united states during its 20-year occupation
of afghanistan we could probably do both as a country with so many resources
welcome afghan refugees and at the same time uh keep up the resettlement of refugees from africa i mean over the past 20 years about 30 35
of the refugees coming to the united states came from african countries uh it's gone up and down
a bit and it was definitely down during the trump administration um but there has been a fairly good
balance geographical balance in the u.s government refugee resettlement program
it could be better and as i mentioned in my my opening remarks the number of refugees coming to
this country and the countries that they come from should not be left to the president to decide it
it's called the presidential determination it happens once a year and it's supposed to
be a decision that is taken in consultation with the state department and congress but it usually
isn't but i i would say that it is too important a decision to be left to just an administration
i think it should have um i think congress should really play a much greater role in deciding how
many refugees we resettle and and the makeup of that that annual group of uh of refugees
i appreciate you saying that chris uh if i've often wondered uh you know how does that work
because you know an administration comes in and and they say well the number or the allotment
or the quota whatever the correct term is you know is 60 000 refugees we're going to allow in
this year and then you know next next time you hear oh no we're only going to do
you know whatever there's 25 or 30 000 right and then so i was like well
excuse me the number of people in need of being rescued i like that word right hasn't gone down
yet there's a determination that oh no we're going to reduce the number uh to a to a lower number and
i also appreciate what you said about uh the afghani uh evacuees and uh because and and i
haven't said this publicly i know it's probably controversial that hasn't stopped me before so
why should it stop me now but i've been i've been thinking wait a minute uh it seems like
we are treating the afghani you know refugees evacuees differently
from i appreciate you mentioning my beloved democratic republic of congo you know
what's the difference what's the difference there what is it that the afghanis who deserve
as you've said every opportunity to be rescued from the taliban and that
insidious regime and what's happening there but what about the folks from honduras what about
the guatemalans what about the venezuelans what about you know uh so thank you for um
for clarifying some of that so i'm gonna bring you back in helen because i know you are intimately
uh involved and passionately involved right now in in falmouth with uh trying to prepare
for the welcoming of evacuees from afghanistan uh why don't you tell us a little bit about the
work you were doing and comment if you would on what chris and i we were just discussing
first of all i there's not a word that came out of chris's mouth that i have anything but affirmation
of is right on um and i would also like to briefly comment there's a category of refugee status
that this country has upheld uh certainly in the previous to the prior administration
that refugees yes they need to be rescued and they need to be rescued from life-threatening things
and one of those things and there were a couple of african countries including kenya and obama made a
point about this several times kenya would allow people to be stoned to death by nature of being
gay this was also true in uganda and we have many refugees refugee status can be given to people
who are lgbt providing their life is threatened in their home country and refugee status always means
you're giving up your home country this isn't a temporary vacation until things get better they're
letting go and giving up and being resettled here and part of the work that i have done in the past
few years as i first was a executive level program director and the past five years i've
been intensive medical case management of people who had particular medical or psychological trauma
and so that's been a huge percentage of the folks i've worked with and this is a very real trauma
and this is happening in african countries and these people are no less at risk while they wait
and they've been waiting yes for years and i think the refugee resettlement programs are an
incredible state of a relief right now that someone's coming and b total exhaustion because
they're coming in astronomical numbers on very short notice i spent weekend before last back in
syracuse setting up an apartment for an afghan family of nine because the program i used to
work with there was receiving uh 27 people one day and 42 people the next with about
less than 48 hours prior notice and they were meeting that need but they're exhausted and i'm
sure chris is going to allude to that also in connecticut people are exhausted because
this is happening so fast and yet we've all sat and worried and wondered and prayed and
done less other polite things with our language about the people that were in so much danger in
so many places in africa for so many reasons that we're not being allowed to come and i say
africa because there are a lot of problems there there are a lot of good things going on in africa but the congo uh the the gender-based issues in several countries and uh all that's been going
on in in tigrinya ethiopia and there just are a lot of real challenges these people
need our help these people need our help and we have been giving it so well for so long
um as far as the afghan situation yes these people need our help too and what's happening to them is
pretty doggone brutal we all know that the taliban are not nice people with nice manners and i'm
totally in support of that project going forward i'm willing to give all the time and strength and
energy and skills i have to make that happen i know our little community of falmouth here is
saying we're ready to receive three families and i strongly suspect we'd be ready to receive more
