a certain way. the ideas. there may be too many immigrants of particular nationality. do you think that there is any merit in that idea? >> i don't think -- is an imperative important issue. ..

so i actually think that he is wrong. certainly the children of concentrated immigrant communities learn english very fast. faster than their parents want them to. second or third generation they stopped speaking spanish altogether and take spanish classes in college. there is an empirical problem. the idea of remaining attach to country of origin doesn't bother me morally by itself. i am not persuaded by the argument but i do think there's an underlying question that is important and i would ask the joke to think about it. which is to say is there a point at which a democratic political system can get overloaded with

people who don't grow up in a comparable democratic system? that is the most neutral way i can put it. think of a democratic political system. requires a good deal of tolerance or respect or accommodation or acceptance of people whose views you hate. it requires the acceptance of losing an election you passionately care about the white house because we are right and they are wrong whoever they are. we no longer declare our opponents treasonous as we once did the people care about these things. the whole notion of liberal right seems to be entirely intertwined in american democratic practices. i am close to an open person so i am not concerned about these questions i am raising but i do think there's a legitimate political debate over the politics around immigration. not about fighting but around

immigrants is the way i want to phrase it. and what huntington's book raises in a misguided way the question of whether there is some point at which the democratic political system in local communities or the country as a whole can get overloaded. i don't think the united states is close to that point. i can't imagine we ever would be. this is not a concern i am expressing about borders or immigration. it is a different issue from the one that joe is raising the. or charles is racing. i want to get on the floor about the question of whether it is is more of an issue in the european context than the united states if you have a large immigrant population that fundamentally don't want to live by the norms debbie seating country thinks they live by for perfectly legitimate reason. is there an effort didn't time when this is a worrisome issue?

i am not worried about this. it is a legitimate issue to worry about. >> much of your career was spent dealing with issues that affect african-americans and i just wonder how you feel about the data that actually shows the people harmed most, legal hispanics, black with a high-school education or less and unemployment rates for both groups is over 20%. meanwhile the hispanic center has shown something like it was eight billion illegal aliens holding jobs and now it is in place that an estimated six million. whether or not you think there is some sort of -- >> it is a legitimate issue to worry about absolutely as you point out.

i am not persuaded about the empirical case you are making which is to say -- my understanding is that it is actually pretty hard to find good sustained evidence other than in particular communities and small job sectors where there is direct competition between illegal immigrants and load still americans. immigrants take jobs or are offered jobs americans don't take, don't necessarily want. there will be exceptions and surely direct competition in some cases and that is worrisome. economist will tell us and look for this, we are looking at a small marginal impact on wages even in high immigrant communities. couple other points. the second thing about this is a

lot of economists will argue that the american economy in general is much better off as a consequence of having a lot of relatively exploited workers which is as a low-wage low-skilled workers who take jobs for which they are paid very poorly and on balance that is not because of them but good for the economy and a good way to job -- grow jobs and grow the economy and enhance other people getting jobs is to have low skill low-wage jobs with people who are able to take them. the third point i would make, this is the moral issue. we have real philosophers. i am not persuaded that there is a moral responsibility to residents of our country that is greater than the moral responsibility to residents of another country who are desperately for and want to enhance quality of life for themselves and their children.

there's a broad moral responsibility about that issue but i don't think -- i am not persuaded that the historical case which i know almost as well as you do is a moral case about extra claims from poor people who live in los angeles as opposed to those who live in mexico. the moral responsibility is general rather than country specific. >> my point in my essay is there's a lot of compassion i see among liberal elite for the poor of other countries. alisha a little of that would be shown towards african-americans. the economists who operate say it is only a small segment of the population that is adversely impacted but that small sector is the americans that have a high-school education or less and there are millions of those

people being displaced and in part for the country where there is not a lot of immigrants or wherever there has been an immigration rate you see white, black, legal immigrants lining up to do those jobs that americans won't do. they work in hotels. americans and do work in restaurants. americans do landscaping. americans do construction. these are all jobs that americans do when the jobs are there. they line up to do those jobs. even working in the meatpacking industry. i don't see how anyone could argue that we don't have a great obligation to our citizens especially african-american descents of slaves and with the liberal elite has done they have abandoned the one group for the latest group and maybe they abandon the latest group for yet another group. i find it problematic. if we want -- they don't just

have to walk across the border illegally, create a lottery system for pour from any part of the world to compete for a certain number of visas rather than a situation where the privilege or ports can sneak across the border and get over here. what about the poor in burma were the ones in african nations or those who came across the border. that is very problematic. i find it totally unacceptable and one of the reasons why i am doing this, why i am here on this panel is i think someone has to speak for the american people and i don't think congress is doing a good job. elected officials and people in academia that might share my view are too intimidated to speak. >> go ahead, joe. [talking over each other] >> i see nervous people. [talking over each other]

