this issue playing on in the 2012 presidential campaign. >> michele bachman was in iowa talking about the legislation she is pushing in her home state, minnesota that cries same-sex marriage. you see it coming up. do i think it will be something that influences the general too much? the focus is the economy and the budget and getting things done. the only thing that affects the primary currently affecting obama and the hole, he had to come against doma because he faces pressure from his own party because in his own party there are people who want to get things done and there are others that may not. not pushing legislation which he can't do because the republicans control the house. he has to get something done

because he risks alienating that part of a party. >> the party will be more forgiving but it is certainly going to play out in the republican primaries. the primary voters, won't be as big a factor as general but the primary voters are going to have to be talked to in a certain way by the ones who want to win the primary orel's not w else not w primary, nomination. too far to the right might alienate the center. >> one more before we open up to the students. you can weigh in if you want to. in addition to the primary ramification that we talked about there may be some impact for these issues in the general

election. a democratic president who is proposing a very broad deficit-reduction plan, who is overseeing military engagement in libya, might benefit to having an issue like this not as a persuasive mechanism but as a motivational mechanism which to rally his party's loyal troops who may be concerned about moving to the center on other issues. is that fair? >> no question. polling shows it is skewed more undemocratic polling but also republican polling shows young voters. those of you in this room and millions like you across the country, regardless of your partisan affiliation, religious affiliation, region of country you live in, you find it ridiculous and preposterous that this is an issue we are talking about in this country.

it can be used by some in some raises national or local to motivate the youth vote to get out and vote on this issue. in other races and some of those republican races being talked about regional races it can cause some young voters to stay home or vote the other way. polling shows more democrats support this issue than republicans but it is changing very quickly. among the youth vote it has quickly become an equal number. it is not there yet but quickly becoming an equal number and i do think it could take a social issue off the table and benefit the party that will take the stand. >> george will has written that his daughter and her friends find this issue to be remarkably and interesting. weekend take this in a vacuum. i can guarantee you a

candidate's position for or against same-sex marriage will determine the next presidency of the united states. that is the reality. where this place into the grander political roles are a couple things. the general election voting audience will look at how far to the right any republican candidate is pushed on a whole array of social issues that includes same-sex marriage, includes abortion, three or four others have hot-button issues. secondly if you look at where the electoral votes move from and 2000 to 2010 the states that pickup those votes, into that mix. could have some impact. every poll in the california state bowl or national poll, fiscal issue is our top of the

heat. whether it is the debt, the war is far behind social issues and environmental issues are down the list in terms of priority. it is clearly an important issue that needs to get resolved and it will get resolved by them being legal across the united states in the long run. it is not the sole deciding factor or major influencing factor on the 2012 presidential race. >> we are past the half way point in our discussion. as we do each week at this point we would like to open this discussion to questions from all of you students in attendance. i offered two reminders before we take the first question. number one, when andrew brings you the microphone, before you ask your question, identify yourself so we know who you are and as a reminder, if you are

posing a question in particular with someone with whom you disagree on the topic under discussion we remind you someone with whom you disagree may be your opponent in this issue but they are not your enemy and we ask that in your question you treat them with the same level of respect you hope they show you. because of our circumstances today we will ask that you wait for the microphone before you speak. who has questions for our panelists? >> my name is melanie. i am a junior here. my question is last night in one of my classes we watch 12 angry men and basically the decision of be a jury of men for this kid's fate was based initially on prejudice or ignorance of his circumstances and i am wondering what you might feel about gay

marriage, do you think people are opposed to it because of how they feel about the constitution of marriage itself or because they might be ignorant or prejudice against gays and lesbians? >> a great question. did you see the or original or the remake? you lucked out. i think melanie asked a great question. that me put it to you with a slight twist. the point queue and the other panelists made about demographics as it relates to age is an important one. there are people who disagree with the idea people of the same gender ought to marry and they came to that decision for reasons based in their own religious faith or their own morality. you might disagree with those

individuals for coming to that conclusion, but how do you approach the issue with someone who says i read about this and thought about it and come to a different conclusion? >> we have to respect all of our fellow citizens but on this issue we have seen drastic movement including from those who disagree in marriage equality in this country and those people moved there support for marriage equality because someone talked to them. they heard a message that resonated. more times than not that was a personal story. that message was someone in their family, in next-door neighbor, a brother, a sister, a daughter or a son. what you quickly find out once you can peel away all the political rhetoric that we often hear, you realize at the end of

the day we are all human beings, we were all born the way we are and to treat someone unequally because of the way he or she is born is not something that we do in this country. it is not something any of our religions teach us to and i think the research shows quite quickly when those people who are either undecided or perhaps on the other side are reached and talked to into a convincing way, they will often times move their support to marriage equality. it was mentioned earlier there are three national polls in this last year that show now a majority of americans support gay marriage. a majority. so it is now minority of americans who oppose a marriage. it is our job to further those

numbers and to tell those personal stories and show the consequences of inequality to further that majority. and the evidence shows we can do that and we have done that and we have to be more aggressive and do it more quickly. >> what i hear you saying to ruthlessly oversimplify your point is it is not so much for many people of lack of intelligence but lack of exposure. both in terms of personal circumstance and i put this to other panelists as well not just in terms of personal spurious -- experience the bottom of culture as well. the will and graceification. >> as someone involved in electoral politics you try to figure of the most effective way to communicate with your target audience. there's a certain part of the

population that are bigoted. there are certain people that if you give away gold they hate gold, they just want silver. it is gross oversimplification, just way that it is but i think a large part of the initial opposition to same-sex marriage and equality and things of that nature it was born out of fear or being uncomfortable. from a communications perspective where political campaigns have been effective it is where they humanize the issue, putting it to the person next door or someone in your church and as you see over time the taboos of being gay or lesbian or african-american or latino communities, as those barriers are broken down in history cumin as asian and communication of the issues. you have to swallow this bitter pill. more people become more comfortable with this situation.

it doesn't mean that the bigots are going to be the ones who screen the loudest and the the most ink. that happens on both sides of the issue but the more that can be done, communicate and let people know it is not going to be chaos when this happens. and is going to happen. >> those of you outside california, the alternative that match played out, advocating on the issue and we will come back to that later but several of you have more questions as well. >> i am a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism and political science. got questions going back to the courts side of it. say the supreme court does a rule they have a standing in this case and take hearing for the appeal and overturned a ruling. how would you feel that would

change the time-life in pushing back the argument for same-sex marriage? >> if the ninth circuit struck down district court's ruling it would set it back within the legal realm. there are other federal case is going on across the country like in new york and it would set as back for california. it may not set back the national debate as much as people think it would. if there is a win in that case it would be a huge gain. it is less of the arrest and incredibly more of a gain from a victory. >> other panelists would like to weigh in so we have a lot of questions. let's move forward. >> i am a sophomore. you mentioned earlier game

marriage is potentially has financial implications and it is not so clear to me that that is the case. what are the arguments that the yes on each side people will use in court? >> i am not a lawyer. as my illustrious founder used to say don't give legal or accounting advice. i wrote an article before proposition 8 was put on the ballot about the economics of a marriage and it is as true now as it was then. i never stated my preference for of or against a ballot measure on the subject a. there are any number of economic studies that come out that talk about gay marriage being an economic boon for california in terms of the actual fees you pay to get the marriage license and celebrations, that is one of the economic arguments. the other argument goes a lot deeper and goes to the economics

of family where same-sex couples in many respects are not allowed to do some of the things that are normal. deals with money, taxes, insurance, retirement. all the things being able to assign social security benefits over to a spouse you can't do that now. visitation rights, adoption rights. it is much deeper than simply saying someone should be able to say i do and then get married. there are a litany of ramifications that go along with it that if you don't of look at the issue on a deeper level, if you have a life partner and you are with someone you should be able to do all those things whether you are two men or a man and a woman. there are financial costs to that. the state of california can make a lot of money. if you want to be cynical, if gay people get divorced at the

same rate that straight people get divorced, it could mean a lot of money for california as well. next question? >> my name is brian ferguson. i majored in international relations. there has been some discussion over whether or not judge walker should have refused to -- recused himself from the hearing on proposition 8 because he is gay. i want to know your opinion and that. >> the idea of recusal wouldn't have stemmed from his new being day. that is not what the controversy is about. it is about a ten yearlong relationship that he had with another man. whether or not that would cause a conflict. the issue is about the disclosure. there was no disclosure during the trial and it wasn't until

