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thank you, nancy, for that generous introduction,and more importantly, for your leadership on this and other critical issues, both whenyou were inside the government and now in this incredibly important role you’re inat the u.s. institute of peace. let me begin with a fact with which you areall familiar: we are in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis since the second world war.just like the people at the heart of it, this crisis crosses borders, oceans, and continents.and because it is global in scale, anything less than a global response will fall shortof addressing it. yet rather than spur a united front, a united effort, the challenge of massdisplacement has divided the international community – and even individual nations– leaving the lion’s share of the response

to a small number of countries, stretchingour humanitarian system to its breaking point, and putting millions of people in dire situationsat even greater risk. today i will make the case for why we mustdo better. i will first describe the gap between the unprecedented scale of the crisis andthe growing shortfalls in the international response. i will then take on some of themost common concerns one hears when it comes to admitting refugees, showing that, whilethere are, of course, genuine risks, these are often distorted; the actual threats canbe mitigated. our current approach of leaving a small number of nations to bear most ofthe costs, by contrast, carries hidden dangers, risking the lives of countless refugees, whilealso weakening our partners and strengthening

violent extremists and organized crime. aglobal response is urgently needed, and the united states must help lead it. at the end of 2015, more than 65 million peoplewere displaced worldwide, over half of them children. that is the highest number on recordsince the un’s refugee agency started collecting statistics. to help put that number in perspective,that’s the equivalent of one in every five americans being displaced. some 34,000 peoplewill be displaced today alone. think about that. thirty-four thousand. many rightly point to the role that the turmoilin syria has played in this crisis. roughly half of syria’s pre-war population of 23million has been uprooted since the conflict

began in 2011 – some six-and-half millionwithin syria’s borders, and five million to other countries. but the conflict in syriais far from the only driver of this problem. the wars forcing people from their homes aremultiplying – with at least 15 conflicts erupting or reigniting since 2010. and conflictsare lasting longer, meaning people have to wait longer before it is safe to return home.roughly one in three refugees today is caught in what is called a “protracted refugeesituation.” in 1993, the typical protracted refugee situation lasted nine years; today,the median duration is 26 years and counting. people do not become refugees by choice, obviously;they flee because their lives are at risk – just as we would do if we found ourselvesin such a situation. and most want to go home.

so we recognize that the most effective wayto curb the mass displacement of people is by addressing the conflicts, violence, andrepression that they have fled in the first place, and that continues to make it unsafefor them to return home. consider a survey of syrian refugees carried out early thisyear in gaziantep, along turkey’s southern border. it found that 95 percent of the syrianspolled said that they would return home if the fighting stopped. in may, a study of nigerianrefugees in cameroon – most of whom had fled boko haram – found that more than threein four wanted to return home. i met with refugees in both of these places, and wheni posed the question of who wanted to go home to groups of refugees, all hands shot up inthe air. many of you have had similar experiences.

even as we recognize the need to work towardthe solutions that will reduce the drivers of mass displacement, we also have to meetthe vital needs of refugees in real time. and on that front we in the internationalcommunity are coming up far short. for one, we are seeing record shortfalls in providingessential humanitarian assistance. in 2015, the un requested approximately $20 billionto provide life-saving aid, only $11 billion of which was funded. this year, the $21 billion that the un is seeking is less than one-quarter funded. often we find ourselves using bureaucratese– the language of “shortfalls,” and “masses” of refugee “caseloads” – sterilelanguage that makes it easy to lose sight

of the human consequences of our collectiveaction challenge. so we must constantly remind ourselves that these gaps mean more peopleare left without a roof or tarp to sleep under; more families are unable to afford gas tokeep warm in sub-zero temperatures; more kids are forced to drink water that makes themsick – poor parents have to watch that happen. last year, the world food program had to cutback significantly rations to some 1.6 million syrian refugees, and half a million refugeesfrom somalia and south sudan in kenya. in jordan, in july 2015, approximately 250,000syrian refugees received news – often on their phone – that the un aid they werereceiving would be halved to the equivalent of 50 cents’ worth of aid a day. in iraq,the shortfall forced the world health organization

to shutter 184 health clinics in areas withhigh levels of displacement, resulting in three million people losing access to basichealth care. the who’s director for emergency assistance described the impact as follows:“there will be no access for trauma like shrapnel wounds, no access for children’shealth or reproductive health…a generation of children will be unvaccinated,” he said.imagine, for just one minute, being the official forced to decide whose rudimentary healthcare to cut off. imagine being the patient or the parent who receives the news that theaid you’ve been receiving – which is already insufficient to feed your kids or to dealwith health ailments – will be cut in half. not only are countries giving far too littlesupport to meet refugees’ critical needs,

