long live in france! [applause] >> c-span's washington journal live every day with policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, the press white house reporter catherine lucy and political reporter -- they discussed the week ahead in congress. on therketwatch reporter future of student loan forgiveness programs for public servants. sure to watch c-span's washington journal, life at 7:00am monday morning, join the discussion. ♪ >> all month, we are featuring c-span's studentcam winners. this year, students told us the most urgent issue for the new president and congress.

our grand prize winners are sisters from blacksburg, virginia. ava lazar is homeschooled in the seventh grade. mia lazar is in the ninth-grade. their documentary on refugees and immigration policy is titled the tempest tossed. >> is not about what political party you are. it's more about values and helping these people. >> as parents, this topic was particularly personal because both my parents were refugees. so i think that also drove them a little bit. when they do some video on a topic that's personal for them, that helps a lot. i think you saw the energy in that. >> the reason we named the documentary the tempest tossed is because inside the museum of the statue of liberty, there is a plaque with a poem saying, send these the homeless, tempest tossed to me.

i lift my lamp beside the golden door. this poem was written specifically for the statue of liberty, and we included it so we could show the values that america was founded on -- principles that everyone needs to understand today. >> on a more personal scale i would suggest that the people that think that refugees are all terrorists or who were afraid of them should spend a while meeting one. they are really amazing people. they have just the right to be people in the united states as everyone else does very. >> the solution is not just changing the policy, which is would be amazing, but also by acting locally. >> how do the sisters plan to use their money? >> we are going to save some for college. >> we're donating $1000 locally, and also we want to go backpacking in europe when we are older, so some of the money is going to go for that.

>> congratulations to our grand prize winners. now take a look at their winning documentary. >> america is a nation of refugees and immigrants. most of the 325 million people living in the united states have a story of immigration somewhere in their heritage. >> each day, around 30,000 people are forced to flee their countries because of persecution, not knowing if they are ever going to return. people are forced to make a difficult choice, to leave, or risk their lives by staying. >> it's estimated that 6.5 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, however not all of them are considered refugees. a refugee someone who has been forced to flee their country because of persecution, war, or violence, and cannot return safely.

>> with so many people desperate, fleeing their countries, politicians are arguing over whether the united states should let more refugees in the country. president trump: we don't know who they are. there's no paperwork, no documentation. >> many people fear that bringing in refugees will increase the risk of terrorism. they believe that bringing in refugees can reduce terrorism. >> so we invited about three main refugees to the united states since 1980, and not a single one of them has killed anyone in an act of terrorism, and i think we are inflating the risk of terrorism. >> obviously, the united states is always going to have an openness and a willingness to accommodate people who are fleeing for their lives because of their political beliefs. however, there are limits to how many can be accommodated here in the united states because of the economic and fiscal cost which fall on communities, and there always the fears of terrorism

and so on that come with refugee flows. >> we're opening up our countries to thousands of refugees from regions filled with terrorists, terrorists with the express intent to kill us. >> there is a lot of information pushed out that we should be scared of refugees, but it is so important to understand the refugees themselves, when they are fleeing, it's because they themselves are feeling violence, so to turn around and call them terrorists when they are fleeing terrorists, i think it's a bit of a contradiction. >> most refugees come from three countries, somali, afghanistan, and syria. over half of them are children. these people trying to seek asylum in nearby countries, or they in-depth in refugee camps. over 2.6 million refugees currently live in camps throughout the world. overcrowding and disease plague many of the camps. >> my grandmother spent her first four years as the only toddler in a refugee camp, where the mortality rate was nearly 4%.

she lost hearing in one ear due to lack of medical care. >> when you're putting refugees in camp's for years and years, you're not letting them live up there human potential. you make them dependent rather than people who are contracting, so this is a huge problem. i think there is a major downside to keeping refugees in refugee camps for a long time. because you have a generation of individuals growing up without access to education, without access to jobs, and that ultimately leads them to seek out radical solutions to those problems, which can lead to political turmoil, more violence, more war. exactly the types of problems we are seeking to solve. >> in the late 1940's, people all over the world realized that something needed to be done about the many displaced people who fled their homes in europe after world war ii. >> why do we and our allies help these people?

is it charity? is it human kindness, or is america a sucker to bother with these europeans now that we have beaten hit ller? a little human kindness, but not suckers. we realize that our half of the world, the american half, cannot remain well if the other half is sick. >> the office of the united nation's high commissioner for refugees was created in 1950. throughout history, it helped refugees find basic needs like food, clean water, and shelter. >> in order to live in the united states, all refugees are thoroughly screened by a process called vetting. the united states checks for medical issues, takes fingerprints, and interviews the refugees. >> the united states government handpicks each refugee that comes into the united states and individually interviews all of them. so i i believe it's important for people to understand how detailed and rigorous and long this process is. >> the fbi, the department of homeland security, and national counterterrorism center are involved in the process.

vetting usually takes 18 to 24 months to complete and only half of the refugees make it through. although many things have changed in the past century, many police haven't. in a poll in 1939, only 30% of americans wanted to accept 10,000 jewish refugee children to live in the united states. in 2016, only a similar percentage supported letting syrian refugees into the u.s. >> we have to remember we are always on our weakest when we have shut our door on refugees, when we have been afraid of them, and at our greatest when we let them in. never has this country really suffered any kind of security consequences due to letting in refugees, yet we use that as an excuse many times to keep them out. we did it in the john adams administration, and we've been doing it time and time again. every time we do it, we look back on that with shame. we did it in the 1920's, and it resulted in turning away many jews that tried to flee europe. not a very proud moment in our

history. >> i have a natural empathy for people who have been persecuted. it's the reason i came to the u.s. and the reason i lost my parents, had to do with persecution. >> one really positive thing the refugees bring to the united states is an opportunity to interact with the countries overseas from which they come, where there are a lot of misconceptions about the united states, what our intentions are in the region, what we are trying to do, what freedom of religion we have here, are we are to persecute muslims and other religious minorities, and the reality of religious freedom in the united states really does change minds, both in the united states and overseas. >> safety is important, but right now, we need to make a choice. should we bar people out for a fear of terrorism, or should we welcome them in with open arms? we think the question congress should be asking is not whether

we help refugees, but how can we help them. we should make history, not repeat it. ♪ >> to watch all the prize-winning documentaries, visit studentcam.org. >> congress returns this week for a looming deadline with funding the federal government. members have until friday to pass a temporary spending bill to prevent a potential government shutdown. we got more details from a capitol hill reporter. brian is a reporter for ro khanna. what is the status between the talks of the white house and congressional