(31 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicago – 31 January 2025
1. Various interior of Eli’s Cheesecake Company store
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Marc Schulman, President of Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"So at Elis, about 40% of our workforce came to Elis as refugees or, you know, new Americans, immigrants. And it dates back over 30 years working with RefugeeOne. And many of our leaders at Eli’s came to us as refugees."
3. Customer shopping at Eli’s Cheesecake Company
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Marc Schulman, President of Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"Sometimes it’s taken years to get the paperwork done, to have the vetting done. So you’re getting a person who definitely has been investigated in the country they’re leaving and they’re leaving because of a war, disruption, clearly Ukraine and Afghanistan."
5. Customer shopping at Eli’s Cheesecake Company
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Marc Schulman, President of Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"Immigration has always been important. As I said, you know, my grandparents came to Chicago and, you know, in 1906. So, you know, look at what we’ve been able to do over those hundred years. And, you know, I think it’s a great program. And again, our concern is that, you know, in dealing with issues at the border that need to be addressed, that we don’t take steps that really hurt business and hurt our communities."
7. Various of employee helping customer
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Marc Schulman, President of Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"I think, you know, organizations like RefugeeOne worry about their funding. It doesn’t affect us in the short term. However, our biggest concern and issue is the ability of our people to be here, to stay here. You know, when we ask, you know, ‘would you like to go home?’ No. You know, we’re happy making our home in America. Our children are doing well in school, we like our positions at Eli’s. We want to grow."
9. Eli’s Cheesecake
10. Eli’s Cheesecake Company logo
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Elias Kasongo, vice president of purchasing at Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"I was in the refugee camp in Zambia for four years and with no hope of returning home. I was resettled in America, especially here in Chicago in 1994. So I arrived in Chicago in June of 1994 and August of 1994, I joined Eli and I’ve been working here since then."
12. Picture of Marc Schulman with his father and founder of Eli’s Cheesecake Company, Eli Schulman
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Elias Kasongo, Vice president of Purchasing at Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"For many, many, many years, at least from my experience, refugee was not a political problem. But like anything else, things change. You know, it’s become political, again understandably so. Each country has its own laws and people do however it feels fit. But, you know, nobody chooses to just go to be a refugee if everything was okay. You know, people run from wherever they’re coming from for a reason. And if they qualify, I mean, qualification is the key over here."
14. Employee helping customer
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Elias Kasongo, Vice president of Purchasing at Eli’s Cheesecake Company:
"Things get said, yeah, I mean, somebody can just be a refugee, but who’s a refugee? How does it work? Until people understand how these things work, sometimes it’s left to imagination and whatever being said out there."
16. Picture of employee working at the Eli’s Cheesecake factory
STORYLINE:
Refugees who had been approved to come to the United States before a deadline next week suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.
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