few countries – and in particular, few wealthycountries – are stepping up to resettle more refugees. as a result, a hugely disproportionateshare of refugees are being housed by a small group of developing countries. at the endof 2015, 10 countries – with an average gdp per capita of around $3,700 – were hostingsome 45 percent of the world’s refugees. the united states’ gdp per capita, by comparison,is approximately $54,600. add in the dramatic cuts in humanitarian assistance, and you startto get a sense of the direness of the situation. to be fair, it can take time for governmentsto lay the groundwork for admitting more refugees. we are dealing with this challenge right nowin the united states, as we make the adjustments necessary to take in 10,000 syrian refugeesthis year, out of a total of 85,000 refugees,

a goal we, of course, intend to meet. yeteven as a country with experience admitting and resettling more than three million refugeesin the last four decades, it has not been easy. but the work required to scale up admissionsis not what is preventing many countries from taking in more refugees. instead, even asthe crisis continues to grow, many countries are making no effort at all to do their fairshare. worse, some countries are actually cutting back on the number of admitted refugees,or they’ve said that they won’t take any refugees at all. other governments have takenmeasures that cut against the core principles of the 1951 refugee convention and its 1967protocol, such as offering financial rewards

for asylum seekers who withdraw their applicationsand return home, or confiscating the cash and valuables of those seeking refuge to offsetthe costs of hosting them. meanwhile, with multiple countries – including our own – certainstates, cities, and even towns have said that they don’t want to take refugees admittedby their respective national governments. now, why are so many countries resisting takingin more refugees? let me speak to the two concerns that we hear the most often. the first is, of course, security. now, itis reasonable to have concern that violent extremist groups might take advantage of themassive movement of migrants and refugees to try to sneak terrorists into countriesthat they want to attack. in germany, for

example, suspected terrorists have been arrestedin recent months who entered the country traveling amidst groups of refugees. we must constantlyevaluate whether the procedures that we and our partners have put in place can effectivelyidentify terrorists posing as refugees, as our nation’s law enforcement and intelligenceagencies are doing. at the same time, as with any threat, it isimportant that our policy response be commensurate with the risk. the comprehensive, rigorousreview process implemented by the u.s. refugee admissions program both protects our securityand lives up to our long-standing commitment to give sanctuary to people whose lives areat risk. the program screens refugee applicants against multiple u.s. government databases– including the national counterterrorism

center, the fbi, the department of defense,and the department of homeland security – which incorporate information provided by partnersall around the world. refugees are interviewed, often several times, before ever being allowedto travel to the united states; and refugees from syria are subjected to a thorough, additionallayer of review. we do not rush; in all, the process usually takes more than a year. ifyour aim is to attack the united states, it is hard to imagine a more difficult way oftrying to get here than by posing as a refugee. while no system is foolproof, our record todate speaks to the system’s efficacy. of the approximately 800,000 refugees who havebeen admitted to the united states since september 11, not one has carried out an act of domesticterrorism. zero. but that has not made us

complacent; we are constantlyassessing new threats, and we spare no effort to makethe program stronger. being able to measure accurately the relativegravity of threats and where they come from is critical to making smart policy and iscritical to keeping the american people safe. that is why the efforts to halt our refugeeprogram in the aftermath of the horrific attacks in paris, and more recently in orlando, wereso misguided. it is appropriate, and indeed, essential,in the aftermath of terrorist attacks to ask whether and how our policies should be changedto keep our citizens safe. what is not appropriate – what is, in fact, counterproductive – isusing inaccurate characterizations of threats

to justify shifts in policy, such as failingto see the difference between a homegrown terrorist and a refugee; or drawing misguidedand discriminatory conclusions about entire groups of people based on the countries fromwhich their families immigrated or the faith that they observe. ignorance and prejudicemake for bad advisors. yet that is what is driving the ill-informedand biased reactions we have seen to these and other attacks from some in our country.after the paris attack, 31 u.s. governors and their states did not want to host anysyrian refugees, and several officials filed lawsuits aimed at blocking the federal governmentfrom resettling syrians in their states. in the aftermath of orlando, house republicansannounced that they will put forward legislation

