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Last summer, I got a call
from a woman named Ellie.

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And she had heard about the family
separations at the southern border

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and wanted to know
what she could do to help.

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She told me the story
of her grandfather and his father.

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When they were kids in Poland,

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their father,

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fearing for his son's safety,

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gave them a little bit of money
and told them to walk west,

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to just keep walking west across Europe.

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And they did.

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They walked all the way
west across Europe,

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and they got on a boat
and they got to America.

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Ellie said that when she heard
the stories of the teens

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walking up across Mexico,

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all she could think about
was her grandfather and his brother.

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She said that for her, the stories
were exactly the same.

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Those brothers were
the Hassenfeld Brothers --

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the "Has" "bros" --

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the Hasbro toy company,

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which, of course, brought us
Mr. Potato Head.

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But that is not actually why
I'm telling you this story.

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I'm telling you this story
because it made me think

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about whether I would have the faith,

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the courage,

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to send my teens,
and I have three of them,

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on a journey like that.

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Knowing that they wouldn't
be safe where we were,

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would I be able to watch them go?

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I started my career decades ago
at the southern US border,

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working with Central American
asylum seekers.

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And in the last 16 years,
I've been at HIAS,

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the Jewish organization that fights
for refugee rights around the world,

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as a lawyer and an advocate.

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And one thing I've learned
is that, sometimes,

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the things that we're told
make us safer and stronger

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actually don't.

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And, in fact, some of these policies
have the opposite of the intended results

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and in the meantime, cause tremendous
and unnecessary suffering.

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So why are people showing up
at our southern border?

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Most of the immigrants and refugees
that are coming to our southern border

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are fleeing three countries:
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

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These countries are consistently ranked

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among the most violent
countries in the world.

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It's very difficult to be safe
in these countries,

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let alone build a future
for yourself and your family.

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And violence against
women and girls is pervasive.

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People have been fleeing Central America

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for generations.

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Generations of refugees
have been coming to our shores,

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fleeing the civil wars of the 1980s,

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in which the United States
was deeply involved.

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This is nothing new.

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What's new is that recently,
there's been a spike in families,

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children and families,
showing up at checkpoints

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and presenting themselves to seek asylum.

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Now, this has been in the news lately,

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so I want you to remember a few things
as you see those images.

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One, this is not a historically high level
of interceptions at the southern border,

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and, in fact, people are presenting
themselves at checkpoints.

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Two, people are showing up
with the clothes on their backs;

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some of them are literally in flip-flops.

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And three, we're the most
powerful country in the world.

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It's not a time to panic.

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It's easy from the safety
of the destination country

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to think in terms of absolutes:

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Is it legal or is it illegal?

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But the people who are wrestling
with these questions

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and making these decisions
about their families

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are thinking about
very different questions:

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How do I keep my daughter safe?

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How do I protect my son?

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And if you want absolutes,

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it's absolutely legal to seek asylum.

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It is a fundamental right in our own laws
and in international law.

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And, in fact --

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(Applause)

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it stems from the 1951 Refugee Convention,

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which was the world's response
to the Holocaust

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and a way for countries to say never again
would we return people to countries

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where they would harmed or killed.

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There are several ways
refugees come to this country.

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One is through the US Refugee
Admissions Program.

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Through that program, the US identifies
and selects refugees abroad

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and brings them to the United States.

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Last year, the US resettled fewer refugees

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than at any time since
the program began in 1980.

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And this year, it'll probably be less.

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And this is at a time when we have
more refugees in the world

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than at any other time
in recorded history,

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even since World War II.

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Another way that refugees
come to this country is by seeking asylum.

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Asylum seekers are people
who present themselves at a border

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and say that they'll be persecuted
if they're sent back home.

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An asylum seeker is simply somebody
who's going through the process

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in the United States

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to prove that they meet
the refugee definition.

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And it's never been
more difficult to seek asylum.

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Border guards are telling people
when they show up at our borders

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that our country's full,
that they simply can't apply.

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This is unprecedented and illegal.

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Under a new program,

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with the kind of Orwellian title
"Migrant Protection Protocols,"

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refugees are told
they have to wait in Mexico

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while their cases make their way
through the courts in the United States,

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and this can take months or years.

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Meanwhile, they're not safe,

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and they have no access to lawyers.

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Our country, our government,
has detained over 3,000 children,

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separating them from their parents' arms,

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as a deterrent from seeking asylum.

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Many were toddlers,

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and at least one was
a six-year-old blind girl.

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And this is still going on.

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We spend billions to detain people
in what are virtually prisons

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who have committed no crime.

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And family separation has become
the hallmark of our immigration system.

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That's a far cry from a shining city
on a hill or a beacon of hope

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or all of the other ways we like to talk
about ourselves and our values.

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Migration has always been with us
and it always will be.

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The reasons why people flee --
persecution, war, violence,

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climate change

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and the ability now to see on your phone
what life is like in other places --

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those pressures are only growing.

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But there are ways that we can have
policies that reflect our values

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and actually make sense,
given the reality in the world.

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The first thing we need to do
is dial back the toxic rhetoric

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that has been the basis of our national
debate on this issue for too long.

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(Applause)

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I am not an immigrant or a refugee myself,

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but I take these attacks personally,
because my grandparents were.

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My great-grandmother Rose
didn't see her kids for seven years,

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as she tried to bring them
from Poland to New York.

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She left my grandfather
when he was seven

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and didn't see him again
until he was 14.

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On the other side of my family,

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my grandmother Elisa
left Poland in the 1930s

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and left for what was then
the British mandate of Palestine,

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and she never saw
her family and friends again.

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Global cooperation as a response
to global migration and displacement

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would go a long way towards making
migration something that isn't a crisis

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but something that just is,

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and that we deal with
as a global community.

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Humanitarian aid is also critical.

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The amount of support we provide
to countries in Central America

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that are sending refugees and migrants

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is a tiny fraction of the amount
we spend on enforcement and detention.

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And we can absolutely
have an asylum system that works.

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For a tiny fraction of the cost of a wall,

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we could hire more judges,

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make sure asylum seekers have lawyers

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and commit to a humane asylum system.

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(Applause)

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And we could resettle more refugees.

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To give you a sense of the decline
in the refugee program:

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three years ago, the US resettled
15,000 Syrian refugees

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in response to the largest
refugee crisis on earth.

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A year later, that number was 3,000.

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And last year, that number was 62 people.

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Sixty-two people.

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Despite the harsh rhetoric
and efforts to block immigration,

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keep refugees out of the country,

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support for refugees and immigrants
in this country, according to polls,

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has never been higher.

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Organizations like HIAS, where I work,

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and other humanitarian
and faith-based organizations

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make it easy for you to take a stand

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when there's a law that's worth opposing

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or a law that's worth supporting
or a policy that needs oversight.

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If you have a phone,

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you can do something,

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and if you want to do more, you can.

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I will tell you that if you see
one of these detention centers

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along the border

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with children in them -- their jails --

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you will never be the same.

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What I loved so much
about my call with Ellie

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was that she knew in her core
that the stories of her grandparents

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were no different than today's stories,

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and she wanted to do something about it.

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If I leave you with one thing,

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beyond the backstory
for Mr. Potato Head,

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which is, of course,
a good story to leave with,

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it's that a country shows strength

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through compassion and pragmatism,

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not through force and through fear.

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(Applause)

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These stories of the Hassenfelds
and my relatives and your relatives

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are still happening today;
they're all the same.

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A country is strong
when it says to the refugee,

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not, "Go away," but,

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"It's OK, we've got you, you're safe."

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thanks.

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(Applause)