recently after he retired that he announced he was in fact gay and he was in a relationship over ten years. the only reason that would cause any sort of conflict was because since he was in a relationship for ten years is possible he wanted to marry and there might have been a conflict of interest. i want to make it very clear that it was not because he was gay that that would cause a conflict. it is more based on the long term relationship and he had something to potentially gain. the judicial act talks about the reasonableness. it would not be how he felt but if there's a reasonable argument for him to have some sort of conflict, there should have been some sort of disclosure. nothing came out of it because the only way it really can is if the attorney-general about the motion posthaste, that will

probably -- they're not supporting the litigation. it won't cause and effect but that was the center of the controversy. >> something else is important to note. those in legal cases that come out with an outcome that was not the one that they sought tend to attack wherever one can attack. in this case some, not directly our opponents but some affiliated choose to attack in that particular instance but it is an incredibly slippery slope. we can do a whole session on recusal. thurgood marshall recused himself under many cases before him. will should -- ruth caleb ginsberg refused to self ever since there is a discrimination case? to the catholic supreme court justices -- i believe six of the nine recused themselves when and issue becomes before the united

states supreme court and so i think this is an issue that most legal scholars with any credibility on both sides of the aisle do not believe judges -- in those that are mentioned should recuse themselves. >> we will explore the possibility of a panel on refusal. the school of law for the fall semester. next question? >> i am a see a study international relations of political science. regardless of the california supreme court ninth circuit court of appeals decision there are many that believe this case or at least the issue will reach the supreme court. sort of the swing vote will go down to justice kennedy. i am wondering if any of you

have an opinion how he will fall on this issue. >> potential outcome for the case in the u.s. supreme court. i know you and justice kennedy go on long weekend camping together. [talking over each other] >> we have one coming. >> whatever decision comes down to he will be the one to end up writing it as the chief will give it to him. he is a wild card. i don't know how he will come down. he could go either way. i really don't know. >> we obviously have a federal case pending in court so i won't comment on any particular justice that our two attorneys -- often said that he will bring the five votes he got in bush versus gore and we will end of with a 9-0 decision just as came

about in virginia. >> i don't see this being a 5-4 decision. i have no -- i am not an avid supreme court watcher or follower. as someone who decided not to attend law school -- [laughter] >> i am a senior in american studies and i hate to ask you yet another legal question but i want to take josh's hypothetical and flipped it is a little bit. if the ninth circuit ends up affirming judge walker's earning and same-sex marriage goes to states like california, alaska and idaho, are we looking at a situation where there has to be a quick national end game or is it possible we could see regions of the country where same-sex marriage is legal and several states and regions where it is legal and few or no states?

>> you will probably see if that happens a bitter discussion on doma in terms of credit. since you have so many states that would be falling under the jurisdiction of the ninth circuit and be able to allow and have some states that aren't. that would speed up that discussion. since it will be coming into 2012. many people in washington want to have it. it will certainly expedite the discussion. >> there is no national policy. there is going to have to be some sort of discussion. if half of the country's one way. and doma no longer exists. questions about social security entitlements will come in to play. that will have to be addressed. it shouldn't be an issue but the problem is doma still exists but

is not being enforced. trying to tackle that divide needs to be handled with national policy. >> but handled quickly is anyone's guess. >> my name is alan. i'm a history major senior. i am the brother of a up lesbian sister and despite that i did those vote yes on proposition 8 because i felt in my opinion california and america was not quite ready for same-sex marriage but i am also a veteran and once don't ask don't tell was lifted i really felt the momentum is there now for that type of vote. what i am concerned about is getting legalized -- i really feel a yes vote on the public vote is really needed to legitimize same-sex marriage. are you concerned that that would be -- that it would be

legalized with republic vote? >> i believe in the courts for an issue such as this as well as state legislature, new york for instance moved in quickly again. the principals from which this country was founded, i do not support a public vote to determine the rights of a minority. should we let a public vote determine a woman's right to vote? should we let a public vote determine the press's freedom of speech? should we let a public vote determine whether an african-american can marry a caucasian? public opinion in many of those cases was very much the other way when those decisions were decided. so it is my personal, not professional view that that is not the way to go. just a logistical issue it is also not permanent. suppose you took to the ballot

and wanted to flip 152-48 the other side could spend $2 million to get it back on the ballot and you would be doing the same thing. this does need to be decided by our courts and federal government once and for all. >> to clarify, do you have a preference versus judicial versus legislative? >> no. the battles have to be fought on all fronts. some states as we speak both are being sought. there are court battles happening as well as legislative battles. i see this as something that has a true sense of urgency. we have to win it as quickly as possible and therefore i support as aggressive actions as can be taken on the court level, state, federal and legislative. >> interesting to see if the court makes its way to the

supreme court whether the supreme court will change where it classifies people who are gay/lesbian. currently it is a rational basis standard which the lowest level of scrutiny for the court. i am sorry if i'm rambling on constitutional law but it would be interesting to see if the supreme court raises them to intermediate in terms of classification for that group. >> it is not clear the courts are limited to the. states. supreme court of arkansas recently found a constitutional ballot initiative the fighting marriage as one man and one woman. in that event it will end up in the supreme court because they want to resolve not the difference of opinion but a multiple opinion in the legal system that currently are there. >> last question to you and if anyone else wants to weigh in,

before we wrap up. if the ninth circuit called the league decides proposition age should not stand, despite the preference chad voiced earlier, the expected is overturned that we will see another initiative on the ballot in california in the near future? >> knowing what little of the ninth circuit that i do, they will do it because of their philosophical leanings. i would be equally surprised if the people who put it on the ballot didn't put something back on the ballot again and we are forced to endorse another five months of aggressive campaign. i would just hope -- if you are listening, other side, that the no on 8 campaign runs a little more aggressive campaign from the get go because whether or not you agree with the issue and

then won't asked people where they stand, the yes on 8 campaign ran circles around the no on a campaign and that played a significant role on the measure passing. i think you will -- it is so easy to qualify for the ballot in california which is a good thing in many respects. i like it as a consultant. you will definitely see something on a future ballot. >> we only have a minute or so but you and your business partner were brought in belatedly by the no on a campaign forces to attempt to accomplish what matt was talking about. if the initiative for to end up on the ballot again, what lessons do you take from that election and how would you see the campaign run differently? >> i think it is highly unlikely that this will go back to the ballot. i am cautiously optimistic that

this will go to the ninth circuit and we will see the ninth circuit is going to affirm judge walker's order and game marriage will be legal in the state of california if not beyond that. i don't actually believe this will go before a vote of the people again and if it does we can all agree the campaign will be run differently and more aggressively and our side should be more aggressive in responding to the other side. i hope this is never again on the ballot in the state of california. >> for those of you taking political strategy and communication you will note that chad forcefully did not answer the question or disclose potential strategy for opposition campaign to a future ballot initiative. >> good response. >> please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause]

>> former pennsylvania senator rick santorum outlines his vision for foreign policy at 1:30 eastern. we have live coverage on c-span2. he informed presidential exploratory committee and travels this week to iowa and new hampshire. he will be at the national press club in washington speaking at an event sponsored by the ethics of policy center where he holds fellowship. ..

sandweg deportations and national security doj inspector secretary napolitano janet napolitano bob ashbaugh general ashbaugh general ashbaugh david martin edward alden and alden the center for migration and development at princeton university program in latin american studies and the center for migration and development roundtables on deportations and national security. 

