|
|
 |
Jafar
Courtesy of KPBS
Transcript:
Well, my name is Jafar; I'm originally from Afghanistan
and I've been living in the U.S. for the past five years or so.
And I did not come to this country as a refugee, but I've been
a refugee. I was in Iran for like 12 or 13 years, after Russians
invaded and so we had to leave, and I lived there. So I did not
go through like this this process of seeking asylum in this country,
but I've had the experience of being a refugee and I've been through
a lot of, you know, the pain and, you know, the stories that people
in this film [were] talking about, and I do think that it was
a very moving, very moving film.
I was a bit disappointed by some of the officers. Maybe because,
you know, over time they get used to all these horror stories
that they hear. Especially there were a few scenes that they seemed
to be making jokes about their, the people who [they] were interviewing
or some sort of prejudice or bias.
So there seems to be some kind of bias in the mentality of the
INS officers. But at the same time, they have their own problems;
it's an extremely difficult decision to make. The...you're basically
determining somebody else's future and fate. And as we saw, a
lot of them feel kind of, some kind of guilt about the decisions
that they make. They feel that they have to make that decision
to satisfy the requirements that they have, but they're not happy
with it.
|
|
|
|
Valerie Dignadice
Courtesy of KPBS
Transcript:
OK, my name is Valerie Dignadice, and I'm a sophomore here at UCSD.
My reaction to the film is that I was really impressed with it.
I thought it raised really important issues that I think a lot of
Californians or the whole nation should see. Because there are so
many complaints about, you know, illegal immigrancy or why [are]
so many other people from other countries are trying to come here
to the United States, but what we don't realize is that other countries,
compared to the United States, they don't get treated as nicely
as we do; they don't have, like, freedom of speech or, I mean, their
countries that are very abusive.
|
|
|
|
Jack Bournazian
Courtesy of KPBS
Transcript:
Ok, um, my name is Jack Bournazian. I'm from San Diego,
California.... I thought the film was excellent in pointing out
a couple of points. One is that, even though the asylum officers
realize that [this is] such important decisions they're making about
people's lives, that the INS is asking people to bring in interpreters,
and if we're going to be serious about it, we need to have professional
interpreters there. And the film showed that, because many times
the people's expressions weren't being translated properly or their
sentiment wasn't getting across.
And the other thing that I wanted to say was that I think we need
to look even beyond this system, and look and question: why is it
that there are so people living these horrendous lives being tortured
and suffering in these other countries. And why is it that there
is such a push for these people to have to come to first-world countries?
And what is it that our government and our society does to promote
those bad situations in other countries that promote this push?
So I think we need to look at a more global perspective.
|
|
|
|
Idean Salehyan
Courtesy of KPBS
Transcript:
My name is Idean; I'm from Tierrasanta. I thought the film was
very striking. It definitely put a human face on a lot of what
we hear going on. I myself am a volunteer with Amnesty International
and we hear sort of in an abstract...what the asylum process is
like and what these people are going through, but this really
definitely puts a human face on, on sort of the stories and the
issues.
For
myself, my parents themselves are asylum seekers from Iran. So,
um, for me it's always been an issue and a very important issue
that people do have a fair access, do have fair access to our
INS proceedings and do have a fair access to be heard. Um, and
if they are legitimate asylum seekers, to be given access to this
country. And, you know, we definitely feel blessed being here,
being given the opportunity to stay in this country, and you know,
my heart goes out to all the other ones that are not given the
same opportunities.
But the asylum and the refugee process is always been one that's
particularly poignant to me just because it's something that so
many people I know have lived through. You know, the horrors of
the persecution and the hardships they faced at home, from wherever
they're from and then coming here and going through this ordeal,
um, of applying for asylum, of not knowing what's going to happen
to you--whether you're going to be sent back, whether you're going
to be allowed to stay... So, this has always been an issue that's
touched me personally, just because of the people I know and the
experiences that I've heard.