if we had that opportunity and opportunities are being created for this particular population
but we need to be able to do do the highest and best work we used to do as a country
and i think something's missing and it's not just in refugee resettlement but refugee resettlement
is a great way to get a close portrait of something that's amiss that needs to be fixed yeah
you both both chris and you have mentioned this we in the united states we have the capacity to do
much more we have the capacity i believe to take in as many individuals and families that
are in need of safe harbor safe haven and we've got vast swatches swatches of this country that
are open that are undeveloped they're you know we've got hotels and shopping malls and things
that are in deplorable conditions going back to the recession of the late 80s right that never
rebounded you know what if we used our american ingenuity in creating homes in these dilapidated
uh hotels and motels and other structures that are that are out of uh out of commission now uh so i i
think we have the capacity you know my one of one of our sons our youngest son called me just last
week and he saw a news report about and i think it was i don't know if it was in sudan or ethiopia or
where it was that members of the lgbtqia community were being brutalized and were being murdered
because of their status their gender identity and uh he was like dad did you know about that and i
said yeah i mean that that sort of thing happens and i told him about uganda um as a major violator
of that and and i'll just share one other thing but i want to hear what what chris has to say i
you know i got a text just this morning i thought maybe it's because i knew we were going to be doing this show today i thought about a young lady in buffalo new york where
we were my wife and i were before coming to falmouth three years ago and she was and her
daughter from the democratic republic of congo and ronnie my spouse and i've had a chance to
visit democratic republic of congo the drc and uh just fell in love with the people there and
also became educated around just how horrible the conditions are people don't know how bad
it is in drc people have no idea how poor that country is how war-torn it is
how rape is used as a weapon of war there how many millions of people have been killed during the war
anyway so i sent her a text this morning just say hey you know i'm thinking about you i want to know how linda your daughter and you are doing and and she wrote me back and i'm going to just
ask you to indulge me just for a second she said reverend and linda and i are doing fine
linda is a freshman at canisius she is living there i am in my last semester
to obtain a bachelor in international business also at canisius i'm working at a bank
i'm near the church where you used to lead and i'm working as a professional intern
and since by the grace of god i will be confirmed as a full-time employee after january
and so that just reminded me you know again the previous administration just painted this
horrific image of the people that were coming you know they were called murderers and rapists and
and what have you and could you both just speak for a moment to uh you know that what happens when
people are given a chance like like my drc refugee friends here what happens and how they can become
um leaders in our community contributing members of our society i hope you understand what i'm
trying to ask you chris you want to offer helen whichever one of you would like to respond well
you know i just welcomed 16 people last night at about 1 30 a.m i don't know why they're coming in
so late but we had four case managers there i was there to just help out uh after 1am at the office
uh four families from afghanistan they had spent about two months on military bases in in texas but
over the 16 years i've welcomed oh hundreds of refugees who have come from all over the place
uh sudan congo somalia iraq syria cuba colombia and now we're also working with undocumented
immigrants asylum seekers from guatemala honduras el salvador these are tough resourceful
creative strong determined people they want nothing more than to regain some control over
their lives because for too long they've been pushed around and persecuted and told to go there
you can't cross this checkpoint guns pointed at them family members killed in front of them
and then out of desperation fleeing their home country i mean it's it's an experience
that none of us can imagine and they come to this country and they want to hit the ground running
get jobs as soon as possible many of them were accomplished you know successful highly respected
individuals in their home countries and towns and cities and they come to the united states
and because they don't speak english they're unable to move into that profession that they
were used to and they often have to usually have to accept a job that is
several rungs below on the ladder um and and it's a tough pill to swallow but they do it
um they do it and and they will study during the hours they're not working and learn english and
get promoted move into other jobs before you know what they're opening businesses
you know the majority of new businesses opened in this country are opened by immigrants and
you know these are real success stories and uh they're just amazing people you know
for too long refugee agencies like mine and and i'll maybe give a real quick overview of
the refugee resettlement structure in this country there there there are about 200
refugee resettlement non-profit groups all all across the country california to connecticut
and we have been at it for about 40 years welcoming refugees connecting them to health care
first we find housing and uh we'll enroll the kids in school help them learn english help them get
jobs um and we've really focused on the services well they've done a pretty good job over these
40 years um will of providing the services and you probably remember that from your your time
at iris um 16 years ago but we have not done a good job in fact i think the refugee