>> up next, sheryl sandberg recently sat down talked about the evolution of her social network and its impact on its 500 million worldwide users. she also discussed its policies concerning privacy and content and its relationship with traditional news media. she spoke at a luncheon hosted by the american society of news editors in san diego, california. this is about 50 minutes. >> thanks, sheryl. visit on? thank you for joining us. the organizers have thought very hard about what television network would be appropriate, and we decided this bill would be perfect because audience of a certain age, really no -- kind of the state or industry these

days. i love c-span by the way. i was looking at the newspaper in america numbers, since the 1940s until now, and over the years the industry in the u.s. has about 40 million paid readers on weekdays and about 45 on sundays. but in a much shorter time facebook has replaced their 500 plus million people, engaged audience who uses it. clearly mark zuckerberg, founder, had a great idea. but what isn't about facebook that makes it so popular, and attracts so many millions of people, more and more are joining everyday speakers thank you. before and after the question i want to say thank you for having me. this is an important industry. it really matters. i won't quote thomas jefferson but what happens in this industry matters. it matters. it's great for me to have a

chance to be here and i'm grateful for that. facebook is going really quickly. and we think this is about something bigger than just one country. but really about an evolution. and evolution from the information web to the social web. when you think about how we all use technology and i'm one of the only people at facebook old enough to remember before the web. but when the web happened it became a place where we went to get information. but most of what we did on the web and still do on the web we do it anonymously. if i go to the washingtonpost.com and i want to read an article on what's going on in congress, i do and they get the same article i get mostly, some personalization, with others. if i want to whether i go get the weather. weather.com, i look for my stock tips. most of the time i use the web im anonymous. i get the same information anyone else does. i'm doing topic driven. i know what i'm looking for. facebook is totally different. we start in a different place. we start from real identity.

when you go onto facebook, i have to be sheryl. you have to be just and. you have to be yourself because the product doesn't work if you're not yourself. we start with real identity and we make real connections. when i going to facebook i don't have a topic in mind at all. but i'm just there to hear what my friends, the people or institutions like the "washington post," i connected you want to tell me. that is the difference. a difference of the wisdom of crowd and the wisdom of france but it's more similar to how we live our lives. we live our lives not really conference driven by going around saying how are you? to which you can say anything you want. and so this is a chance for you to use a power of technology to be who you are, and connect with the real, real people of your lives. what i think we've seen over the years come and you're right, it hasn't been that many years, is that the reason there are more

than half a million people -- have a billion people using facebook is this is transformative. this transforms our relationship in many ways. it transfers what it means to be a friend, what community is, and some of it is is -- one of the questions we get is does friendship mean anything? if you can have 5000 of them, what is a community if you can get with people you only communicate online? for us the answer is simple. this is technology which gives us the power to connect to people, the way we're able to before technology. so i have two young children, i live in california. my parents live in florida. 100 years ago there's no chance i would not have lived with him, i don't know, a mile of my parents, rydquist but now i live really far away. because of facebook my parents get to see my two children growing up every single day. it's technology which really

takes friendships in communities and in many ways transforms the facts. transformative for institutions. i remember the obama election, i'm sure everyone does, right before you move to washington, people called him the facebook candidate. it was not a compliment. his life, this is what he used. this will never work. but now fast forward, it will be interesting to think about what happens in the election, the next election in the united states. and it transforms i think industry. industries are getting rebuild around social functionality in ways we think will be important for all industries, and particularly for the media industry. >> what about facebook in particular? and execution been around, others have tried to do something different or the same, but facebook clearly is the preeminent place in a lot of people put a lot of money into other rivals trying to do the

same thing. what isn't about facebook that makes it unique or different, why you have succeeded what others have failed or are not as big as your? >> i think you compare to some of the earlier players in our state. real identity. some of the other players in early social networking had a lot of profiles and those are useful but they didn't take off the same way. they didn't have the same power. the second thing is facebook is a great technology company. some of the early players had trouble getting their site that. didn't push out the same technology. we stay very focused on what we want to be. we are a technology company. we continue to build technology, and continue to change our technology. facebook transforms itself from the static profile. long before i was there. by the way, 10% of facebook users protested that change. when you see first happen ever without this is terrible. this is a violation of privacy. people are pushing information to me.

i don't want this. now if you look at what's happened in the web, there are feeds everywhere, that opportunity to build technology to push was really transformative. now people understand that it's not a problem with privacy, that it's not something they don't want. it's something people demand. that information gets fed to them in a stream type form. every stage mark leads the company by being willing to use technology, and to make the changes necessary to stay ahead. >> you mentioned earlier about how your parents are in florida and you're in california. facebook brought you closer, even though geographically you are a part. there's lots of editors in the audience. talk a little about what happened outside the u.s., to people here differently than in the u.s., i guess if your

audience members as well as our from outside the u.s., what's happening beyond our shores. >> probably the greatest with facebook internationalization as how we internationalize. so, for years ago or so we internationalize like putting up a translation consuls and letting our users, users translate the site. there are a lot of words on it, and 300,000 people all over the world got together and translated. spanish was done in two weeks. french was done in 24 hours. so this is a community itself think we want this and we're willing to put our work into it. what you're saying is correct. where over half a billion users all over the world. 70% are international. because of the way we built our product, facebook translates very well internationally because if you look at your page, almost every bit of content is created by you or your friends. we are not a product that needs to be specialized her country. because we're specialized per person.

every single person on the world who as a facebook page, or a facebook profile has an entirely personal experience. it's the broadest personalization in the world. because of that it works quite easily from country to country and language to language because the content is entirely created by the user. >> in the last few months of facebook has received a lot of attention in the middle east and south africa. how does it feel sitting where you are to be credited with like helping create peoples revolutions and a bunch of countries? >> i guess the first thing i would say is i don't think we have been credited. i don't think we deserved to be credited. they are are very brave men and women in tunisia and egypt, now and other countries, who risked their lives and are risking their lives to reclaim the what they want. and for that we are grateful, honored, and don't believe we did anything like that.

we treat platform technology. it's technology that some people use around the world to poke each other. and it's that exact same technology that people used to start this revolution. and for us that's the power. this is technology which enables every single individual to have individual voice. when you think about it, historically you had to be rich or powerful or of great interest to the people in this room to have an ability to broadcast. if your doctor susan you can't wake up one morning and have a platform historically to reach the world. but if you're rich, powerful or a leader you have that platform. you could get on tv, get an interview. what facebook has done is taken every individual and giving individuals the power of voice. when you think about the trajectory, in 2008, a young man, and adequate engineer in colombia named oscar morales was very upset about the far, large antiterrorist group in his country. he got on facebook and he didn't

protest. too much later 12 million people around the world in 200 cities marched against the farc. this is the largest antiterrorist protest the world has ever seen, three years ago. last month the new prime minister of egypt resigned. and when he resigned they didn't hold a press conference and didn't do it with a press interview. he resigned on a facebook page. so he chose as the new leader of the country to use the same technology that oscar morales did. so for us this is about individual voice, this is about giving every single person a kind of voice that can be amplified the way on the powerful people were before. and it's also like poking or remembering someone's birthday or posting pictures. >> you mentioned earlier about president obama being called the facebook can get back in 2008. and here we are getting ready for yet another election.

it's not very common for candidates, or find a paper on youtube or on twitter. it almost feels like rather than have -- [inaudible] in some ways. what are your thoughts on how social media, facebook, how do you think you'll play in the 2012 campaign and? >> the 2008 campaign in u.s. we were about 60 million users pick and i about 20 million in the u.s. for the next election, we'll be ahead of where we are now but we are already over half a million with 150 million u.s. users. at that point the demographics on facebook in the u.s. were also tilted younger. facebook started as a college only sites or and initial use in the united states were younger. and now we are basically spread the same with internet population. a few percentage points. and his -- the fastest growing population is over 65 but i

think it's fair to say we'll play a bigger role in the election. that's great. but what it excites us about this we think citizens can play a bigger role in the election. what's great about the obama election was how many young people voted who have not voted before. i think all elected leaders, i don't know them all but i think the going was very good intentions but they want to deliver for the citizens they represent and they want a connection. this gives them a way to do that. and i think candidates will as well. i think as more and more people use facebook, and 50% of our users come back every day. this is something that's part of everyone's daily lives. what they find is that you know longer can broadcast to the masses. you can no longer talk at people. you have to talk with him. facebook is a two-way communication. if you're obama and you have a facebook page, which he does, you can broadcast out that people can respond to you. when they do they can post publicly. i think this is an opportunity for every candidate to not just

talk at constituents but talk with constituents. we hope that will make for a mobile bust and engaging audience. >> not everybody in our audience knows what's happening on the campus on april 20. obama is stopping by. tell us about that. >> so, i think president obama is coming here life. former president george bush did one recent as well. he's coming to talk in front of the facebook community the road in front of the global facebook community because we will be live streamed on his facebook page and on ours. he will be able to take questions from the audience. the audience is a global world but i think that shows the inability of what we have here. the exciting thing is you don't have to be -- meet president obama to do this. you can be anyone. >> explained a little bit about what you are saying. i know you don't want to take credit for revolutions and the other platform, but it felt good

when the now famous google executive -- [inaudible] that led to protests in egypt and it must have good especially for a google executive to be using a facebook page. >> i think as a company we are very mission-based. so mark found a facebook because he believed that the world would be better if people are more connected, that putting technology giant individuals, not just information but individuals was profound. and it would have profound impacts on personal relationships, institutional relationships. and so the extent this is a summit of that mission, that's terrific. that we also take great, great pride in the other things that happen. this morning there was an article in the "l.a. times" i saw because a friend of mine posted on facebook. it said that someone donated to

