Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Deputy DHS Secretary Troy Edgar speak to reporters at Dulles Airport after the first flight of Afrikaner refugees arrives in the U.S.
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01:21welcome welcome to the united states of america
01:44it is such an honor for us to receive you here today
01:47uh this is the land of the free and we know that all of you have faced i'm chris landau
01:54first of all let me introduce myself i'm the deputy secretary of state of the united states
01:58this is my friend troy edger yeah i'm the deputy secretary of homeland security and again welcome
02:05i know you've gone from a long flight i cannot believe there are babies and children who are
02:10actually so well behaved this is much better than mine so bless you for for that and you know i
02:19think uh it is so happy it makes me so happy to see you with our flag in your hands and that flag
02:27symbolizes liberty uh for so many of us many of us are our families have had a journey not that
02:34different from the journey that you are embarking on today my own father was born in europe uh and
02:42had to leave his country uh when hitler came in in the 1930s and made his way to south america first
02:51and then eventually to the united states so he is an immigrant who actually you know was able to
02:58benefit from the many blessings of this country and one of the reasons that i really wanted to go and
03:03work for the government is because i wanted to give back to this country that really brought freedom
03:08to my family and allowed us to escape a very difficult situation in another country so you know
03:15i i know that this is going to be you know any adjustment in life any change takes some while it
03:22takes a while to get used to but i want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we
03:28respect what you have had to deal with these last few years we respect the long tradition of your people
03:38and what you have accomplished over the years and i am sure that you will be successful as you know a
03:46lot of you i think are farmers right you when you have quality seeds you can put them in in foreign soil and
03:53they will blossom they will bloom and we are excited to welcome you here uh to our country where we think
04:00you will bloom and we will hopefully allow you to have fulfilling lives for your children and then we
04:07will bloom and we will benefit alongside you so thank you very much for for coming here thank you
04:11yeah yeah i'd like to i'd like to add again on behalf of president trump secretary gnome we're just
04:20so grateful that you guys are here um you know everybody uh within dhs we've been so excited to
04:26be able to get you guys here to process to that to everything they cut so you guys get a really warm
04:30start after all the i was tracking your flight 12 hours that you were last night i'm like oh my god so
04:37thank you uh for just the patience of being able to get here um very similar to chris this is our
04:42secretary landau is that uh my wife came from iran same thing uh persecution from christianity and
04:49she's come here she now speaks five languages she's a school teacher uh she's a great american
04:55story and we just we're so grateful i think chris and i both just wanted to come and make sure that
04:59we greet you guys we meet you give our contact information to you and if there's anything that we
05:04could do we're just we just want to welcome you personally we look forward to after this to be
05:08able to spend a little bit of time with you and get to talk to you guys so thank you guys
05:19i think and i hope and i trust that you will find that the american people have very open hearts that
05:24that we are a very receptive we're a very friendly welcoming people and you know today is the first day
05:34of your america