>> the first thing i would like to say is i appreciate your earlier comments and want to object to something in the last set of responses where you introduce this liberal a leak. it is good to have a conversation where we can lay out our arguments or disagreements. i won't come up with some characterization of your views as conservative this or that. >> i am right wing. it seems >> we should think through the issues and see where we agree or disagree and reasons for it and that advances the conversation. that is not what happens in politics and understandably so but this could be a conversation about what do you think. let me take a specific issues you were talking about. it seems to me -- elsewhere i have endorsed the position jennifer is taking but for this conversation i set that aside so

i am not saying -- i am not saying here that it is the equal claims of the poor all around the world. what i am saying to these purposes because most people don't agree with that, that is another argument. i am happy to have that argument. but here i want to start where most american people are which is they think we give priority to americans. these people are americans. that is who they are. they are americans. you keep saying -- you keep constructing it as though they are not americans because of the way the law works. we know the law doesn't always work right. the law is not always fair. you bring out the case of african-americans. a group that we ought to bailout of attention to but historically if you look at one of the things that happened, african-americans suffered formal legal discrimination and one of the common justification for that is

we have to take care of the poor whites. they are our own. it is the whites who belong so we will keep the african-americans marginalized and excluded and the 9 jobs, segregated. that was wrong. we all agree, no one defends that today. it seems that is the parallel we are facing here. people who are members of society who live here, let me start with a very specific case. the kids. are you in favor of the dream act were opposed? >> i have a position that is more humane than yours. my position is the dream act the way it is framed right now is very elitist because it says it is for high-school graduates that either go to college or go into the military. you have one group risking getting an f in class and another group risking their lives and if they and make it back alive they might get

citizenship. i find that very problematic. if we want to deal with people in that situation we should deal with people -- maybe 24 and younger and it should be the whole class. >> i agree. >> it should be the whole class. i don't know why people think this is a great deal. it is a great deal for the gut--the ones going to college but what about the ones that are not going to be admitted to college because they dropped out of high school or the ones, conscientious objectors who don't want to serve in the military. i don't think that has been worked out and until that is worked out to i think the dream act so great but needs more thought. [talking over each other] >> she doesn't go far enough rather than going too far?

>> i argue with that in other contexts as going too far but made an interesting assumption for the discussion here namely states do have the right to control their borders and the argument is what happened is once illegal immigrants -- what punitive measures are allowed to take here. i actually do have a problem because once you are making this concession, the way you frame it earlier, state's comptroller border, you can also say later that membership is a social factor that states put up with. there will be tension later that you are generating because basically you are setting up a system where those people who are successfully ejected law-enforcement eventually our members and those who got caught -- that makes me think that something else needs to be said.

i am emphatic to the position that we should grant amnesty to illegal immigrants but the perspective we should be taking, it is not membership as a social factor. people generate themselves to acknowledge but is really that we have to think about immigration policy not as a privilege that countries may or may not grant or may or may not to it particular country's interest we have to think of that from a global standpoint. there is a global justice standpoint from immigration policy that needs to be assessed. i have tried to develop an understanding of global justice that conceptualizes obligations in terms of what i call grounds of justice. in particular contracts -- context we are sharing which particular obligations arise. this is obviously one.

i like the starting point. because we share we have particular obligations to each other but other contexts in which we move the other grounds of justice with respectively different principles of justice all of which don't have to be open to get it to generate an overall theory of global justice. one of them is the global trading system. that is an interactive context that comes up with known principles of justice. one other one where my theory comes strangest, where we do a lot of interesting things with concrete relevance. we own this planet. with environmental values and similar things than it needs to

believe. in light of that is not acceptable. immigration policy is owed to humanity as hole and international agreements, international was making rather than purely national policy. that leads me to an argument as part of the proposal that inspires from the ownership standpoint. and and the parallel to something that we know from property law. we have this idea of address recession. address possession happens if somebody -- some people are moving into a house or using a certain path that technically is and don't buy them. it belongs to somebody else. they do this openly and beef and