a strange on facebook. the social import. economist talk a lot about the invisible victim. the 108,000 people in a country waiting for organs. it's hard to motivate yourself to donate a kidney to a number. but someone got an facebook recently and saw a post from someone who had a failing kidney and was five years away from getting one. and he said, wow, that person looks like me. i can save a life. and he did. and i think he did it because of the power of personalization because we gave that donor, the person who needed an organ, real voice. and so that's just as exciting and his some ways just as important. >> the reason i brought up google actually was our industry has a little bit of a love-hate relationship with google. the love part is -- pay part pretty common. partly because there's a sense even though they don't create,

they are in so many areas of essentially competing, making it harder for us to better on digital that you otherwise would. how do you, how do you, facebook, in terms of relationships and newspapers and? >> we think about this a lot because we want to make sure that we are a great partnership company. so that because we are a platform. we are a platform company which means we put out technology that other people can use and other people can build. and if our mission is to be the technology people use to share everywhere they are, we need great relationships within the. we need great relationship with different websites and companies. for us what we're doing is we are very focused on making all of our technology available. we push our technology such that you can use it where you are, so the "washington post" is a user of facebook technology. you can login, see what your friends have done. you can use technology on your

site without ever coming to facebook. and that's really important to us. our view is everything is better when it is social. and we want to give every organization the power or things to be social. the news industry, this is important i said before i am a huge believer in the importance of what this industry does. and the question is how i people going to discover news? the hard news, the edited news, news that is right and gives our local officials on this, which does what our heroine of the day did herself. how are we going to get people focused. one of the ways we get people there is their friends tell them. so in the last year since we pushed our facebook technologies out to websites, of all the average of the media companies that have integrated our technology, has seen a 300% left in traffic from facebook. we are delivering three times more traffic, more readers to your website to the other thing

we believe that we can deliver more engaged readers. it makes sense. if i pick up a paper and read something i were really, particularly the papers i read everyday. but if a friend of my walks up and said sheryl, read this, you'll like this. i were publicly more attention. so we find that when readers come to media sites from facebook, you are more engaged and we get this data from lots of different companies. and they stay longer and they've been in turn bring their friends with them. so in a world where people are spending so much time on facebook there so much social sharing, we want news to be a big part of that. that means making this work for you guys. we are very focused on that. >> does the 30 billion content that are shared on facebook him and you are not creating this content speak with we don't create any content ever. this is a funny story. when i have been at the company not so long, michael phelps won his eighth gold medal. and i thought this was a big deal, right? he kept getting on tv and he kept thanking facebook. literally like right afterwards,

i'm keeping in touch with everyone on facebook. i thought this was a phagocytic facebook and had a long history of no editorial voice which basically that don't create any content. it's the users page. but i thought it's nice michael phelps to thank us. over the weekend i talked to mark into putting a sign on our site which says facebook congratulate michael phelps and the u.s. olympic team. we didn't take that much of a space. i thought that was pretty basic. company internally went crazy. not just because with editorial voice, but because mark and i can't decide over the weekend without them. this is just unacceptable. by the end of the week market not apologize and said we won't do it again. that was our toe in the water of content. we just don't do it because it's your page. it is your experience, and so we don't create content, but we do enable people to share content. and that we think is really important for this industry as we work together.

>> you are actively work -- reaching out. justin is here. you have just started a journalism page. tell us a little bit about why you're trying to be more proactive about it spent we just launched journalism on facebook that i think your three days ago. where 20,000 people who have liked our page which means that follow. the page is geared to travelers to help conceal other journalists are using the paycheck rating committees. we're having our first meet up and the first one is that our campus april 21 -- 27. that's what got you talk about when you said, not about obama's trip. meet up, president over 500 journalists around the world have signed up to go. we will post them all over the world. we think journalism being engaged with facebook is important. we see great examples of people,

reporters using facebook to do some of the reporting. so getting on facebook and saying hey, this situation is happening, npr has done this famously. anyone will be part of this. people following leads. we've watched as joe's have used facebook to share in real-time. so one of the posts i saw that really kind of got to me was nicklauses posting from tahrir square in egypt saying wow, i can feel this and post something like this, feels like tiananmen square. and the power of a post like that going out to all of his followers. we also think we can come as we said, create more distribution to the media. so this is a community where we are still in very small company. but this is our largest vertically. this is a community that is very focused spent npr has done a good job. job. there are 1.5 million fans, followers. they ask a lot of questions. they get a lot of examples back. a lot of the newspaper, a little

bit more conservative, i would put it, write about, but the story were others copy the story idea where you get to do it. when a company like coke and used facebook to kind of trance source, are we being too kind of novice about using it more than we should be? >> i'm a biased answer of this question. like i think everyone should use facebook for everything. not everything. most things all the time. teenager, they should spend more time with us, not less. we appreciate that. facebook is about technology powering two-way dialogue. and so the more i think you can bring the people you're trying to reach into your process, whatever it is, the better. the example you referenced the coca-cola company crowd source, its flavor for vitamin water last march on facebook. by the time they launched, they had a great result is that all these people bought in, people

selected the vitamins, the flavors, with the packaging looks like. they engage with their consumers and that was important to them. we think when people bring people into the cycle, it's been beneficial. one thing we also really believe is that real identity is very important for this. that when people make comments that every person in this audience is so for me with on your website, when they make comments that the real identity, they are often, not always but often higher quality. because you have real identity people have the real picture, real name. they're willing to do thoughtful work. i think that type of engagement makes a difference. >> you think this social platform, get over it. [inaudible] >> i don't know enough to say that. uncertain if you're working on a big scoop you should probably post on facebook before you publish it. but the reader of the news, one story follows one story follows one story. summit after you get your big scoop, to continue the momentum and engage your committee spent

facebook, others, work with individual news organizations. and there's share data. what's your thought on sharing more aggregate level day with a body like asne, telling us more about how people behave about facebook at an aggregate level? is that something you would want to do? there's a lot of consultants that emerged now. facebook seems to kind of believe data is individuals, in the business of sharing, giving aggregate level data. but help us to know that people read more over all without telling through the individuals are? >> yeah, so this goes to the question of data and control on facebook. the first thing and most important thing is we never give personal information to any institution or organization. if you put your information on facebook, it's your data. it's your information. you can post it, you can delete it. you can share it with someone.

you can choose to share with all world by keeping your settings open to everyone or you can share it with just a few people if that's what you want. aggregate level data, we do -- we publish something coming out and then of what people are looking at but we are not really in the business of publishing aggregate do. we are focused on the experience for individual users. and focus on the experience whereby institutions can connect with those users. >> you mentioned earlier about the wisdom of friends idea. let's talk a little bit about that. most of us again in the news business have a very gingerly embraced the wisdom of clout. we do some aggregation. because the model has been that we are the gatekeepers and there's so much information out there that people who would come to us because you would be the filter. in your model, and the social media model, basically let the people decide what they want to read.

so if i'm al-jazeera and i dream all my -- stream in my view facebook, great. how do i make money? that's the concern of the industry has that all our content goes where people are, 500 plus, they will be the. what is the opportunity for us to make money? while the african back? right now they are coming back to our site but with a comeback in the future or will it just be on facebook? >> for the most part we don't host most of this country. if any player would like to put your content on facebook you can. webpages, canvas pages. you can put on a public page. you can build an application. but most of what happens on facebook are links to your site. so the article i said i saw this more from the "l.a. times" was from my friend posting an article and what was was a link and click on the when i read it i read it on the l.a. site. that's a great to join up what happened on facebook. we are sending to you, not taking news away specular also talking to a group, figure out

how to make more money digitally led by the new times most recently. what are your thoughts on asking our readers to pay for content online? >> this is once again in the industry is important and the economics are changing a thing of the economics to make this is the same addressing, a sustainable industry is of the utmost importance. there's basically two models, to ways to modify content. users can pay and advertise convicted i've never heard of either. maybe there is but if anyone hears -- if anyone here knows, let me know. and overtime it's always been some combination. some users will pay, and some advertisers will pay. i think "the new york times" is a bold experiment in one direction or another. and i think overtime it's going to be a combination. i think that pressure this puts on the industry is to provide truly infringing content. that will users pay for something that is broadly available?