resettlement organizations have done a pretty poor job of educating americans about refugees
and about refugee resettlement uh the global refugee crisis and
who better than a refugee resettlement agency can do that we've also done a very poor job
of engaging americans in this incredible work i mean welcoming
a family from another country and helping them start a new life it's too important to be monopolized by small groups of non-profit staff maybe with a
a few volunteers helping out we should be swinging open our doors and allowing thousands of americans
to come in and work with us and we should be placing refugee families not all together in
clusters and cities where our offices are but we should be placing refugee families
far away from the cities with community groups spreading them all over so that americans can have
this experience of getting to know refugees and so the next time someone running for public office
stands up on a podium on a stage at a podium and and starts spewing this this hatred and nonsense
vilifying and and and and blaming refugees for all of our problems the next time that happens
that person will be shouted down because people in the audience will say wait a minute i i gave i
gave a job to a refugee i helped a refugee learn english i i walk some kids to school my kids go
to a school with refugees that's nonsense what that guy is saying refugees are tough
hard-working people they come to this country for all the right reasons they appreciate everything
that this country has to offer sometimes even more than americans who were born here
so that's what we need to do we need to engage the american public in this work uh in a much
more expansive way so they're educated about the program and to build public support
because that public support will translate into political support and we need that support um
if this program is going to be sustained over the years
oh chris i'm so grateful that you were doing this work and that i told iris they should hire you i just got to say that
helen i know you have um lots of stories about the relationships that you've had with
refugees and how you've seen them blossom [Music] give us your thoughts well it's funny you say
that because i do have stories and one of the things i plan to do with this chapter of my life
is to write a book of refugee stories and i already have a title for the book and i'll share
it with you it's walking in the river of life because one of my volunteers who spent a week
with me once a corporate executive who came to help do just whatever said it's been such a treat
to walk with you in the river of life i'm going to share with you two brief stories about just two refugees these two happen to be women i've got lots of stories about the guys
one of these women was from the war-torn conflict area between eritrea and ethiopia
and her mom was ethiopian and her dad was eritrean and that's a terribly conflicted war
you mentioned will that people use rape as a tool of war this young woman was raped and sodomized
in front of her father intentionally to traumatize him and her and she arrived in this country with
so much pessimism in her little dossier and so much need for mental health services
and such poor expectations for what her outcome might be fast forward to this year during covid
she is now living in houston texas she owns a medicaid cab she drives covered patients
all over the place and she contacts me about every two weeks just to make sure i'm okay
and i called her one day and said and i will not mention names because that's part
one of the things refugee resettlement folks get nervous about because sometimes if names slip out and get to the home country horrible things happen to remaining relatives
but i said to her do you have enough water and she laughed and she said mama helen i'm a refugee
i have 80 cases of water bottles in my closet just in case
the other one who will visit me very soon by the way in falmouth father will uh she arrived
in this country from the congo a single mom with a very very disabled child partially primarily
because of lack of good prenatal prenatal care and delivery care the child had hydrocephaly
the child has a magnificent name which i'll share with father will one day and a mom arrived here
with this disabled little child on her back about five years ago and um mom had had her own feet
blown off by a bomb when she was three years old so she has no feet so you have a disabled mother
with a disabled child and uh oh by the way yes that child was the product of a rape
which is a very very private thing that was only shared with me recently so how are they doing now
that mama with her prosthetic feet and by the way she can carry a case of 40 water bottles
on her head without needing to balance it except occasionally with two fingers she works
in a long-term care facility as a personal care attendant for the elderly she gets so much joy
and so much love out of caring for these people in so much need and yeah she's gotten a driver's
license because she's kind of tired of taking the bus at all kinds of hours but she's working 40 50
60 hours a week fortunately she's found a wonderful caregiver for her child who happens
to be a refugee from another company country that really loves kids but and with the good medical
care that the child is getting in this country we have discovered this child who cannot speak and
cannot see can hear loves music and probably has a lot more intelligence than we ever gave her credit
for and after a couple of surgeries is beginning to be able to stand and perhaps one day we'll walk
yeah they're real takers well i will look forward to to meeting this incredible person and
welcoming her during her visit with you and falmouth
well i think less transition for a moment and go back to our people on the street
and we've been talking about the inequity in our immigration system the racism that exists
there and all the challenges around that and we asked our people on the street how how do we
make our immigration system more equitable how do we do that and i'm going to ask
