GatewAY TO A NEW LIFE
Can immigrants save a struggling city?
Join us for an upcoming screening and panel discussion
Thursday September 10, 2026 @ 6pm
Community Christian Church
623 Meramec Station Road
Manchester, MO 63021
Hosted by Circle of Concern
Scheduled panelists:
Blake Hamilton, CEO, International Institute
Scott Walker, CEO, LifeWise STL
ZZ Safi, Afghan Immigrant and Caseworker/Volunteer Manager, Monarch Immigration Services
Stockholm, Sweden
October 19-20, 2024
Narrated by Afghan actor and social activist
The population of St. Louis is on a downward trajectory.
Are immigrants the solution?
St. Louis city officials and business leaders want to attract thousands of Afghan refugees and immigrants to St. Louis. The Afghan families include men and women who worked for the U.S. military.
Many remain in refugee camps overseas, visas mired in red tape. The U.S. promised these military contractors that they'd bring them to America.
Since the mid-1990s, thousands of Bosnians have settled in St. Louis, opening new businesses and reviving neighborhoods. Can St. Louis replicate the Bosnian immigrant experience with these new refugees?
In "Gateway to A New Life," meet the people behind the Afghan Support Program and the resilient Afghans who are building new lives in St. Louis.
Director's Statement
We're in a time of turbulence and uncertainty about the future of immigrants in the United States. "Gateway to a New Life” runs counter to negative, often untrue, political rhetoric by showing how immigrants enrich our communities through cultural vibrancy and a strong entrepreneurial spirit that drives economic growth,
St. Louis is my hometown and I’ve seen the city’s problems increase. The city has experienced a dramatic population loss and its reputation has suffered. However, all is not as it seems. Several years ago, a dynamic group of organizations and individuals created a comprehensive program to help Afghan refugees settle and thrive in St. Louis. The Afghans who recently came to the United States are legal immigrants with Special Immigrant Visas. Increasingly even individuals with highly vetted Special Immigrant Visas and refugees with Temporary Protected Status are living with the fear of deportation.
In the case of this group of Afghan refugees, someone in the family worked alongside U.S. troops during the conflict in Afghanistan. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, their lives were at risk. To save their families, they left behind everything they owned and everyone they knew, barely getting out of Afghanistan alive. They were promised safe passage and a path to citizenship for their loyalty to the American military. Now many of them live in fear, terrified of the possibility that their visas will be revoked and that they will be a target of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Afghans I’ve met during our over two years of production are educated, hard-working, generous, and kind. I’m honored to have met them and to call them my friends. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.
I hope that “Gateway to a New Life” inspires us to see the humanity of refugees and immigrants and to recognize that many of them risked their lives to come here. The film in no way offers a solution to the complex issue of immigration in our troubled times. But it is my hope that the film inspires us to seek and be guided by the truth of the stories of refugees and immigrants and to recognize how much they contribute to our communities.
--Kathy Bratkowski, Director
Summer 2026