probably not. will users pay for the news magazine or newspaper that his continued provides the best coverage the stories first. the best analysis. the best editorial voice. i think it will. i know i pay. and so i think the pressure to find a differentiated product is there and the pressure to find that combination is there. i think the other thing that is a bright spot for the industry is that users time and attention has moved online faster than the monetization pixel advertising dollars have moved online but i think the latest figures in the u.s. are that we only, the online world gets 13% of the adult the only will probably gets more than 30% of its time. and so as advertising dollars move online and readers move online i think newspapers will participate in that as well. so that should be helpful as well. >> reminded people that facebook

is fake. expect someone rights as head of but if you wants a head like a summit us at like 10 times, we're continued to be free. but what's funny about that is it's really important to people that stays free but as with everything i say, someone publishes a. that we are a free product service and we monetize ourselves through ads on our site spent i asked a few people what questions they would like to ask, and a doctor who is here rights, his question was, a lot of, a lot of newspapers are trying to sell digital subscription your does facebook see itself as hartmann in helping sell those subscriptions using your audience-based? >> the media if you want, people could sell subscripted on facebook right now. they can sell them on the page. they can sell them for our canvas application building. we don't offer a substantial product that helps you do it but

you concerning building herself and do it. i think as we think about what we are going to provide with a couple of principles. one is that whatever we provide will provide to ever. we are a platform. if we were to build a way to make it easier for this industry to sell subscriptions, we'll put that technology out and let people use it. we have enough technology out there like warner bros. just went on inside, on their own, started selling movies that anyone can do that. people can sell content now if they want. the other principal we have is we don't, we are about making connections. if you use our technology to connect on facebook, the "washington post" on facebook or on washingtonpost.com, we let you form a direct relationship. and if we were ever to do anything, our model would be very clear that we are enabling you to provide that direct connection. [inaudible] >> we might take some of your

money but we won't keep all of your customer data. no, i'm joking. it depends on what the model is. what word is they're using our public api and facebook credits to sell. we do take up a city. we do take 30% for credits. they chose to use a. they might not have, and they are establishing direct relationships. [inaudible] >> the customer relationship and i don't think it is the customer data. we would never give data to you. we would allow that your customers to give you did. i can come on and say they want to connect to facebook? i say yes, and then we tell you what information is going to washington to. >> that leads into a couple of questions on privacy. i'm sure you get asked a lot of the in the early days, facebook doesn't care about privacy. and then the relationship shifted to face that makes it very hard for people to manage

privacy. last year or so there has been much of a conversation about privacy on facebook. what has been the lessons about even with privacy issues and what are your overall thoughts about how facebook approaches privacy? >> privacy is of the utmost concern to us. our recent privacy was very civil, it's the users data. they own it. they can post it, delete it, we don't give it away. they can share it. interestingly facebook, you as one of the things that really made a stand out from others, and one of the things is privacy. that facebook really kind of invented or more granular privacy controls that if you think about life before facebook, things were open or close. your corporate e-mail, close. the stuff you put on a website, open. facebook came in with a total different offering compares a site you can post some things publicly, some things privately. if i post the facebook on facebook today i can share it with my mom, my high school

girlfriend, i'm in a group with them, all of my colleagues at facebook or the whole world. no other site at least that i'm aware of offers the ability to do your privacy with every single thing you do. now, that offers more control than we've ever seen before. that's because we cared so much about this, part of what made facebook grow so quickly. on the other hand, that's also more confusing. some of the notes you -- matt shepard, we think about this a lot in the sense there's a direct tension between control. and control and simplicity. we can make it super simple. by just making it all closed or all opened. that takes away control. but we can give you perfect control. that gets pretty confident. when you saw that a year ago every time he rolled out a product, we care so much about privacy, we rolled out a privacy control. and we had like a lot of privacy controls and people were confused. then we did two things. we left out the granular privacy controls for people that still

want to use them and are not confused that there are a good percentage of our users who can do that. by the way, your teenage kids are among them. they know exactly how to use our privacy control because they want to post the right pictures do you like the ones of them in the library, and once of them like sleeping in, they don't post those too. those goes only to their friends. the younger users, not all but some are incredible sophisticated. that you have a very detailed privacy controls available. we have simple controls which provide control. as we think about privacy, we want to continue to air on the site of control. meaning we want to continue to give people the ability to control their information even if they have to learn some things to do it. because users are getting more sophisticated. 65 year-old could do on our site last year they do very frequently now. and so we want to continue to give control. we want to continue make privacy as easy to understand possible so the more we can make privacy

front and center when you're taking an action, so that right there you can see it, the better off you'll be and we'll continue to push in that direction. >> i will ask one more question and then turned to the audience to have your questions ready. related to privacy, there's a lot of conversation in washington about closing the government, but about this idea of like cookies and do not follow and putting restrictions on advertisers to track their users. at one level it seems like it's a good thing for us to cater advertising to users interest in behavior. and clearly, there's more revenue opportunities if you do that. what are your thoughts and cookies and do not follow, and should the government be kind of pudding, or at least offering some restrictions on that? >> so, the facebook advertising model is very simple. and we think sets the standard by far for privacy on the internet. we host answered all of our own ads. so, we never give out any

individual information to any advertiser. and we do not cookie anyone for the purposes of ad tracking or at following at all. we just are not involved in it. it depends on for about the do not try proposed would not change our business at all. we think it's important that users know how their information is being used and who it is being given to. and there is some concern with some of the practices on the web where users are not sure what's happening with their day. i think that is something that is of a concerted it's part of why we've run our ads is in the way we do. third party is all done by ourselves so that we know we are treating each users data that carefully. >> why don't i open it up to question. do tell us who you are, and again, just a reminder, questions are for our members only. >> my name is marty. so, given your stated concern

about privacy, i wonder if you could comment specifically on the legislative that is being prepared now by senator john kerry in collaboration with senator john mccain that would place tighter control on the kind of information that is tracked on the web. and you said, for example, that individuals would never tolerate the private sector fallen comrade to see what they're doing and providing that information to marketers. now i understand, -- i understand you don't provide peoples private information, individual information to marketers. on the other hand, you make of able to marketers i believe he opportunity to market these people engage in certain kind of behavior and certain types of connections, certain type of interest, things of that sort all the information is maintained in house at facebook. so, what are your thoughts specifically on that legislation that is being prepared by john kerry and john mccain?

>> so, our staff is working with the staff of senator kerry and senator mccain on the legislation, and it's been a good process. i haven't seen the latest drafts i can't content -- comment on the specific content that we think it's important that users understand what happened but we think is what important that is transparency for users in what's happening. we are glad to work with them on figuring out the right way to do that. and making sure that we are balancing that with the ability to continue. [inaudible] what so ever be used by marketers at all on their facebook page? basically a block on any opportunity to use their behavior on facebook for marketing purposes. >> i think your question combining a couple of different concepts. there's a concept in marketing called behavioral targeting. what it generally means online

is that you are figuring out based on people's behavior, the websites they go to, who they are. we don't do that. we don't track people around the web to figure out what they are doing. we enable marketers to target certain demographics, which is not the same thing as being of targeting. we don't have the legislation in front of us. i think what's important is the public debate. the public debate and a transparency for people to understand how they're being marketed to, how their information is being used. we want that for users. i think everyone wants that for users as well as the senators. >> question here. i think you may want to go to the mic because again, they are taking it. >> and if anybody else wants to the question after that, if you don't mind getting to a mic. >> i am marjorie miller from "the associated press" based in latin america. apart from restrictions on

speech or the media in different countries, do you find that there's either a regional or national difference in the way different people use facebook? a lot of us are from latin america media, and are looking for ways to use facebook for our own purposes. so do latin americans for spanish speakers use it any differently in french or english or other's? >> it's a great question. and the answer is, i think each individuals use it differently. but there's not differences we can see between countries. that basically, you know, people post pictures. the content of those pictures may be completely culturally different. it takes into account what is culturally appropriate. people post comments. people link to new sites but they are likely to get very different sites depending on what country they are in, but the picture posting, posting of

comments, goes insane behaviors and we see them all over the world. >> show, are there any conditions that you are concerned, malaysia, people are much faster in embracing facebook banned let's say ecuador? have you seen any pattern based on either -- >> what tends to happen -- certainly think of our penetration as penetration of internet connected population but so did the on facebook you are literate and have access to the web. otherwise you can't be on facebook or in some cases access to a mobile device. we don't see differences in that. what we do see is that facebook is able to grow more and more rapidly in different parts of the world. >> question there and then i will come you. [inaudible] he's a mechanical engineer, background, and director of communication of ip school. we discuss two different things. that you maybe can clarify for us. he said that facebook is a company about technology.