|
|
|
|
Norman MacKinnon
Courtesy of KPBS
Transcript:
My name is Norman MacKinnon. I was born here in San Diego;
lived here all my life. I'm not a student here; heard about this
on NPR, KPBS radio station. My feelings on the film were that I
just realized I know nothing about what I viewed in the film. To
a certain extent, I felt what was going on-to a certain extent because
my mother is an immigrant from Tijuana; nothing like this, you know,
she wasn't asking for asylum or anything--but mainly what I got
from it was a new understanding of the process.
|
|
|
|
Diana Garcia
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
Well-Founded Fear was truly compelling and really touched
me. My parents are from Mexico and even though, thank God, they
never had to go through anything like what some of the people
had to go through here to seek asylum. I feel very grateful to
be here in the United States and I think a lot of people take
for granted what exactly they have here. They have freedom that
they can't even imagine how it could be with other people from
other countries and what people have to go through to come here
and to seek asylum - to seek something that basically something
that we are born with.
|
|
|
|
Cynthia Aguiar
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
My grandfather, is from Blue Fields, Nicaragua and he was the governor
during the Samosa era and I remember being a little girl and my
own family going through that. When the Sandanistas took over, they
were killing people left and right and taking your homes, you know,
your money out of your banks, you know, people being in fear of
their lives. I remember my own family having to flee in the middle
of the night with just the clothing that they had on them. And I
remember that they had gone through, by boat, to Costa Rica and
waited there until they were finally granted political asylum because
my grandfather was you know the governor of Nicaragua. I would never
want to be in the shoes of the people who have to make decisions
of whose going to stay and whose going to go, but I am thankful
that at least we offer an opportunity for people to come here and
to start all over and be free.
|
|
|
|
Adrian Johnson
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
I just wanted to say that I thought this was a wonderful
film. It's so interesting because the average person in this country
doesn't get to see the inside of an INS building and see what actually
happens to people who try to come in and be a part of this country
and I just thought it was really great to be able to see that and
see what people actually go through. On the other hand, I don't
think - it seemed like the people that it showed were kind of the
best case scenarios. All the people that they showed had people
representing them, they had lawyers, and from what I've heard or
read it seems that most of the people trying to get into this country
don't have people to represent them. A lot of them are trying to
do it from jail. It just seems that even seeing those people, the
process was so tough and it seemed like it was so tough what they
went through, but for the average person trying to get it, it seems
like it would be even harder than that. That's it.
|
|
|
|
Frank Richardson
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
I had an opportunity to see the documentary film, Well-Founded
Fear. I was very impressed with the depiction of how the asylum
clerks or staff folks work with the people who were afflicted
with different problems from different countries across the world
and I can empathize with those folks because I have served in
the military and I have seen certain things of war such as conflicts
in Bosnia. I've been in Croatia, I've been in Sarajevo, most are
war-torn areas and I can really emphasize with the folks that
were on the film today.
|
|
|
|
Doris Metzger
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
I saw
a film on asylum and I felt like it had a very surrealistic quality
about it. It was a well-done film, but it took just a few moments
out of the lives of these people seeking asylum and didn't really
deal with the tragedy, the traumas that they faced during the entire
time that they are in this country. The film seemed focus more of
the question that the asylum officers have on whether or not to
believe what they are being told by these individuals. I've worked
as a social worker with aliens during their time in trying to get
some kind of establishment in this country and they have tremendous
difficulties because of the difference in the culture, because of
their fears, because of what's happened to them, problems with what's
going on with their families, problems with what's going on in their
homeland and again, the film did not deal with all of those issues
- it dealt primarily with the hour that they spend in the asylum
office and that's a very, very tunnel vision viewpoint of what their
lives are like.
|
|
|
|
Jack Finger
San Antonio, TX
Courtesy of KLRN
Transcript:
I viewed the film - I thought it was a fairly decent film, it was
less biased than I thought I thought it was going to be. I was particularly
glad to see the presentation by the Sudanese refugee because we
see so few news reports coming from those atrocities over there.
I would have like to have seen more of a depiction of just an outright
con person who has no business being in the United States at all,
perhaps someone who has murdered, who is an escapee from the law
from elsewhere and seeing how the INS would have handled his situation.
|
|
 |
