As Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law, Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman steered the 1980 Refugee Act through the House of Representatives, partnering with Senator Ted Kennedy to drive the bill to final passage. The landmark legislation fundamentally reshaped American immigration law, allowing the United States to welcome more than three million refugees in the decades since.

We spoke with Congresswoman Holtzman about her family’s story of seeking refuge, the importance of admitting refugees, and why she believes that dismantling the refugee program is a betrayal of American values.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

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Alexia Gardner, Policy Analyst at USCRI: While preparing to speak with you, I was struck by your own family’s history as refugees. Could you talk a little bit more about that?

Congresswoman Holtzman: My grandfather and his family fled the persecution of Jews in the early 1900s Ukraine. Because they lived on a street that was not part of the Jewish section, Jews fled to his house seeking refuge. And he gave them refuge, even though it could have cost him and his family their lives. That happened several times.

So they were living in fear of death from the pogroms [violent riots aimed at killing and harming Jews].

One day, my mother was stopped on the way back from school by a soldier with a rifle. And the soldier believed she was Jewish. Pointing his rifle at her, he asked her to say a word in Russian that had a lot of R’s in it, and ended in R. Many Jews would pronounce the R in a German way or a French way—the guttural ‘R’—as opposed to a rolled ‘R’, which is what a Russian ‘R’ is. And my mother’s life depended on how she pronounced this word that he told her to say. Well, luckily, she knew how to pronounce it [the Russian way]. He told her to get the hell out of there. He didn’t shoot her, but he could have killed her.

So that was one thing they were fleeing. And then, when the Communist government took over…they threw my mother out of school because she was the daughter of a member of the bourgeoisie. My grandfather had a small store that sold woolen goods. It wasn’t industrial, it wasn’t for rich people, but he had a modest income and he had a business…My grandfather said, “What future do we have here? We’re going to be either killed by the pogroms, and if we stay, what future will we have if my children can’t get an education?” So they fled to America.

Alexia: And how did this story shape your own career, in terms of your being so involved with the 1980 Refugee Act?

Congresswoman Holtzman: My mom told us her family’s story all the time. She told us how fragile life was, that this kind of thing could happen anywhere, anytime, to anybody. Her family had always been good citizens, law-abiding, but they were the “wrong” religion and the “wrong” economic background.

It wasn’t just my family who fled. My grandfather also organized an escape of about 54 people. They took open wagons to the Romanian border…I think the important thing about their story is that anybody could become a refugee. Even though you feel that you have a settled life, you have a business…they had roots… that go back, as far as we can count in the census, to the 1790s in this place, in their town. But still, they had to pick themselves up and go. They didn’t want to, but they had to.

Alexia: That really resonates with me. What this work, and this moment in history, has shown me is that none of us are entirely immune from the possibility of exile. The desire to migrate when you feel unsafe is fundamental. It is what humans have done throughout history.

Congresswoman Holtzman: And we also know from our own [national] history what role refugees played in the growth of this country. Where would we be without them? … The United States never would have been able to make the scientific advances it did [during World War II] without refugees from Italy, from Germany, from France, and so forth. Refugees have contributed enormously to America. They truly have.

Alexia: Cut forward to the 1980 Refugee Act, which is the first significant piece of legislation that recognized how important refugees are to America. What sparked the conversations that led to passing the legislation?

Congresswoman Holtzman: Okay. Well, first of all, Senator Ted Kennedy played a critical role here. You cannot underestimate that. I think he had been trying for several years to reform U.S. refugee law.

When the Vietnamese refugee crisis came up, I went to Southeast Asia. I must have gone at least four or five times…when the North Vietnamese government took over in Vietnam, those who had worked with [the United States] were at risk of suffering some kind of penalty. They were being sent to re-education centers, they were imprisoned…And then the Vietnamese government also tried to expel people of Chinese origin.

As such, there were many people in Southeast Asia, who, through no fault of their own… were in trouble. They were being persecuted or actually expelled. And the numbers were huge.

You saw them in the refugee camps, and what they wanted simply was to escape persecution and to lead a good life and a positive life. I saw the plight of children: Cambodian children [survivors of Khmer Rogue atrocities] whose parents had been shot in front of them. I mean, it was horrifying…

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