and they said i understood you facebook is economy of the human beings. so, which of the two, please? >> such a great question. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? >> i've been misquoted and taken to pick your getting covenant. it's a great question. we are a company about technology that empowers human beings. what's interesting about that is we basically think that all industries are going to be redesigned that way around what we call social design. so i give you an example. for anyone here who has posted a photo on facebook, you compare our photo products or any other photo -- photographs on the web, our product doesn't do very much. you can crop, sand, get rid of your gray-haired, face it i posted that you can do that much. our photo that does one thing which you can tag your friends in an assignment where they are. it is social.

it offers far less bells and was and any other photo product on the web is by far the most social experience. iphoto product is by far the number one in the world. we are bigger than numbers two, three and four combined. that's because the power of social technology is a combination of the two things you asked about, is that powerful. when you look at the meat industry this has been important for that also. the "huffington post," you know, very publicly has use facebook and integrator deeply, and has seen tremendous growth as well as more engagement. using other industries the gaming industry. there are 200 by people who play games on facebook. that's more people than play games on the top three consoles combined. that's because it's social. i think the answer to your question is we are technology and we are social. when you combine those things designed for social industry, designed for social experience, it's incredibly powerful. one thing i would be think about a lot of fire in this audience is have what is a social news

expense? how do i take them all the way to the in? every other industry we have seen, the more social experience, the faster it grows the "huffington post," place fish, iphoto product of these things are social but the question is if you're going to be technology and social, social by design, what does that look like for each industry and are you. >> out next that we're asking that question at 4 p.m. >> and editor of the commercial appeal in memphis. shale, i want to ask you a couple of questions about what scares you about the future of facebook and i want to post to possibility when he said the fastest growing audience for facebook is over 65, my children didn't like that at all. they really didn't. that seem like it was going in a different direction that they didn't want. and, of course, so that's one. is there something where there's a core audience, facebook is so yesterday, i'm going to go

somewhere else. that's one question. the other one is this whole issue of social engineering. because do you ever worry that the two of facebook could be used by a socially savvy desperate, or someone who could use the technology as a way to influence the masses in something that would not be as good for humanity as you have described? >> so, to your first question from a couple of years ago when we started writing a different demographics, probably two and half years ago, there was a lot headlines, oh, my god, my mom is on facebook, i'm getting all. at first it was like i wonder if people will see that, older generation is getting a. what people realize no matter who is on facebook, you connect with them if you want. the, question i get, my kids won't find me. what can you do? well, not a psychologist, don't know, not my problem. can't help you. but really, we have not seen the youth league as older people have got on because i understand

they get to connect to whatever we wanted it is totally personal. to your second question, anything that can be used and can be as powerfully can be used for good and evil. hillary clinton said this i think white beautifully in a speech she gave a while ago, i think one of her first a big internet speech where she said this is powerful technology. it can be as powerfully for good and powerfully forbade. we take security very seriously. so we've had situations situations where we thought people, we catch and we change it real quickly. so that in order for it to be used for evil, you have to connect to those. that users would have to make those connections themselves. our security is such where leaders of this in the world, it's not going to happen without it being very public and visible. >> chris touched on but let me follow quickly. i'm sure you are a very sound sleeper, but what teachers up from a competitive point of view? what do you worry about? >> we think about this a lot because we're growing quickly

and expectations are high. we are quite confident that last of congress are in this position and different things happen. i think the fundamental risk to us is her own execution. it's always funny when companies list their risk they don't mention their cells to most companies just mess it up all on their own. so i think probably the biggest risk to us is us. we will get it wrong, we will miss a train, hire too many people come high or too few people. we won't do it correctly. i think we have to be humble enough and i think it is true, to the most nervous about ourselves. and i think the other thing for us, how does technology evolve? one of the standard, what is the openness? how do these movements play out? >> i will take one last question from the audience. >> my name is fernando. it's a follow-up to the previous gentleman's question. there's a saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. you had mentioned earlier about

just now about good and evil, people using it for bad or using it for good. but you also mention you are collaborating with the congressman to establish new rules for privacy. what rules does facebook have to ensure that it's not being used for evil? and at what point does a user or activity breaches those rules and become eligible to return over to the authorities? >> so, the rules are really simple. data belongs to a user and we never get it to anyone. that is the simple most important -- >> not even if the government is investigating specific of? >> there are times in different countries, in accordance with the law we are required to hand over information, and we do. we don't -- we do it in very limited, very legal terms. have been times when facebook has been used to, you know, stop bad things are happening to and that's probably a good thing.

but it's really fairly limited. what's really important for us as a technology, is that we enable you to put your information on. we enable you to share with who you want to share it and we make sure your account is not compromised. in security we're very focused that we just rolled out something come and join notice as you come to facebook from a computer you don't normally come to them it will not just say hey, are you this person, but it will send an e-mail to your pima county mature. we are continually working hard at staying ahead of any ability to compromise. and we have very, very good track record of protecting users. something we care about. >> hasn't happened here? have you had to reach that level where you have had to give public or private information to the federal government as part of investigations because we have cooperate with some federal -- some investigations and given some. in accordance with the law which is true of every company that operates in the country. >> thank you spent students that i shouldn't ask any more questions but i will ask one

more. how do you use facebook? 3000 friends. how do you personal use of? >> i use it in different ways. probably my most important usage is i have a group of six, seven, like my girlfriends, my closest friends in my world from growing up. and we live in different parts of the country and we have a group. and i posted just this morning, had a hard day yesterday, up early, and the way i did it was i posted it to my six girlfriends and i'm quite certain when i'm out of this idiot they will have put comments back. so it enables me, i don't live there any of them any more, to share with them. i also, i used to follow news like the article i told you about. and i used to stay in touch with my friends, see what's going on in the world around. >> you still buy the new times and "washington journal"? >> i do. my husband and i are the original peters of the newspaper print. i still really like that.

it fits well on the treadmill, right? you know, it does, right? it works really well for me. >> sheryl, thank you very much. >> thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, sheryl, raju, glory. we appreciate you being here. we reconvene at 2:10. thank you everyone. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> send me the bill in its present form, i will sign it. okay, any questions? [laughter] >> are you still here? >> almost every of the president and journalist meet at the white house correspondents dinner to make a little fun of themselves at their own expense the president obama will have their again this saturday. watch life will go back and watch a pass dinner.

search, watch, click and share online at the c-span video library. every program since 1987. watch what you want when you want. >> immigration officials estimate the usb ported record numbers of illegal aliens in 2009, and then again in 2010. princeton university recently held a symposium looking into these deportations. u.s. immigration policy and national security with homeland security officials, new jersey congressman rush holt and immigration groups. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> i hope i am not butchering. before i continue, and introduce julie, let me introduce congressman rush holt who really does not meet and introduction. he is our democratic representative for the 12 district in new jersey. and he is well known to you because very few districts in

the whole united states can brag that their congressman, or their congressman is a rocket scientist, and ours is. and if there was any doubt about his extraordinary accomplishments, as you know, if you have been keeping up with the news, mr. holt recently defeated the ibm computer at jeopardy. this is not the first time he has beat competitors at jeopardy. but this time, and so mr. holt, making time at an extraordinary busy schedule, has taken time in order to open this event with a few remarks. and we welcome you, and we thank you for that gracious acceptance of our invitation. >> thank you. would you like me to speak from

your? >> that would be good. >> thank you. thanks for the invitation to take part in what promises to be a very good discussion. i look forward to taking, taking part in as much of it as my schedule allows. and i would like to just say a few things to kick it off. and then get to the discussion. i should get right to the point, which is that mass deportations are a manifestation of a dysfunctional immigration policy. as i've said on many occasions, we as a government can encourage -- can't encourage breaking the law. included the people of the united states have a legitimate right to insist that anyone wishing to emigrate to this country does so through a legal

process. the 9/11 hijackers successfully exploited our broken immigration system, penetrated the country, and carried out the attacks with devastating effect. .. the

constitutionality of that law or some other bill passes congress. now, as a u.s. citizen, josh

should receive the full rights granted for all citizens and should not be singled out based on his sexual orientation which is clearly what is occurring here. in not allowing josh to sponsor henry firoieza. in define the did you say put a moratorium of widows of u.s. citizen husbands who were killed during the wars in afghanistan and iraq before they received their green cards so there's no reason at all why the department should not take a similar analogous approach to cases like josh and henry's. in a statement released just a few weeks ago, attorney general holder said that after careful consideration, including his

review -- the attorney general's own review and recommendations, quote, the president has concluded that given a number of factors including a documented history of discrimination classifications based on sexual orientation should not be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. the president has also concluded that section 3 of doma as applied to legally same-sex couples fails to meet that standard and is, therefore, unconstitutional. given that conclusion the attorney general has instructed the department not to go after such cases, end quote. i should hope in this case and similar immigration cases, that approach would be taken. now, right now the new majority in the house, in the house of representatives, i think, is unlikely to take in the short term anyway a realistic or meaningful steps to solve this