-- the officials know about and don't protest. it happens if you are the legitimate owner after 20 or 40 or whatever, beside to complain about that and you lost your claim the shows you should have done this before. something similar is happening with the illegal immigration. we have enforcement but large parts of the american economy function around the presence of illegal immigrants. for agricultural sectors every year. as a society we are quite okay with that. much of the economy depends on us. it is a kind of adverse recession taken over here with we have lost the right to complain at this stage. to those already here we should say generation based obligation generating points, it isn't that they made it a social practice

but we created a situation where they did not do well mendacious come to what they belong to the economy and this is why we should be granting amnesty. >> you had a series of questions. do you want to respond? >> i will respond briefly to both carol swain -- i agree with what carol swain said about the dream act. it is too respective. just to clarify what we're doing here, we do not get to make the laws. we get to speak about what we think the law should be. we are in agreement. there should be an expanded dream act that gives legal status to all of those who for an extended period-on that was where you were going. >> as conceived it is

problematic and very elitist. >> tell me what you think about what it should be. >> i am saying -- whig a minute. wait a minute. i have a comprehensive immigration plan that is truly comprehensive. for the record. i think the dream act the way it is being pushed and sounds so beautiful, it is the american dream and how could you be opposed to it. it applies to people as old as 35, the person has to be a high school graduate and they have to go to college or go into the military. those things are not comparable and there is an elite bias there for the kids who go through

college. people have to decide the best plan but i have a comprehensive immigration plan and if any group deserves amnesty, if any group deserves amnesty it would be the young people. not the parents who brought them here. there would be a cutoff of maybe 24 and below. >> i don't understand why you reiterated the points which i agreed with. [talking over each other] >> here's what i am trying to understand. let me see if i understand correctly. i'm looking for where we can agree or where we disagree. if i understand what you are saying, you don't want it to be restricted to -- you think it is discriminatory to create centers for the military or restricted

to people going to college. >> it had an elite bias. >> i agree with that. that is right. it is objectionable. the reason i said the dream act because it is the only politically viable thing that is out there. and i don't want to worry for the moment in this conversation about what is politically viable. i am interested in what would be right. what i think would be right would be -- let's just take the 24. it would be great. if we could come to an agreement so somebody on the right and somebody on the left that all of the kids were 24 or younger who spent some period of time -- we have got to that but eight, 12 years of their lives in the united states, access to legal status without regard to whether they're in high school or going into the military, that would be great.

that would be a step -- >> what they're trying to do is peel off their teeth. i have a comprehensive immigration plan i have been working on and in my plan there would be one component. i am against mass amnesty. if there's any group that has amnesty it would be those brought by their parents. a certain cut off. a one time -- one time deal and if we truly reform immigration. not putting comprehensive as the nation. if we really reform in a comprehensive way i don't think the problem needs to be repeated. i am in favor of addressing that has part of a larger package but not killing it off and dealing with it separately the way congress wants to do right now.

>> i say very briefly -- [talking over each other] >> i don't doubt they you have a serious, fought for, detail, comprehensive immigration plan. what puzzles me is why people wouldn't -- part of the difficulty as i am sure you know, a lot of people won't agree with your comprehensive detailed immigration plan. some will and some won't. >> people on the other side with me. >> it will be interesting. maybe i will be wrong but it wouldn't surprise me if these things have been widely discussed, if a lot of people thought your comprehensive immigration plan had certain flaws or difficulties that were not willing to sign on -- >> i'm willing to grant amnesty to feed children who were brought here illegally by their parents, under a certain age it would be for the old class.

