(gentle music) - [Alex] Dad, my sitting here today in the US Capitol is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America, in search of a better life for our family.

Do not worry, I'll be fine for telling the truth.

(rising music) - You realize when you came forward out of sense of duty, that you were putting yourself in direct opposition to the most powerful person in the world.

Why do you have confidence that you can do that?

- Congressman, because this is America, and here, right matters.

(mellow music) (techno music) (piano music) (piano music) (seagulls chirping) - We came from Kiev.

And then, - We went to... - Our mother died, so we went to Italy.

And then we came here.

(mellow piano music) - [Yev] As young boys who had fled the Soviet Ukraine, and arrived in the United States as refugees, the Statue of Liberty represented our family's promising new life.

- [Narrator] Look to the US as the traditional haven for the oppressed peoples of the world.

- [Yev] But the statue is only a symbol.

Too often, throughout our history, we have failed to live up to the ideas inscribed on its base.

Choosing instead, to shut out the huddled masses, out of fear or flat out bigotry.

- [Newsperson] An unprovoked war against Ukraine.

- [Newsperson] The sheer number of Ukrainians fleeing the war.

Three million in three weeks.

- [Newsperson] Beyond the battlefield, there is another crisis unfolding at Ukraine's borders.

- [Alex] Today, America is faced with yet another opportunity to live up to its creed.

How we treat refugees is one of the greatest tests of our American experiment.

(ominous music) (bells ringing) - [Narrator] Kiev is both an ancient and a youthful city.

(lively folk music) - In 1978, our mother died of cancer, and our father, a senior civil service engineer, who had denounced the Communist Party, was fired and excluded from meaningful work.

(ominous music) Antisemitism was rampant in the Soviet Union.

Our father saw no future for us.

- [Alex] In 1979, we managed to get on one of the last planes out of Kiev, before the Soviet Union cut immigration.

We landed at John F. Kennedy Airport on Christmas Eve.

- [Narrator] Brighton Beach is a long way from Hatikvah.

- [Alex] Yev and I were four years old.

Our father had $759 in his pocket when he arrived in the United States.

He hauled furniture for $20 a day, learned English, and soon enough he became a New York City engineer.

He worked to support his three sons, and each of us would go on to serve our country in the military.

- [Yev] Alex and I have come to see immigrants and refugees as a source of strength, bolstering our national security.

Immigrants and refugees in the military bring with them a passion and love of country that comes from deep gratitude.

Our competitors in totalitarian states do not enjoy the advantage the United States does from immigration.

- And yes, we will build a wall.

(crowd cheering) (crowd applauding) - [Yev] Nonetheless, anti-refugee sentiment has been successful at dismantling the modern resettlement program.

Between 2017 and 2021, President Trump lowered the refugee cap from 110,000 to 15,000, essentially gutting the refugee resettlement infrastructure that had existed for decades.

And now, despite raising the refugee ceiling, the Biden Administration has yet to fully restore the refugee system.

- [President Biden] We, the United States America, stand with the Ukrainian people.

- [Alex] The Ukrainian refugee crisis, as well as others in Afghanistan, Syria, Central and South America, demands a stronger response from the Biden Administration.

Simply restoring the system to what it was before Trump, isn't enough to me at this moment.

(crowd chanting) (drum rolling) - [Alex] The administration needs to invest in a reserve force of refugee officers and case workers, so we can respond more quickly to these refugee emergencies.

- [Yev] The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should prioritize reuniting refugees with immediate family in the United States.

The administration should provide refugees a pathway to a Green Card and citizenship.

- We came from Kiev.

- [Alex] My brother and I were too young to remember much of our refugee experience, but our father watches today as cities and towns in Ukraine that he helped build, are being torn down to the ground by the same evil forces that pushed him to bring our family to the United States.

(somber music) He sees himself and our family in the images of the Ukrainian people.

So today, the Statue of Liberty is more complicated for us than it was that day on the boardwalk, thirty-seven years ago.

- [Alex] In the statue, we see a country struggling to admit to itself that it has fallen short of its ideals.

- [Yev] But we also still see the potential to rediscover who we can be.

(gentle music)