to ban all refugees from our country. thatis not all. as you know, some are calling for even broader bans, such as banning immigrantsbased on their religion, or suspending immigration from parts of the world with a history ofterrorism. now, i take this personally. i’m an immigrantto this country. my mother brought me and my brother to the united states from dublinin 1979. it was a time when ireland was still being roiled by violence related to the troubles.and that violence included attacks that killed civilians – some of which were carried outin the city where i lived. so it’s not lost on me that were such a prejudiced and indiscriminatepolicy to have been applied when i was growing up – a policy that judges people collectivelyon the circumstances of their birth, rather

than individually on the quality of theircharacter – my family and millions of other irish immigrants would never have been allowedto come to this country. that i, an irish immigrant, now get to sit every day in frontof a placard that says the united states of america, and to serve in the president’scabinet, is just a reflection of what makes this country so exceptional. and it sendsthe world a powerful message about the inclusive society that we believe in. why on earth wouldwe want to give that up? if the first concern one hears around admittingrefugees is the security risk, the second is economic. people fear that refugees willplace an additional burden on states at a time of shrinking budgets and a contractingglobal economy. the concerns tend to coalesce

around two arguments in some tension withone another: either refugees will deplete government resources through a costly resettlementprocess, and through requiring public support for years; or they will find work quickly,taking jobs away from native-born citizens and driving down wages. it is true that resettling refugees requiresa substantial investment up front. sufficient resources must be dedicated to ensuring thatasylum seekers are properly vetted. and people who are admitted need support as they settleinto a new, unfamiliar country and become self-sufficient – from finding places tolive and work, to learning a new language. if we want to keep our citizens safe and givethe refugees we take in a shot at becoming

self-reliant, these up-front costs are unavoidable. you might be surprised, though, to learn howlittle refugees actually receive from the u.s. government. resettlement agencies aregiven a one-time amount to cover initial housing, food, and other essential expenses of $2,025for each refugee. and while refugees can apply for additional federal assistance, such asfunding for job training or special medical assistance – no supplementary support isguaranteed – and most lasts a maximum of eight months. now imagine trying to surviveon that amount in a new and unfamiliar place, with no job, no support system, and oftenwithout the ability to speak english. refugees are also responsible for repaying the costof their plane tickets to the u.s. within

three and a half years. even in the short term, much of the assistancethat goes toward supporting refugees ends up going back into our local economies, fromthe supermarkets where they buy groceries, to the apartments they rent. and a numberof studies have found that refugees’ short-term impact on their host countries’ labor marketstends to be small, and is often positive, raising the wages of people in communitieswhere they settle. and it is important to see these initial costs of taking in refugeesfor what they are: an investment in our shared future. you hear often about individual refugeeswho have made profound contributions to our nation – people like george soros, sergeibrin, and one of my predecessors as u.s. ambassador

to the united nations, the great madeleinealbright. there is no question that america would be a lesser country today without theseindividuals. yet it is not only extraordinary individuals like these, but entire refugeecommunities who have made a lasting contribution to american prosperity. take the example of vietnamese-americans.after the fall of saigon in 1975, america resettled more than 175,000 vietnamese refugeesin just two years. in 1979, a second wave of hundreds of thousands more vietnamese refugeesbegan arriving. initially, politicians from both parties warned of the dire economic impactthat the vietnamese refugees would have on the communities where they were settled, andthey asked that they be sent elsewhere. the

democratic governor of california at the timeproposed adding a provision to legislation on assisting refugees that would guaranteejobs for americans first, saying, “we can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the sametime neglecting people who live here.” seattle’s city council voted seven to one against aresolution welcoming them. small towns where vietnamese refugees were to be resettled,such as niceville, florida – [laughter] yes, niceville – circulated petitions demandingthey be sent elsewhere. a barber in niceville told a reporter, “i don't see why i oughtto work and pay taxes for those folks who wouldn't work over there.” the fears andreservations expressed in niceville were hardly isolated; a 1979 poll found that57 percent of americans

opposed taking in vietnamese refugees. and yet look at the 1.9 million vietnamese-americans living in our country today, many of whom either cameto this country as refugees, or whose parents were refugees.they have a higher median household income than the national average,higher participation in the labor force, and lower unemployment. more, on average, attend college. now this is not a successthat has come at the expense of other americansin a zero-sum economy;