it wouldn't be either you go to college or you go to harvard or the military. >> i get that. i am for that. i just think if we could find in the areas where we agree -- okay. i won't repeat that. let me just say something very briefly. >> one thing i meant say. -- the disadvantaged in our society. what is important in an age of interconnectedness is that we do understand the product of justice as a global project. there are principles of justice that hold globally in different contexts and if we are applying that to domestic politics we have to reform domestic politics

different from simultaneously. it is a very left wing liberal positions says there has to be a general equality of opportunity in the education system. people are saying that. and the left people are saying improve the american education system, massively regional resources into the american education system but at the same time also adopt more open-minded -- [talking over each other] >> has to be done simultaneously and climate policy. we cannot use failure at the level of domestic social policy, to the rest of the world. >> conservatives have been very involved in trying to improve education for african-americans. they encourage its foundation and other groups expend a lot of resources and study and if you look at the data in washington d.c. where you have a majority

of african-american they like a voucher programs and they're doing an excellent job educating in the city of minorities. it is not true that conservatives are not concerned about education. [talking over each other] >> a left wing position, not a right-wing position. >> i disagree with that. something you said that was interesting too about the planet. i am a christian and so my views are influenced by the judeo-christian bible and i believe that there are distinct nation states for a reason. i think it is okay for people to migrate but once they come to another person's country they have to abide by the laws and rules that are established. if they are not, they should be willing to suffer the

consequences. so someone like miguel sanchez decides to break into my country, that is fine but if he gets caught, he should suffer whatever penalties are imposed to make that decision. nothing wrong with nation states. i don't want borders the race between my nation and other countries. the whole global argument about the movement of goods and services and people. countries are different and if you don't like this country you can move to another country. until you find a country you like and i want to keep it that way. i don't think we should lower the standards further of the most vulnerable americans just to achieve some type of utopia bowl for people that think that man consols man's problems. most of the problems we have our

because of man fairing to solve man's problems. >> you want to make -- >> i was going to change the subject a little bit. to open up to the audience. all of you on the floor -- there are two ways of thinking about this. one is your colleague -- his argument is the american immigration policy as it currently exists in the lose lose lose proposition. it is one order of magnitude beyond. the united states loses as a consequence of not having the workers that it means or the high skill end or low skills end. the loser is the consequence we have a budget immigrants legal or illegal better individually in the grand -- insufficiently able to take advantage of job

opportunities to compete. other countries lose because the set of people who would like to migrate around the world and businesses are important part of any country's economy and the individuals who want to migrate lose. this is a story about globalization and dissolution of natural borders. i wouldn't argue for that. the idea of a highly restrictive immigration policy, may be more restrictive than the high end than the low end is a proposition that doesn't make sense from an economic perspective. agree or disagree with the argument but the language in which 4 political purposes it might be important to get on the table. the other way of putting it makes the same consequential as argument rather than the other argument is the argument of a biographer in california who i

got one of his elegant tables from his book in which the question is who is going to buy your house if you are in california and want to retire in 2020? his argument is most people who want to sell their house in 2020 are disproportionately elderly whites who want to move to florida. most people who are going to be available who are comfortable are going to be non-white and disproportionately emigrant especially in california but may be across the country. and we are setting ourselves up as a society for not having a population that will be able to buy the house to pay for social security and pay for health care or anything else. seems to meet in parallel with -- not instead of -- justice based or ride based argument regardless how you come out on one side or the other, also on the floor and argument that this is a more pragmatic kind of who is going to buy your house

argument or pay for my social security when i retire, i want to get that on the floor. >> we have 20 minutes left and i would like to open up for questions from the audience. we have comments posing as questions. >> can you hear me? this question is for joe. my reaction to your talk was similar to multi's. there is tension about immigration laws and granting amnesty. i wonder whether you thing we should in code it in our law some sort of amnesty policy. if you take for example a canadian who wants to move to the united states and the legal

process would be in five years we will grant you legal status but we also have a policy that if you manage to live here illegally for five years we will grant you legal status. we will give the person an incentive to float the law and move here legally if they think they can manage it. i wonder what your response was to masius's point. >> there's a tension but one of the analogies are use. personally analogy of adverse position between respecting property laws and having a rule on adverse recession with the statute of limitations, it is often the case in more matter is that there are tensionss between competing goods some of my argument is there is tension and there are better ways to manage that tension. the way to reduce -- i am just

working in the framework, the assumptions states have the right to not take global models or control immigration, let me explain why i take that assumption because elsewhere i argue against it. part of what happens is in these conversations people wind up talking past one another because they have different background assumptions. what i am interested in, seems to me often in conversations is helpful to say i am not sure i agree with everything you say but let's take that as a starting point and see if we can come to area of agreement and then you might want to go back and reexamine the starting point. it is our question of having the discussion in stages. at this particular topic it is clear that the vast majority of people not only in the united states but in canada and europe and around the world think that states have the right to control their borders. although as a philosopher i