immigration problem. we've got a taste of that when the dream act was derailed in the senate last fall. now, there are a number of reasons why i've supported the dream act and i think some around this table have. but it's interesting that a few months ago the "wall street journal" published an editorial why they supported it. you know, what is to be gained, they wrote, by holding otherwise law abiding young people who had no say in coming to this country responsible for the illegal actions of others? the dream act also makes legal status contingent on school achievement and military service, the type of behavior that ought to be encouraged and rewarded. now, we can argue about whether such contingencies should be attached, but it's interesting that even the "wall street journal" editorial board can support such a bill but regrettably the senate

republicans and some democrats couldn't see it that way, which is why the bill died. clearly, we must have comprehensive immigration reform. as i say, the deportations of which i've just mentioned a couple of examples are really the result of a broken system. and for practical and regulatory reasons as well as for political reasons, i think a comprehensive approach, rather than a piecemealed approach to reform of immigration laws is what is called for. >> thank you very much, congressman holt. we're honored by your presence. and let me just very briefly explain what the formats of this event will be. we will have three presenters, julia preston, whom i'm about to introduce, will preside. i have the necessary but sometimes unpleasant job to be

the timekeeper. and i will have to be draconian in my timekeeping. and i will not hesitate to interpret our beloved guests, which it takes a lot of chutzpah to do that and i apologize in advance. but in order to make this work, we will need to be very attentive to time. there are a couple of other people that i want -- that i will recognize in the future and she has been an extraordinary citizen in the country and she is here with channel 30 and she is and we're proud to have her as a member of the board of directors as the latin american legal defense fund. i welcome richard and i want to acknowledge the presence.

and with that said, let me introduce julia preston, who i think is a part of the reason why so many distinguished guests are with us today. she has been the national immigration correspondent for the "new york times" since 2006. before she had numerous important positions. and she is a 1998 pulitzer prize winner for reporting on international affairs. she will be presiding over both panels. we will have an intermission around 4:20 or 4:30. we hope you will interact and then again i will have the unpleasant job to bring you back to your seats so that we can have the second panel -- the first panel's overview of the

challenges confronted by the department of homeland security and immigration and customs enforcement as they try to implement the law of the land. and i think this is important because we are, especially in this kind of crowd, clearly sympathetic to individuals and community who are receiving the brunt of these policies but don't listen enough with the representatives who are charged with the important and difficult man dates to implement the law of the land and that's the reason why we are so pleased to have among us john sandweg who is counselor to secretary napolitano. we're very honored by his presence here. and also with us is seth grossman, chief of staff, office of the general counsel at the department of homeland security. they are among us representing those important organizations.

our other speaker will be ted olden who is a distinguished member of the council foreign relations and has a recently published become entitled "the closing of the border" he will alert us of the significant of placing immigration law under the rubric of national security. you've already heard some thought-provoking comments from congressman holt. i am, therefore, now proud to introduce our presiders, and you will speak from where you are. >> do you want to introduce jamie as well? >> and i'm sorry i will not introduce amy gottlieb who is our speaker who is part of an organization that you all know. and amy has been remarkable in

her advocacy activities and a very knowledgeable person about immigration. thank you. >> before i begin, i want to make one last acknowledgement that i hope will not be -- not be pro forma. i think many people in this room have been involved in some point or another in organizing an event like this. you all know that it takes a lot of planning and imagination and very hard work, and that work in this case was done by patricia fernandez-kelly and nancy doland and we're very proud of the passion that you bring to this organization. >> it is our pleasure. >> the rapid deportations of foreigners in the united states under the obama administration -- are we okay? can you hear? have had a wider and more conspicuous deep failed impact than perhaps any other aspect of the president's immigration policy. according to immigration and

customs enforcement, in the first two fiscal years of president obama's term, almost 783,000 people were removed from this country. in both 2009 and 2010, ice set records for the annual numbers of deportations. since the department of homeland security began its immigrations in 2003, surpassing by more than 122,000 in those two years the number of deportations in the last two years of the bush administration. in a remarkably short period of time, ice has grown into a huge investigative agency, second only to the fbi with 20,000 employees and a budget of more than $5.7 billion. dhs has achieved its record deportation numbers by, among other efforts, intensive, sometimes expedited prosecution of illegal entrance in some areas of the southwest by expanding efforts to identify

immigrants in jails and prisons through the criminal alien program. by sweeps called enforcement insurgents generally in coordination with state and local please which often in recent times have been focused by gangs and by stepped-up operations to locate suspected fugitives because immigration removal because they missed court hearings. ice has new emphasis incorporating with local law enforcement. the 287g program operates through signed memorandums with local authorities which allow ice to train and deputize those police to carry out some immigration enforcement. it is a small program. it's operating in only 72 jurisdictions nationwide. with a very big political and social echo effect wherever it is activated. also since october, 2008, ice has rolled out a program known as secure communities.

that connects local, state -- excuse me, that connects state and local police departments to dhs fingerprint databases alongside the fbi criminal databases already in common use. this is not a small program. dhs' current position seems to be that adopting secure communities will be in practice to secure all communities in the jurisdiction by 2013. so that the immigration status of every person in the nation brought by law enforcement will be checked by that year. within these programs, ice has set priorities, saying it will use its resources to detain and deport criminal offenders first -- detain and deport criminal offenders first. by way of starting the discussion, i would make three observations. these deportation programs are conducted under the broad national security framework of dhs, an agency created as we all know in response to the 911

terrorist attacks. ice's primary mission is, and i quote to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws. arguably, not since world war ii have national security concerns been so dominant in american immigration policy. second, to date, the administration's removal policies have attracted notable political opposition. the deportations have cast long shadows in immigrant communities across the country. supporters of president obama have been surprised and dismayed to find that probably the most salient aspect of his immigration policies so far has been a vigorous effort to build an effective immigration enforcement system. and not the comprehensive immigration reform he repeatedly promised. republicans have called for more crackdown measures, although they have generally avoided agreeing to benchmarks that might help to measure whether current policies are working. finally, the operation of these programs signifies the use by

ice and dhs a vast discretion in carrying out its priorities and deciding who will be deported. this discretion seems to be little understood by the public. and perhaps by ice agents on the ground. according to ice figures, more than 450,000 of the people removed in the last two years were noncriminals. recent data show that the exercise of discretion by ice agents varies widely from one jurisdiction to the next and from region to region. we hope today to have what diplomats call a frank and candid discussion, nonpolemical, practical of dhs' deportation policies and their impact on the communities and the local governments that experience them most directly. and with that, i will turn over to john sandweg -- >> mr. sandweg, 12 minutes. [laughter] >> thank you for having me and allowing to present the

department's views. i want to get in an overview of some of the things you were speaking about, what our priorities are and why we're doing what we're doing. let me make clear one thing. dhs and ice are not enforcing the law because of politics. we're not enforcing the law because on cir. we're doing it with a law enforcement agency because a statutory mission and obligation to enforce the law. we have an appropriations mandate that requires to us enforce the law. now, you know, we've been criticized overenforcement of the law and on the right for perhaps under enforcement of the law. what i hope to do is make clear doing what we're doing and why we're doing it. while we have to enforce the law we do have discretion in terms of deciding what our priorities are. when secretary napolitano came to the department, her number one obligation was to, you know, tighten who ice is removing in order to make it more about public safety than it is about

just enforcement of the law. just randomly gathering people. i think over the last two years we've been able to show that you can do immigration enforcement in a more intelligent way, targeting populations that do present a public safety threat while still carrying out statutory mandates. so how have we done this? secured communities is probably one of the best ways we've been able to do this. and let me explain secure communities because i think there's a lot of misconceptions about what the secure communities is and isn't doing. secure communities only work if the state or local law enforcement agency books an individual into that state or local jurisdiction's jail for the violation of a state criminal offense. you have -- the officer has to have independent probable cause that the defendant violated the law. it does not mean speeding tickets. it means a violation of state

criminal law. there are a couple of problems we can discuss that the department is carefully looking at but the reality is it's a state law violation. your fingerprints are then taken in most law enforcement jurisdictions and they will send them to the fbi to see if that's a criminal history and to verify that's your identity. the fbi then sends to ice for an immigration check. if someone who is not in the country lawfully ice will notify the local office who will then take action as appropriate. even within that framework, ice exercises priority. we have limited number of detention beds. we have about 33 detention beds on a limited day. so we look at the criminal offense, the history of the person and exercise in our priorities again with our mind to public safety first.

