out of a shot it's usually because the shot is being taken by a tripod. feel free to support the program in whatever way you see fit. this episode we are going to talk about one of the important issues facing america right now, which is immigration. we are actually going to chat with right here in des moines a bosnian refugee, the longer than the siege of stallan grad. you're going to hear her story. you are also going to hear presidential contenders tell you what they think should be done about the syrian refugee crisis now should our borders remain open? should they be shut? what should we be doing to protect americans? things like that. we are also going to chat with

frank county. he's going to tell us his thoughts on refugees, on the environment because he was just at the paris conference they just had. all that and so much more on this very special one-year anniversary episode on a very cold day here in des moines, iowa. let's roll the opening credits. "roske on politics"! >> we will become a rich and great nation again. >> we have the top 1/10th of 1% owning more -- [ indistinguishable ] >> what did the iran -- keep negotiating and that's what they did. >> the things i've been concerned about this in nation for the last few years have not changed. >> we're chatting with mark. governor bobby jindal. u.s. senator, joanie. >> i love it!

[ laughter ] >> state senator, maria shapel. >> sometimes you don't even have to win -- if you come in a good second or third and no one expected that, that gives you a boost. >> congressmen david -- any candidate who is seeking to earn the awesome and sacred trust of the president of the united states has to come and engage with the people of iowa. >> mr. newt gingrich. senator joe lieberman. senator chuck. >> like going to heaven. >> waiting to push back with the rnc. this is a dumb way to do it. at the end of the day brad pitt would be in our debate. >> i think it's important

>> welcome back to "roske on politics." this is the des moines international airport. here with -- you were not born in des moines, iowa. >> i was not. >> this is going to be interesting. normally if you watch this program we chat with presidential candidates or elected officials, she does not fall into a category. earlier, last month you tweeted out some stuff that caught fire. what did you say and why was it so current? >> basically i told my story of coming to america as a refugee. kind of explained the very long and extensive process that this is. started tweeting basically because i saw the anti-refugee sentiment following the paris terror attacks.

upset, fearful. the governors throughout the united states started setting a sort of ban or stop on refugees for safety reason. the purpose of my tweets was to explain, hey, i went through this process, it's very long and extensive and there's lots of different security checks in place. so it was really just my story tweeted out to kind of clear up those misconceptions that it isn't just, hey, we got on a boat and come over here and all is fine and dandy. >> now, you were born where? >> i was born in bosnia. >> and you lived there when? >> i lived there since i was born until like '89 until 2002. >> so you lived there through the siege? >> i did, yes. >> which for those watching that was the longest siege of any

actually longer than the seeming of stallin grad. how was that like? >> i was very young, but you still remember it because it was at that age where kind of figuring out what's happening, kind of still unsure what exactly is going on, but you know what a bomb is at four or five years old. so it was very scary. you're hungry. you're cold. you don't know if tomorrow they're going to bomb you or not or if a grenade is going to fall on your home. for a really long period of time we ended up living in the basement of the building that we grew up in with our neighbors and our friends, and it was just kind of collectively trying to survive and try to uphold one another and share our food with each other all that stuff. >> so you were young when this was going on. have u ever spoken to folks maybe closer to my age -- they

it was the grown jewel in the earlier '80s, and then in the '90 went through that siege. how did folks that you knew that knew it then, what were those feelings when you went through this? >> for them it was sort of pain that one can't pain. it was this immense love for the city. they call it the jerusalem of the west. it's multiculture, multiethnic city. to see it overcome with destruction, with bombing w hate due to nationalism, due to things like islamic phobia, really did it heavily. i have friend who are older than me who went through it who still suffer from ptsd and a lot of them turned to alcohol to deal with the kind of pain of losing

so much. >> living there during that time was -- walk us through a normal day you remember. i know you were young. >> for a normal day it was really just it's bits and pieces basically, but a normal day for me was waking up in the basement. it's cold. it's -- [ indistinguishable ] there's life outside. there's very few windows, and you don't go near the windows because you're afraid somebody from the enemy line is going to be outside of that window. it's a constant -- no matter what you do even though you're a child your parents try to cook what food they have. the colder people are reading or some of them are playing. no matter what you do there's this fear, is this meal my last meal? is this toy that i'm sharing going to be blasted away?

food is secondary. water is secondary. smiling is secondary. being a child is secondary. the only thing that you're worried about is surviving and that's it. >> a very complex issue that came up the refugee crisis in lieu of the paris attacks. what should we be doing? >> we need to step up and do our part in this crisis and that involves doing proper security screening of syrian refugees before they come to our country. it's not an either-or choice. a lot of times you listen to the republican debates and it seems like they live in an either-or world an us or them world. the truth of the matter is those syrian refugee, those imagines of parents fleeing for their lives, they're fleeing from these barbaric genocide murders, the same ones that attacked france.