think there are good reasons to question that, for discussion purposes there are good reasons to assume it and say let's see, given that constrained, where we go. even given that constrained people become members over time which is why i started with the story about margaret. do you think margaret should be deported? [inaudible] yes. i completely persuaded that sometimes states are morally required to grant legal status to people who are in regular immigrants. of course i would never deport mrs. drummond. but i wonder what we should do practically. are we going to encode in law

and amnesty policy? >> that is my proposal. it is not just hypothetical. the french had such a law that worked perfectly well if you established you had lived there for seven years without authorization you would be given legal status. as a practical matter if you say we are worried about getting too many people in, this is an invitation, then the focus has to be another area where we agree on employer sanctions. you removed the incentives for people to work so we accept the premise that you control these things. the focus should be on the employer's. serious regulation of employer sanctions. and maybe another technique that needs to be used is id cards. these things run into -- there are tensions among these things. projected employer sanction the use in a discriminatory way.

that is a relevant moral consideration so it is often the case that whatever policy we adopt there will be objections to it which are good objections and then we have trade offs and compromises and i don't think this is fundamentally different from any other set of trade offs and compromises when we recognize competing considerations and find some middle ground. >> that so-called moral case seems based more on faith in your own personal beliefs dressed up with a couple of anecdotes. i very much agree with carol swain's practical approach to immigration. more importantly majority of american public do as well as residents of massachusetts. poll after poll has shown they don't feel immigration laws are being adequately enforced. they feel they are taking jobs away from american workers.

>> your question? >> the question is in your boston review article the collection of your argument is so full membership does ncial m depend on official permission. the majority of people don't feel illegal aliens are social members of that society and there is a moral basis than for excluding them. >> i am sure you are right. more people agree with you than with me. i am trying to persuade them otherwise. maybe i will have some luck. the problem with the argument you just made about democratic legitimacy, should the majority get to say who belongs? the exclusion of african-americans from citizenship certainly had the

support of the majority of white americans in our history and we don't think that was acceptable. the exclusion of chinese from citizenship and support of the majority of americans. we don't think that was acceptable. my precise argument is -- i think everybody recognizess that majorities are not always right. i am not saying a court should decide this. it may be the only solution to this is for a majority to be persuaded but the fact that a majority says these people don't belong, we don't want them doesn't prove they don't belong. the majority can be wrong and in this case i think it is. [talking over each other] >> that is what i am advocating. [talking over each other] >> i am trying to persuade my fellow citizens to change the law. [inaudible] >> we got it. hold on. i want to get --

>> the preamble to the constitution talks about providing for the common defense. and i see that the bigger issue of when you look at the state -- just the fact that the state of the economy and the projections for the u.s. and all of those types of things it is not clear that if america wanted to that it could afford to give amnesty and increase welfare and show up 40% of illegal immigrant headed households benefit from some type of welfare program and not just the fact that we have millions of people in the country at a time of a terrorism threats that we don't know who they are and what their goals are, we also -- it is not clear that we can afford to provide for them and also, drastically

lowering our standard of living. at some point we have to make some hard decisions. i know for myself that many people i know give money to missions and causes and have support around the world. if they all come here we allow them to come here we will all be poor and i don't see how that benefits anyone. >> question for carol swain. you made several points as you were offering your criticisms of joke. one was pointing out that the law is the lot and he returned to that as a basic principle. you also returned again and again to the crowding out effect from the poorest to the port in the united states who are here illegally and that was the essence of your position opposing joe and his recommendations. the question i want to pose is let's go back to a slightly earlier period. we go back to the period of

exclusion. it was impossible for many folks to come in with legal status. there were arguments made at that time on the effects of immigration on irish immigrants and others who were here illegally. would you actually adhere to your position that the law is a law and respect for the law takes first principle or would you look back on that earlier period and wiggle just a bit? >> what i think about that earlier period applies some to today. agents were brought in, oriental were brought in to undercut the newly freed slaves and there is data to suggest that. that they were brought in to flood the market and disadvantage for whites and disadvantaged if the newly freed slaves. with the new immigrants the united states had not enforced