chris and helen to respond to that as well when we come back
well i mean what we need is a comprehensive immigration policy and frankly uh and this is a
as i i said to you before we uh tape this as a recovering politician it
it just boggles my mind that an issue that ted kennedy and george w bush can agree on
still is not policy and i would say shame on congress for not having hammered out something
uh at at this point uh i can remember uh when i was doing this kind of work professionally
it was not a partisan issue in fact our biggest advocate when we needed help on refugee issues
was gordon humphries an ultra conservative senator from the state of maine it was not
republicans against democrats for i think unfortunately there's been some
sides drawn up in this whole thing and and partisanship and kind of protecting power
has made coming to a transparent fair policy much more difficult to get to by building a
well-functioning legal immigration system that can be responsive to the nation's changing needs
this will include realistic and independent evidence-based avenues for immigration that
allow families to stay together and businesses to get the workers they need while enhancing all
workers right to fair and in wages safe working conditions and the opportunity to thrive together
the second one uh is to by putting an end to the immigration and custom enforcement attention
machine over the past several decades immigration detention in essence incarcerating those awaiting
a determination of their immigration status or potential deportation has become our nation's
newest system of mass incarceration of black and brown people incarceration of immigrants
used to be the exception another rule under the law we aren't supposed to incarcerate people to
punish them for lacking immigration status that is a civil matter or to deter others from coming
to the united states but that's precisely what we do now and on a massive scale the third one is by
committing uh to proportionality accountability and due process in immigration enforcement
this will do with the current one-size-fits-all approach in which deportation from the country is
the only sanction on the table and opportunities for relief are few and instead allow for range
for a range of potential penalties to feed the offense and and the individual
and finally by creating a path to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants and other individuals
long residing in the country this will help the more than one million individuals now protected
by the fair action for childhood arrivals or daca as we know it temporary temporary protector status
dps or the affairs defer enforcement the air force departure are also known in immigration law as the
the uh who have no path to permanent residence and are living in fear that their temporary
reprieve may soon be ripped away if our collective goal is to create policy that upholds the rule of
law in the united states immigration system there can be no question that the nation must provide a
path to permanent legal legal status for those already here they are all full and contributing
members of our u.s communities raising families paying taxes and enriching society in many ways
well thanks for staying with us folks we hope you're in getting as much out of this conversation
as as angie and i are grateful for you tuning in to the conversation here on fctv our guests again
are chris george the executive director of integrated refugee and immigration services
in connecticut and helen molina a person with a clinical psychology background
who's done a great deal of work for many years working with refugees individually and also
as an executive and manager with refugee programs so the question we just heard some responses to is
how do we make our immigration system more equitable you know chris you were pounding away with uh some of the ills in our our system and and uh helen was in your amen corner so uh
yeah i'll toss it to you chris what what can we do what can be done to make it more equitable so
i so maybe i'll i'll pick up where i left off i think that um i think that if
the american public is more aware of what's going on and involved in helping immigrants
and refugees and we sort of build that you know from the bottom up grassroots public understanding
sympathy compassion uh i'm you know i'm hopeful that the more people know about refugees and
other immigrants the more they will support them i think i have to believe that um that's the start
because you know in in our system people vote for uh representatives and and if if immigration law
or the refugee resettlement program is an issue then they will vote for people who you know
want to reform the immigration program and have a strong refugee resettlement uh uh on on top of it
so i would say we have got to um get more people involved so that they understand uh and really
develop a human bond and and and and understanding of
the refugee experience and what immigrants have gone through to to get to this country and um
and you know all of the studies show that in places where there are large immigrant populations
the non-immigrants are much more supportive of refugee resettlement and immigration reform
and allowing more immigrants into this country they've had contact with them they know them they work with them they appreciate their work ethic so that tells us something let's get more refugees
and immigrants into more parts of this country and one way that we do it here in connecticut
is we have a model that's called community-based resettlement where by we will train community
groups and then place a refugee family in that community you know that that's a that's a map
of connecticut over there i don't know if you can see it but there are a lot of red squares all over that state map and each of those squares represents a community group
that has welcomed a refugee there are over 50 squares and we're doing that now and
in fact when somebody comes up to me today or tomorrow in connecticut and says how can i help
with the afghan crisis i say don't write a check form a group form a community group get trained