we need to lead in humanitarian ways and part of that leadership is making sure we do our part in the international community of nations to help alleviate the refugee crisis particularly syrian refugees. the second thing we need to do is rally people to improve conditions in the camps in that region. we've been more generous than many other nations, but there's still a lot more to coas a community of nations in order to alleviate the conditions in those massive refugee camps and hopefully john kerry will be successful in getting the russians to realize their top priority should be training the fire power on isil and lead to a

power in syria. syrian refugees, should we be welcoming them? >> the problem is, -- i've been accused as a guy having too big a heart, and that's a compliment, really, but i think we need to take a pause. we just can't let people come in here and oppose the same kind of threat that these radical jihaddists are. i would take a pause in the administration. to be whons you they have -- honest with you they have placed minors in my state where they were, who they were, who they were assigned to, and you can't function that way. >> welcome back to "roske on

international airport talking with arnesa born and lived in seravo and is now a resident here of des moines. what do you think of des moines? >> i love it. i love it here. i think the people are some of the nicest people that i've ever come across. i've had the privilege to travel across the united states for a little bit and meet some of the other folks, but i think des moines has some of the best people in general. >> we're going to talk a little bit about the current refugee crisis, but back to a little bit of your childhood. what did your family do for money while this was going on? was your dad still working? was your mom still work something. >> my dad at this time was in a concentration camp. he was in a different city in a concentration camp. no, nobody was working. there was periods there i think when at the beginning of the war people tried to work and tried

a lot of companies stayed open. i remember my mom she had worked for this energy and oil company at the time. she was how do i translate that, an engineer basically. she had worked for a little bit there, but with the war growing worse and worse and with the fact where her office is located and we actually lived was basically just huge, huge zone for snipers between the two. >> sniper alley is that what that was? >> it was everywhere. even like when we lived right at the start of the war for a heavy period of time, the building next to us there was a sniper posted on that building, right on the building next to us. they eventually had him removed thankfully, be u that took a lot of effort. >> when did your family start the process, we got to get out

>> my family was very much that proud family that did not want to lee during the -- leave during the war. we wanted to stay. we wanted to help rebuild the home that we had, that our family had been in for centuries. we want to see the future of us what's going to happen, so we stuck it out. my parents tried to look for jobs. they tried to give us the normal or as much as a normal life as one could, but we didn't start the application process until 1998. >> oh, okay. >> so the war had come to an end at that point, but the damage was done. my parents lost their homes. they didn't actually have anywhere to live. the homes they had were subject to bombs and grenades and were destroyed, so there was that sort of thing of where are you going to live? are you going to live in a refugee camp? are you going to be a squatter? is there going to be somebody else to let you in.

the economy is bad. there's still remainders of bombings everywhere. go in the school for me, school started, the war finished and the first day of class the thing that they teach you which bombs and mines to identify and how to identify them and what to do should you step on one. that's sort of a traumatic thing because first day of school you should be learning about abcs and 1, 2, 3s and we had to learn

alive. again, if you haven't been to des moines this town has been thought about. people who live here take pride in it. i think there's the study done as one of the top five prideful residents in the country -- >> number one. [ laughter ] >> there you go. number one. the reason i bring that up is because your job as mayor and also members of congress and our governor, you now have this issue that's come up recently with syrian refugees, and how do you juggle for instance the safety of des moines residents with people who want to come in.

conversation, what are your thoughts about refugees, what should we be doing as a city, state and country and how do we close the gap or widen it? >> brent, i think what we ought to think about is at least my lifetime and my experience. we looked at governor republican governor a number of years ago who had open arms around the vietnam conflict, and so we had lots of refugees coming from that area of southeast asia and cambodians and vietnamese and others. and i think that we have always been welcoming to people coming from other places. so many of us in iowa and minnesota and every place across this country are settled with refugees from somewhere. a lot of my relatives on my

my mom came from sweden and switzerland and all around. we could talk with any number of people around des moines. they came from some place. at least their forebearers did. as we think about that, and we even think about this in this time of year in a season around the holidays and you think about a lot of people are are christian, but you think about what did that mean 2,000 years ago? here we have what some people say is the christ child, but he essentially was almost homeless from nazareth in bethlehem, and then you had a king, harrod, who heard there was going to be somebody try to take over and it was going to be a child. and so they decided to kill all the children, the males especially that were two years old and under. all of a sudden they became refugees and they fled to egypt for a period of time, so they

and where would we be in this world if we didn't help people that were fleeing from terror, fleeing from strife, fleeing from health situations if we didn't -- were in a place to accept people and try to help them along and give them a leg up and certainly we need to do background checks. we theed to do all kinds of other things to know who they are and what their circumstances are, but i think i'm one that is more compassionate, i think, than some people that i've heard regarding how we greet and welcome people who really need our help and our support. >> and are you confident in the system in place that will help to ensure safety of refugees who do come who possibly don't have the best interest in mind that they won't be allowed in? >> i don't know the detail of it. i've heard certainly some people say that it's not enough. i've heard others say that

are in a detention area while they do the background checks for up to two years. to me that seems in certain ways a little long to understand that, especially when they're youth and children that are fleeing a real, terrible situation. often in some caseseses as i understand it, some fleeing,

organizations. so that's it for this very special one-veer anniversary for "roske on politics." i can't thank you if you have more tuning in this year. i hope to do this for a very long time. tell people you know and like to watch this show. until next week, thanks for

>> announcer: the following is a paid advertisement for omega xl. >> my name's larry king. a few years ago, i had to have open-heart surgery. when i recovered, i established the larry king cardiac foundation to help people like me avoid heart problems with proper foods, medication, and a healthy lifestyle. well, i recently met ken meares, a man with similar goals. he's the founder and c.e.o. of

years, has been active in