its laws. looked the other way and i think some of that was motivated by racism against blacks. blacks hurt the most but also legal hispanics and poor whites. i think the immigrant labor has been used by people in power to disadvantage americans and that goes back to the time when the chinese were brought to of america. i am standing by my statement. >> when you look back on that earlier period you would argue -- >> they had to do something. congress had to get into the business of immigration law. i am sorry that it resulted in the exclusion of the chinese, but every time african-americans had been poised to benefit immediately all these other groups coming to play and if you look at affirmative action 1965,

when affirmative-action, by 1970, at least we 5 groups covered that didn't have the same history as black americans and they have undercut the position of blacks. no reason foreign-born immigrants should be eligible for affirmative-action programs, not now and not then. they have benefited the most. >> you look back to the earlier period and you endorse -- >> the chinese were brought here to undercut african-americans. >> you look back exclusively on that period and endorse explicitly racist exclusion criteria? because of the adverse affects on a party that was suffering -- >> they were brought here for racist reasons. >> chinese immigrants, voluntary immigrants or contract laborers on the west coast of california and just about zero blacks in

california for all of the nineteenth century and first half of the 20th century. chinese laborers were brought to work exploited through contract labor and not voluntarily but in an entirely different sector of the country. [talking over each other] >> african-americans in the nineteenth century were entirely in the south and chinese immigrants were entirely on the west coast and a tiny bit in the northeast. it is a different segment. it is a separate question. [talking over each other] >> the data up, i have read studies and these studies are studies that you would say are not credible, that have argued that the chinese were brought in to undercut the position of the newly freed slaves. >> only to the degree people in san francisco were affecting work from people in alabama. [talking over each other] >> i will let you be the expert on that so i will withdraw.

it is a different point from your larger dispute about the question of bringing in laborers to undercut. [talking over each other] >> am i wrong about affirmative action? >> i am more with you on that one. not entirely but -- [talking over each other] >> this question would be for joe. i would like more detail on the issues you would suggest to approach immigration policy not only in the united states but in the countries sending those illegal immigrants. my question might be unfortunately -- i come from south of the border. we have no respect for the rule of law and we are kind of barbarians. as an act of luck i am -- i want to know how long i will be

staying here. so thank you for your advice. >> a loss of words. >> i am at a loss of words. can you -- >> certainly a solution will come. countries that handle immigrants create economic conditions for them not to they parter. that i have known. i know why they come here. they don't find a job in mexico. so which solutions we propose engaging those countries so that we don't send them, which would be another solution, how do you

see that communication? >> and the european union there are open borders. these are countries that fought world wars against each other not so long ago and they hated each other. now anyone can travel freely and settle anywhere and it is no big deal and the heart of that is the economic differences between the countries are not so great. all the anxiety generated by immigration is a reflection of global economic inequalities. those are the driving pressures here and if those were resolved -- if i knew how to solve a economic inequality i would not be writing books. there are a lot of arguments about the best way to address that issue. i don't claim to have any expertise on that. that is in some ultimate sense,

the problem disappears once the economic difference -- the problem largely disappears -- there may be significant economic differences the does not create -- you were right to raise this issue. it is unfortunate that there's offhanded reference to terrorism and welfare. [talking over each other] >> i look at the data. it is deeply misleading. if you were serious about that, this provision that you don't have access to economic support. [talking over each other] >> we take care of people who are disadvantaged. >> congress passed a law in 1996

that restricted access to programs, and comprehensive reform. has our compromise i would be happy with access to welfare. i will give me that if you give me an industry. >> no data to support illegal immigrant -- illegal alien population, strained on the education 0 -- >> it depends on the construction -- it is true that people whether they are legally present or not have a right to free public education. i am not saying there's no cost but part of my argument which sometimes you seem to agree with and sometimes you don't is these kids ought to get an education.

they are members of society and doesn't seem to me you can say on the one hand -- do you think they shouldn't get an education? >> let's talk about -- [talking over each other] >> you introduce the dream act. i am just saying if thing about if we grant amnesty issue for the 12 to eighteen million illegal aliens. we don't know how many are here that it is going to create more drain on resources that are already limited. we don't have enough resources to take care of the americans that are already here. the american children who go to bed hungry and americans not getting good education, and -- >> the consequence -- economic consequences -- >> eligible for is social welfare program. [talking over each other] >> if that were the only concern then it would seem to me --

[talking over each other] >> i think amnesty's tend to be get more amnesties. we give another mass amnesty will only encourage more people to come here illegally. [talking over each other] >> we do have resources to tackle these problems from 1% of the american population that has gained massively over the last 30 years and keeps gaining every year even in an economic crisis. >> i don't see them -- >> that is what it is doing. >> please join me in thanking our panelists for being quite provocative. [applause] >> you can watch other programs on immigration that pulled tv.org. go to the web site and enter immigration in the search bar at the top of the page.