by iris and we will place a family with you that is the best way to help right now of course if you
can't form a group of course we'll accept a check because that allows us to hire staff and do more
but the highest priority is to get these refugees off the military bases and into communities and
that's what we'd like to see we'd like to see it not just happen in connecticut but in massachusetts and in new jersey in new york and all across the country
so it kind of begs the question for me though chris so uh refugees have been coming the programs have been operating for for years now decades now so
why isn't the story better known why every once in a while you'll see a front-face story about a
refugee family and how well they're doing and contributing to community and all um
so how what how so why why isn't it better no what what's what's not happening that needs to happen
yeah that is the million-dollar question and you know soon after i was hired
and thank you again for voting yes on the committee that decided to hire me
soon after i was hired i started asking around especially at conferences where there were
representatives from the state department i would say why why isn't this program better
known why isn't there more material to publicize the program why doesn't the state department
uh encourage the refugee organizations to get out and to engage the community and and
and and every state of the union address why doesn't the president point to a refugee up in
the balcony and say and there is a refugee family that has successfully made it in this country
and you know what the answer was always the same from the people i asked it was we think it's
better for you to kind of work under the radar keep a low profile you know there's all this
immigration feelings and anti-immigrant attitude and you know we just think it's best for you guys
to sort of you know secretly resettle refugees in the community and that is so wrong it was
such a mistake but it's a very it it's difficult for refugee resettlement agencies to kind of get
out of that that mindset i mean when i started at iris my staff treated journalists like they
were radioactive they wouldn't let them in the office oh no you can't come in and
and do a story on you know on our refugees you know we have to protect their privacy and well
of course we have to protect their privacy but journalists know how to protect people's privacy just two weeks ago an nbc television crew came in and filmed the story of an afghan who was hoping
for his family to come from kabul and they didn't show his face they changed his name i mean you can
tell stories of these people and at the same time protect their privacy and and and and keep them
safe and there is no better way to to broadcast this great story of refugee resettlement than
to work with the press so gradually people are beginning to see it i think it was the election
of donald trump that was kind of a wake-up call for the refugee organization that said oh my god
we've been focusing on services all this time sort of with our head to the ground without
realizing that we need the support of the public and the best way to get the support of the public
is to engage the public so you know will you're right it was a missed opportunity for
30 35 years but now we're beginning to realize all the refugee organizations is that we
need to you know swing open our doors let people in engage more americans
and really get the word out because it's an amazing story
so that kind of reminds me of the affordable housing issue in that you it's just it's become
a loaded term and so trying to educate people on what it actually means so i feel like it's it's
obviously not the same but it it goes along the same lines that when you when people feel or
think a certain way about something for so long trying to get people to change their mindset is very difficult and requires a lot of a lot of work one thing i'm wondering about when you work
with these evacuees these refugees who are coming here and you put them in communities how do you
ensure that they're welcome they're being put into welcoming communities i can imagine that it would
be difficult for someone who comes from like the drc coming to falmouth it was a culture shock for
me and i i have been used to being the only black person in the room for a really long time so when
we talk about being equitable in our immigration policy i also think about that in terms of
bringing people here it's not it's one thing to be equal among everyone but to be equitable means to
treat people differently in a way that makes sense so how is that built into the work that you all
do well i've talked a lot helen you want to take this one sure sure and maybe helen you could talk
specifically about what we're doing in falmouth as well to know and and and i'm going to uh i'm going
to share a little story from one of my refugees specifically about his encounter with falmouth
because there is some work that needs to be done one of the refugees that was
here visiting with me once who was extremely talented educated brilliant young man who was
from one of the countries where his life was threatened because of his gender preference uh and
he's been in this country a while and he came here as my guest and he went to one of our local stores
and he commented to me at dinner afterwards he said you know i experienced something for the first time in my life today that i'd heard about but had never seen he said we went into a retail
store and we all separated went our own way and a lady who worked there followed him within eight
feet of him watching everything he did he said i felt like i was being observed because of my color
he said that's never happened to me before and i found that interesting um
so yes there is work to be done and i'm a tremendous advocate for volunteers
i believe they do incredible work with refugees and i will also say it takes a lot of time
and a lot of specifics to train them carefully because the business about the privacy for