rather, the growth spurred by their success has benefitted both native born citizensand refugees, and repaid the costs of resettlementmany, many times over. oftentimes, domestic debates about whetherto do more for refugees are focused entirely on the question of what we risk by takingmore people in. is it safe? will it help or hurt economically? these are important concernsto address, and i have tried to do so. but there’s another question – often overlooked– which is particularly relevant today: what do we risk by not doing more to helprefugees? that’s the question i would like to turn to now. and the answer is that, inthe current crisis, not doing more puts global

stability and our nation’s security at heightenedrisk. while we often overstate the security threats and economic costs of resettling morerefugees, we routinely understate the likely consequences of failing to muster the globalresponse that is needed. for one, failing to mobilize a more robustand equitable global response will increase the pressure on the small group of countriesalready shouldering a disproportionate share of the crisis’ costs, possibly leading togreater instability. the influx of refugees to these countries has overwhelmed publicservices and institutions that were often stretched to begin with. look at lebanon,which has taken in a million syrian refugees, and where one in five people is now a syrianrefugee. to give you a sense of scale, that

would be the equivalent, in our country – whichof course is much wealthier and has a much more developed infrastructure – of takingin 64 million refugees. there are more syrian refugee children of school age in lebanon– approximately 360,000 in all – than there are lebanese children in public school.roughly half of the syrian refugee kids in lebanon are out of school. in the face of such demands, and absent greaterhelp from the international community, it is not hard to see how the mounting pressureon these frontline countries could stoke sectarian tensions, fuel popular resentment of refugees,and even lead to the collapse of governments. it’s also not hard to imagine how, in suchcircumstances, some of these countries might

decide they cannot take in any more refugeesand seal off their borders altogether. failing to mount a more effective internationalresponse will also strengthen the hand of organized crime and terrorist groups thatpose a threat to our security and prosperity. if people fleeing wars, mass atrocities, andrepression cannot find a safe, legal, and orderly way to get to places where they andtheir loved ones will be safe, and where they can fulfill their basic needs, they will seekanother way to get to places of refuge. we’ve seen it. they will always find smugglers whopromise to take them – for a price. interpol estimates that, in 2015, organized crime networksmade between five and six billion dollars smuggling people to the european union alone.these criminal networks have little concern

for the lives of the people they transport– as they have demonstrated by abandoning their boats at sea, sometimes with hundredsof passengers locked in holds that they cannot escape – and whose members routinely rape,beat, and sell into slavery the people that they are paid to transport. of course, it is not only refugees who arethreatened by these criminal networks. the same routes and transports used to smugglepeople across oceans and borders are also used to move illicit arms, drugs, and victimsof human trafficking. and the corruption that these groups fuel harms governments and citizensworldwide. the more refugees that are driven into the hands of these criminal networks,the stronger we make them.

violent extremist groups like isil, al-qa’ida,and boko haram also stand to benefit if we fail to respond adequately to the refugeecrisis. a central part of the narrative of these groups is that the west is at war withislam. so when we turn away the very people who are fleeing the atrocities and repressionof these groups; and when we cast all displaced muslims – regardless of whether they wereuprooted by violent extremists, repressive governments, or natural disasters – as suspectedterrorists; we play into that narrative. to violent extremists, simply belonging to agroup is proof of guilt, and can be punishable by death – whether that group is definedby religion or ethnicity, by profession or sexual orientation. when we blame all muslims,all syrians, or all members of any other group

because of the actions of individuals, whenwe fall into the trap of asserting collective guilt, we empower the narrow-minded ideologythat we are trying to defeat. on the contrary, when we and the parts ofthe muslim world where people are suffering or have sought refuge, when we open our communitiesand our hearts to the people displaced by the atrocities committed by groups like isil,and repressive regimes like assad’s, we puncture the myth that the extremists paintof us. we show that our conflict is not with islam, but with those who kill and enslavepeople simply for what they believe, where they are born, or who they love. now, i have spoken to how many of the concernsthat people have about admitting more refugees

are overblown, driven more by fear than byfact. and i’ve highlighted the risk we run if countries continue to shirk doing theirfair share in addressing this crisis. so what can we do to try to fix this problem? forstarters, countries must dramatically increase their humanitarian aid to close the growinggap between what governments and agencies are providing and what refugees need to survive.and we need countries to increase the number of refugees they are resettling so that theburden does not fall so heavily on a small number of frontline states. now, some have argued that, because it’smore cost effective for wealthy countries like ours to provide humanitarian supportfor refugees in countries of first asylum,