>> how did the juvenile justice system get started in this country? >> it got started a round turn of the 20th century. the first juvenile court law was passed in illinois in 1899 establishing a second court for juvenile is and along with it came separate institutions for juvenile offenders. the system was so popular that was copied by almost understand every state in the union by the 1920s. texas adopted the juvenile court law in 1907. >> you read the juvenile justice system has failed in this country. why do you think it has failed? >> it has failed because it failed to live up to its founding promise which was basically that it would establish a more protective system for youthful offenders. the juvenile justice system was founded on the concept that children were different from adult offenders and less

responsible for their offenses and more capable of being rehabilitated so juveniles were supposed to be separated from adults and treated differently from adults. it failed to do that. today it is very common place to see abuse scandals in juvenile institutions that are scarcely different from adult prisons. juvenile courts have adopted most of the same procedural features as adult courts. to many critics i guess i would include myself in that group, it really has failed. >> tell us a little about the scandal in west texas state school that caught the public's attention and fuel this issue. >> the scandal broke in the news media in early 2007. it was a sex abuse scandal. as we are sitting here right now the last major figure in that scandal is on trial four years after that scandal to give you an idea how long it has been going on. in this case a couple of

administrators in a remote area of west texas were coercing sexual favors from several of them. using their power as administrators. this went on for years and it was basically covered up by higher ups in the state agencies that oversaw that institution and it was finally leaked out and publicized. >> what is a superpredator? >> superpredator was going in the 1990s by a criminologist named john julio. it was originally intended to mean kids who kill without remorse, without conscience and randomly. really captured in the popular movies of the period like natural born killers. in the 1990s there really was a national panic over violent

juvenile crime. that word became attached to that panic. the word also carried a highly racial connotation to it. it seemed many critics refer to african-american and latino juvenile who were overrepresented to be the incarcerated juvenile population. >> what role does race play in problems with the juvenile justice system? >> it is really central in a lot of ways and i am not alone in thinking that. whether you want to believe use of color commit more crimes as conservative critics believe or that the system actively discriminates against them or institutionally discriminates against them in some way there's no doubt that race is a central factor in the juvenile justice system. >> how is texas a case study for problems throughout the country? >> texas was one of the largest

juvenile justice system is in the country just in terms of the number of youths and institutions it advantage. it is also a useful case study because of the political and economic clout the state has come to our choir in the last 50 or 60 years. it is one of the most demographically diverse states, one of the most geographically diverse states and one of the most politically powerful state. several u.s. presidents have come to texas. several important national legislators have come from texas. >> why did you want to write this book? what got you started? >> my input is to get started on this book really was an interest in how we as a society the side who the good kids are and who the bad kids are and what is to be done with them. i initially began looking at

popular culture and representation and i became dissatisfied with that and decided i needed to look at real kids and real policies and institutions that affected them. >> after all your research where do texas and other states go from here? have you seen improvements since you wrote the book tour and you were writing the book? >> a lot has changed since i finished the book. the legislature is considering abolishing the agency that oversees the juvenile justice in texas. several large facilities have been shut down. as i was finishing the book. lots of kids have been sent back to their communities and there really is a movement to move away from big institutions towards community-based facilities. part of that is being driven by the budget crises affecting many states across the country including texas which has a $27 billion deficit to deal with

right now. that is fuelling a lot of this sort of progressive movement in some ways. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction authors of books every weekend. >> am i to the american history professor pauline maier is on in-depth next sunday. she has written several books on the american revolution, the old revolutionaries, americans, scripture and the latest ratification published last year. through our three our conversation takes your phone calls, e-mails and tweets next sunday at noon eastern on c-span2. watch previous programs on booktv.org where you will find the entire weekend schedule. four