00:00I think the refugee crisis is obviously a really loaded topic.
00:05There are a lot of Syrian refugees who are seeking a safe haven,
00:11who are escaping violence and persecution at home.
00:15These people who are fleeing terror and fleeing things we can't even imagine.
00:23They are looking to countries like the U.S. and countries in Europe
00:27to take their families and to be able to live at the end of the day.
00:32They may die if they stay where they're at right now.
00:35No one wants to leave their homes.
00:37And the fact that they're leaving their homes in such flocks
00:40and driven out and driven to countries where they don't know the language or the culture,
00:45something is systematically wrong there.
00:47The conversation around Syrian refugees lacks empathy.
00:54The criticism for letting in refugees deals with fear and anxiety.
00:58And I think in the society that we've been living in post 9-11,
01:02there, you know, you can understand the anxiety surrounding that.
01:07Terrorism is one form of violence that's been associated with one specific group or more groups.
01:14And the refugee crisis is a completely different thing.
01:18And they've been combined and made into this fear thing that for me is extremely racist and classist and xenophobic.
01:27If you can't see these people as your brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers or grandparents or cousins or
01:34whoever,
01:34then what does it matter to you?
01:36But they look like my family.
01:39They look like my brothers and my uncles.
01:41And so I think that's why I feel so strongly about that situation in particular.
01:48So the refugee crisis for me illuminates this incredible opportunity that we have to actually live up to what our
02:01founding fathers wanted this country to be.
02:04These are doctors and lawyers and scientists and grocers and teachers and, I mean, from all walks of life.
02:15And they want to come here and have the same opportunities to live their lives and contribute in any way
02:22that they can.
02:23When candidates say that they want to keep people out or, you know, they want to deport people or, it's
02:33just so antithetical to what America is and what it was built on.
02:37We have this opportunity to say you are welcome in America because America is for you.
02:43America is for freedom and for the opportunity to live your life in the most, in the happiest, most rooted
02:52and full of potential kind of way.
02:54America is for freedom.
02:54America is for freedom.
02:54America is for freedom.
02:54America is for freedom.