refugees is real and it is important and with the internet and all sorts of things there was
a family member of someone in syracuse who was seen in a in a publicized view of a world refugee
day parade and they were in the front line of the parade and i believe it was a grandmother
was killed in the home country so that stuff is important but you know refugee resettlement
isn't rocket science chris and i are nice people but we're not geniuses and there are
tremendous number of caring giving people in our communities who can be trained about that peace
and trained about a lot of other pieces but the way you fit a refugee into the community is is
not assimilate them make them like one of us integrate them help them meet people know
people help people know them get them involved with things and for a while you walk beside
them and then before you know it you're going to be walking behind them because they're going to be
way ahead of you they're going to take the ball and run with it and so will the community
but you know we have a lot of talented people in this country i'm going to name a corporation
just because there was a guy that was resettled in new york state who founded a little yogurt company
called chobani they're one of the biggest biggest philanthropic donors in the state of new york
and you know the dairy industry is pretty grateful to them there because contrary to beliefs about
new york being that city down in the lower part that has lots of urban stuff new york has a lot
of apples wine and dairy cows and then there's a couple cities here and there but uh you know it
just really takes the time to get to know folks and that's all and volunteers can get to know
folks and take them places go to the laundromat with them go to the grocery store with them
and i've had some volunteers tell me about some conversations they have had
and the things they have learned sitting watching the clothes wash down at the local laundromat
with a refugee family that the staff didn't have time to train about the laundry but the volunteers
did we need to get the communities actively involved and trained and i and along with that
sadly we also have to explain to refugees black refugees refugees of color that they are going to
encounter racism in this country you know they're you know they're they're not going to be they're
not going to be kidnapped they're not going to be thrown in prison and tortured they're not going to have to dodge roadside bombs or snipers but it's not going to be a walk in the park
and we have an obligation as the refugee resettlement agency and a community group
also has the obligation to explain to refugees from congo or from afghanistan anywhere else is
you know you're going to encounter you're going to encounter some discrimination some prejudice stereotyping racism and um it's really ugly it's going to make you feel terrible um but
this is how you might want to deal with it in fact we actually did a little role play uh
at some point um during our cultural orientation programs uh when there was seemed to be kind of an
outbreak of anti-immigrant sentiment after the election of trump and the new haven area
you know what do you do when someone yells at you uh on the street or on a bus um so we we
we have to do a better job i think of preparing um refugees for the kind of racism
um and ugliness that they're going to inevitably encounter in this country all the more reason why
they need friends and not just case managers or job developers but a group of friends in a
community who will explain these things to them and stand up for them when bad things happen
and walk beside them yeah viewers of this program know that i often say we need more people to be accomplices and
fewer allies and uh you know you're right we need people to walk beside and to be willing
to intervene on behalf of and advocate for and not just stand on the sidelines to cheer
although we did we need that as well uh yeah the racism is real again uh people that viewed
the conversation i've heard stories i've shared about the racism i've experienced here in falmouth
from walking into a store or a restaurant right here on our beloved main street and
being followed and and all it's real and there's there's a an operation a company here in town that
has a number of of uh folks of people of color working in their establishment and
their their own i don't know if i have to be coy about this but bill zammer who
along with his wife linda on the flying bridge restaurant here they bring in a number of individuals on visas from uh i think it's jamaica angel if i
remember correctly and you know i was talking to bill before he died may he rest in peace about
you know my experience as a black person and he said you know i i want you to come and talk to my my staff you know i've got these um guys and gals from jamaica and they don't understand
it they don't they don't get it right because they don't have to experience that in their home countries and sadly i never got a chance to uh to follow up with bill and and and to do that
you know chris you said i you know encouraging people uh not necessarily to write a check
uh but to form groups and know helen you you're part of a group that's done that
that is in the midst of doing that work and nst which i think is um a neighborhood
uh support team and so i wish you well in in that work and chris i will say to you uh
you know our youngest son and it's um i don't think ever given money to a charity and then
the thing was last christmas he called me and he said you know what i'm i want to give money to a charity this year and uh i think i want to give money to iris and so he said he sent you a
donation and because he had a chance to experience the good work that you all you all do there
so thank you keep it up helen chris thank you for your time angie always good to share this
this space with you grateful grateful to our viewers uh continue to tune in to the conversation
and grateful for the support of fctv until we have a chance to engage in more conversation be well
[Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
you