we should channel all the resources we allocateto this crisis into helping frontline states. why take an additional 10,000 syrian refugeesin the u.s., some argue, when the resources that we would spend vetting and resettlingthese individuals could support 10 or even a hundred times as many refugees in placeslike lebanon or kenya? of course, we cannot resettle all 21 millionrefugees in the world, or even a majority of them. nor do we need to. many refugeesare able to find sufficient opportunities to live with independence and dignity in thecountries where they are given first refuge. and most prefer to stay close to the placesto which they hope to return. but there are some individuals and familieswho cannot stay in the countries where they

have arrived first – because they are notsafe there, because they have special vulnerabilities, or because their basic needs just are notbeing met. the un estimates that around 1.2 million people fall into this category worldwide,and need to be resettled to other countries. the problem is the international communityonly resettled around 107,000 individuals last year – less than one-tenth of thosewho unhcr judges need to be moved to a new host country. we need to bridge that gap. by providing more opportunities for resettlement,we give experts the chance to review applicants through orderly, deliberate processes, ratherthan the large-scale, irregular flows that europe faced last year, which brought morethan a million people to germany alone. these

unstructured marches make it more difficultfor countries to subject those who arrive to thorough and rigorous screening. and bypracticing what we preach through resettling refugees, we stand a better chance of persuadingothers to do the same. how can we ask governments and citizens in other countries to take inrefugees if we are not prepared to do the same in our own communities? how can we convinceothers that fear can be overcome and risk can be mitigated if we ourselves are ruledby fear? in recognition of the urgent need for allcountries to do more, president obama is convening a refugee summit in september at the un generalassembly. the purpose of this summit is to rally countries around three major lines ofeffort. first, we’re asking governments

to make a deeper commitment to funding unand humanitarian organizations and appeals, increasing overall contributions by at least30 percent. second, we’re asking governments to commit to welcoming more refugees intotheir countries, with the goal of doubling the number of refugee admission slots worldwide.third, we are asking frontline countries – who already are hosting considerable numbers ofrefugees with awe-inspiring generosity – to do even more, allowing the refugees they hostgreater opportunities to become more self-reliant. our aim is to put at least a million morerefugee children in school, and grant a million more refugees access to legal work. we recognize that the united states can andmust do more as well. we are the leading donor

of humanitarian aid, contributing more than$5.1 billion for the syrian conflict alone, and we will continue to provide robust support.and not only are we scaling up our resettlement efforts to admit 15,000 additional refugeesthis year, but we will scale up by 15,000 more next year, to admit 100,000 refugeesoverall. that’s a 40 percent increase in just two years – while maintaining our extremelyrigorous security standards. the summit is by no means a panacea; evenif we hit every target, our response will still not match the scale of the crisis. butit would represent a step – an important step toward broadening the pool of countriesthat are part of the solution. we also recognize that governments cannot solve this problemalone. we need businesses, big and small,

to do much more too; which is why tomorrow,the white house is launching a private sector call to action, which will rally companiesto do their part, from providing jobs to donating services to refugees. we need a humanitariansystem that is more efficient and better at anticipating and preventing the crises thatforce people from their homes – which many countries committed to build at the recentworld humanitarian summit. we need more civic institutions to help empower refugees, suchas the growing number of american universities that are providing scholarships to refugeeswho were forced to abandon their studies – a cause that i urge the college students andfaculty in the audience to take up. we need faith-based and civic institutionsto adopt this cause as their own,

as pope francis has done byconstantly showing people the human face of this crisis, even welcoming refugees into his own home and as the southern baptist leadershipconvention recently did, by adopting a resolution urging its members to “welcomeand adopt refugees into their churches and homes.” only when all these effortscome together will we have a chance of rising to the challenge that we face. let me conclude. in a letter dated may 16,1939, a british citizen named nicholas winton wrote to then-president franklin d. roosevelt.“esteemed sir,” the letter began, “perhaps people in america do not realize how littleis being and has been done for refugee children

in czechoslovakia.” winton went on to describehow a small organization that he had started had identified more than 5,000 refugee childrenin czechoslovakia, most of them jews who had fled nazi germany who desperately needed tobe evacuated. he wrote, “there are thousands of children, some homeless and starving, mostlywithout nationality, but they all have one thing in common: there is no future if theyare forced to remain where they are. their parents are forbidden to work and the childrenare forbidden schooling, and part from the physical discomforts, the moral degradationis immeasurable.” winton closed his letter with a direct request: “is it possible foranything to be done to help us with this problem in america? it is hard to state our case forciblyin a letter, but we trust to your imagination

