Jeff Watkins is the vice president for global initiatives for YMCA International. His organization is one of several in Houston responsible for helping refugees settle in this community. He said those who think it’s a quick process are wrong.
“The process takes anywhere from 18 to 24 months, and in some cases, longer,” he said. “There are 11 different steps in the process and I would make the argument that the vetting is currently extreme.”
When asked if he thought the current system is effective at keeping out potential terrorists he said, ”No system is 100 percent foolproof, but I’m very confident that our country is doing everything that it can to ensure that the refugee program is not a likely vehicle for folks who are coming here with intent to do us harm.”
Also
This week we also hear from a refugee who escaped Iraq with her family in 2013. Sarah Alkhafaji, her mother, who was a doctor in Iraq, and three siblings, spent more than two years going through the vetting system before being allowed into the United States.
“Refugees are escaped from violence,” she said when asked what she might say to President Trump about his concerns. “They are not going to bring violence to the United States. Now the United States is a home for us, so we love you. We love the people here, so please love us back.”
Much more on the refugee resettlement on this week’s program with a Newsmakers extra on Houston refugee resettlement.
And
The fight continues by the Freedmen’s Town Preservation Coalition to preserve the historic bricks in that Fourth Ward community originally laid by freed slaves and their descendants in the 1800s.
Dorris Ellis Robinson, co-founder of The Houston Sun, has been on the front lines with that community and the city of Houston to make sure no more of those historic bricks are torn up by contractors in the area.
"The bricks, I thought, were the iconic piece to let people know that this is where these folk who came out of slavery and decided to make a life for themselves came from,”she said. “The doctors, the lawyers, everybody with a career of any sort came out of Freedmen’s Town.”
Ellis Robinson also talked about the upcoming African-American Parade and Symposium Saturday, starting at 10 a.m. from Emancipation Park.
"Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall" airs every Sunday at 10 a.m. right after "Meet the Press" on KPRC Channel 2.
More information
- Jef Watkins, vice president global initiatives, YMCA International, 713-659-5566, www.ymcahouston.org/ymca-international/staff/
- Dorris Ellis Robinson, co-founder, The Houston Sun, Freedmen’s Town Preservation Coalition, 713-443-9774 www.THSAAHParade@gmail.com.