to realize how desperately urgent the situationis.” winton’s letter reached the white house,which promptly referred the matter to the state department. and the state department,in turn, sent the letter to the u.s. ambassador in london, with instructions to inform wintonthat “the united states government is unable, in the absence of specific legislation, topermit immigration in excess of that provided by existing immigration laws.” now winton was undaunted, because he was undauntable.in the coming months, he bribed officials, forged documents, arranged secret transportthrough hostile territory, and persuaded families in the united kingdom to take in foster children– anything to get those children out. ultimately,

he helped 669 children escape in less thana year. almost all 669 kids were orphaned by the end of the war, their parents killedin the concentration camps. “perhaps people in america do not realizehow little is being and has been done for refugee children.” that was how winton hadopened his letter. yet the unfortunate reality is that even those who were aware of the refugees’plight were reluctant to take them in. in january 1939, a few months after kristallnacht,“the night of the broken glass,” unleashed a savage wave of violence targeting jewishhomes, synagogues, and businesses, a gallup poll asked americans whether 10,000 jewishrefugee children from germany should be taken into the united states. sixty-one percentof americans said no.

and this isn’t an isolated case. unfortunately,it was not only refugees fleeing the nazis and vietnam who the majority of americansopposed admitting. in 1958, as hungarians faced a vicious crackdown from the sovietunion, americans were asked whether they supported a plan to admit 65,000 refugees. fifty-fivepercent said no. in 1980, as tens of thousands of cubans – cuban refugees – took to boatsto flee repression, 71 percent of americans opposed admitting them. the list goes on.in nearly every instance, the majority of americans have opposed taking in large numbersof refugees when asked in the abstract. listening to the rhetoric that is out theretoday, it can feel at times as though the same is true today. but look around the country– look deeply – and you will find so many

people who not only support admitting morerefugees, but who themselves are making tremendous efforts to welcome them. people like the ownersof wankel’s hardware store in new york, where i live, which for decades has been employingrecently resettled refugees, including 15 of their 20 current employees. wankel’skeeps a map on the wall of the store with pins marking the 36 countries from which theirrefugee employees have come. many americans are doing their part and wish to find a wayto do more. when visiting the international rescue committee resettlement office – justa 10-minute walk from the un – recently, i noticed that many of their individual officesseemed to be overflowing with boxes. when i asked whether the folks who worked at ircwere moving in or moving out of the space,

i was told that after some u.s. politiciansthreatened to curb the flow of refugees, the irc had received a huge, unprecedented surgein donations. and they simply had no other space to store all the clothes, toys, andhome furnishings that had come flooding in, just from ordinary people. a similar outpouringoccurred inside the u.s. government. when we announced our goal to admit an additional15,000 refugees this year, many u.s. national security professionals volunteered to takeextra trainings and work extra hours in their already long days to help us meet that goal. these examples abound. the small vermont townof rutland has committed to taking in 100 syrian refugees. the mayor, whose grandfathercame to the u.s. after fleeing war in his

native greece, said of the decision, “asmuch as i want to say it’s for compassionate reasons, i realize that there is not a vibrant,growing, successful community in the country right now that is not embracing new americans.”local schools are preparing to support kids who cannot support english, and local businessesin rutland have said that they will look to hire refugees. one of them is a regional medicalcenter, whose director is the grandson of refugees from nazi germany. “i know thereis a good-heartedness to this city,” he said. “if you come here and want to makethe community better, rutlanders will welcome you with open arms.” a poll some of youhave seen that was released this month by the brookings institution suggests that mostamericans feel the same way. asked if they

would support the u.s. taking in refugeesfrom the middle east after they were screened for security risks, 59 percent of americanssaid yes. yes. nicholas winton passed away last june, atthe age of 106. at the time, the 669 children he saved had some 6,000 descendants. six thousandpeople who otherwise would not have enriched our world, but mostly for the efforts of onesingle individual. imagine, for just a moment, what would have happened if the united states,or any other country, had shared his sense of urgency in that instance, or in so manyothers. imagine what we could do if we were to bring a similar urgency, a similar stubbornness,a similar resilience to the crisis today. if we are proudest of the wintons in our history– as i think we all are – we know what

must be done. so that when his question comesto us – “is it possible for anything to be done to help us with this problem?” – ouranswer must be yes, there is so much we can do. so much more we can do. thank you.