we determine how we're going to enforce the law against that particular individual. it doesn't always appear that way on paper. but the reality is that -- i shouldn't say on paper but in the tone that has been out in the community we've taken a good look at the communities and secure communities has been dramatically enabled i.c.e. to increase the percentage of people who they removed who are convicted criminals. in 2010, i.c.e. for the first time deported over 50% of the people removed of a criminal offense. that it had never -- not in recent history. large measure was due to secure communities and what it allowed to tighten up and who we're focusing on. moving on, we have gotten away from some of the -- the operations that don't result in the apprehension of criminal --

we have not done rates in the very beginning of 2009. we have -- we have done fugitive operations, however, those are operations targeting serious and convicted criminals who are, you know, been released prior to -- were not identified earlier in the process. all in all i think that under any objective measures, i.c.e. has changed the culture and who we enforce the law against and greatly increase the percentage of criminal aliens. i'm happy to get in as we go along about secure communities in particular and some of the other programs that i.c.e. has been operating. unless and until the statute's changed dhs is under an obligation to enforce the law. there has been no bigger proponent than the president and secretary napolitano. on the dream act itself, the secretary spent hours on the phone with members of congress, doing press calls and all of the

heads of the immigration components, all the, you know, significant outreach to encourage passage of the dream act. but unless and until those laws are changed, we do not retain the statutory discretion to do wholesale changes in our enforcement posture. what we can do, however, is again focus on the public safety and try to identify and remove those individuals who are not just in the country unlawfully but have committed a criminal offense on top of that. and i think again you will see the trend will continue to improve the ledger, the criminal side will continue to increase the noncriminal side decrease. i would just add a point to think about that is largely because of secure communities and i'll leave it at that. >> and i think that we will thank you for your brevity and also for your clarity. in addition to timekeeping, my job is to make sure that we don't don't end up shooting each other. [laughter] >> this is a very, very civil group and i'm sure they'll have

a response. i'd like to then give the floor to ted. 12 minutes. >> thank you, patricia. and thank you julia for the invitation to be here. the discussion of immigration and national security is rarely about what it should be about. what it ought to be about is how the u.s. government can best use the various tools of immigration policy, visas, background checks, identity verification, border searches and internal enforcement of immigration laws which is the subject of the meeting today to try to keep out or remove those who pose a serious threat to the united states. instead, since the 9/11 attack, the fear that some immigrants may pose a serious security threat has led to a massive expansion of enforcement measures that has primarily affected illegal immigrants who do not pose any security threat. much of what we will talk about here today on detention and deportation is a consequence of the unfortunate confluence of

two events. the 9/11 attacks and record levels of illegal immigration into the united states. the year preceding the attacks, 2000, saw the highest number of apprehensions by the border patrol, nearly 1.7 million incidents that has ever taken place in a single year. the number this past year was fewer than 450,000 which is probably 200,000 individuals. so 9/11 occurred in an environment in which americans were already very concerned over illegal immigration. and quite prepared to embrace harsh measures to tackle the problem. after 9/11, the bush administration focused intensively on how immigration laws could be used to help prevent further terrorist attacks. if you look in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the arab and muslim men who were arrested and detained, many for months and years almost all were held on immigration violations and eventually deported even though some didn't even have a convention to the terrorism system. the visa system remains much

tighter today. and programs like the system for registering and tracking arabs and muslims who come to the united states was put into place. so given the details of 9/11 these measures made some sense. all 19 of the highjackers after all received legal visas to come to the united states which certainly revealed holes in the visa system. 5 of the 19 were out of status at the time of the attacks, which indicated that weak enforcement of immigration laws could be a serious security problem and most important what followed in deportation policies, 4 of 5 including three of the 5 were stopped for traffic violations in the months before the attacks when they were, in fact, living in the united states illegally. the individual in the bush administration who seized on this set of facts is probably known to some of you in this

room. chris kobach who at the time was an advisor to attorney general john ashcroft on immigration policy. kobach was the legal advisory for arizona. he was the leader of the hazleton missouri to try to crack down on illegal immigration and he is the one of defending sheriff joe arpaio to carry out immigration functions. i would also identify kobach as the individual who did more than any other to launch the section 287g program that julia referred to in her opening comments. i know this sounds odd because 287g was created by congress as part of the 1986 immigration law but 287g was stillborn. no agreement had been signed between the federal government, any local or state police force which is required for this program to go in effect. no agreement had been signed before 2001.

it was kobach who revived it and the rationale with counterterrorism. now, you might ask, you know, what's the link between getting state and local police-involved in immigration enforcement and terrorism? well, one of the pilots who was the pilot at the controls of the plane that was brought down in shanksville, pennsylvania, he was pulled over by a maryland police officer driving 90 miles an hour heading north by the delaware border. the officer went back and ran the usual wants and warrants, nothing showed up so he wrote him a ticket for $270 which was actually found in his possessions after the attack. sent him on his way. at the time he had overstayed his tourist visa so he had no right to be in the united states. that information was not in the database that was being checked by local police officers. two of the other pilots had also been stopped for traffic violations in oklahoma and twice actually in florida. had such information had been

available to local police, three of the four pilots might have been identified as illegal immigrants, turned over to federal immigration authorities and deported and perhaps the plot never would have gotten off the ground so at kovack's urging and that others in justice strongly supported by attorney general ashcroft the 287g memorandum of understanding which imparted this understanding in the department of justice and the state of florida in 2002. there's a similar post-9/11 story that does much to explain why the number of people in detention have doubled in the last decade. the old inf simply did not have the old bed space to detain those many picked up on immigration violations. most were released and told to appear before an immigration judge and not surprisingly were never seen again. catch and release was the shorthand for this practice. and it was considered acceptable in the pre-9/11 environment.

well, post-9/11 when officials began to look back, they discovered that one of the failed pre-9/11 plots, in an effort to bomb the brooklyn subway was led by a palestinian terrorist who had come across from canada, been detained and released into the country. there was no bed space to hold onto him. so after september 11, again, largely, not exclusively, but largely on national security grounds, dhs took on the sizeable project of ending catch and release by building enough jail cells to incarcerate most of those arrested for immigration violations while they await their dates before an immigration judge. as a result, on any given day as john mentioned we got about 32, 33,000 people in jail up about from 7,000 in the mid-1990s. i want to be clear, there were certainly some sound enforcement for improving the national immigration law. the 9/11 attacks show terrorists were capable of exploiting weaknesses in u.s. immigration

and visa laws to enter the united states and remained here while they plotted the attacks. many of the initiatives launched over the past decade by dhs could greater -- i've got to give state credit. greater security of passports and other identity documents, biometric of identity. all of these have made it harder tore would-be terrorists to enter the united states and the fbi and dhs have been able to use immigration violations to arrest and deport some of those who are believed to be connected with terrorism but not otherwise individuals who can be prosecuted. but the national security argument has also been exploited effectively by those whose primary agenda is not advancing national security but rather restricting immigration. chris kobach is exhibit a. but if you take a look at the publications of the center for immigration studies, a research group that advocates lower levels of immigration -- i went

back and looked at everything they wrote between 1986 and september of 2001 and not a single one of their papers focused on immigration policy and national security. if you look post-9/11, roughly half of cis' publications have been about various aspects of how u.s. immigration policies threaten national security. now, we can interpret this in different ways. it is certainly true that september 11 was a wakeup call for many that weak or poorly enforced immigration laws could pose a security risk, but it is also clearly true that after 9/11, the terrorist threat became especially compelling argument in favor of something that cis and other groups had long advocated namely lower immigration levels and crackdown on immigration. >> two minutes. >> two things are clear about the relationship between national security and immigration enforcement in the post-9/11 era. first, the united states in the past decade has greatly expanded its enforcement efforts. secondly, the overwhelming

majority of those affected by enforcement do not pose any sort of security threat. terrorist, criminal or otherwise. unfortunately, what 9/11 helped to do was help solidify both in the public mind and in the actions of the government the notion that illegal immigration poses a serious immigration threat and, therefore, extremely harsh measures, lengthy incarceration and prison sentences and deportation are appropriate. that continues to be the frame to which the issue is considered. the obama administration can't publicly embrace the notion that all illegal immigrants should be deported. after all, this is an immigration that favors comprehensive immigration reform that will legalize many of those who are here illegally. therefore, the public justification is that its enforcement policies aimed only at removing criminals who pose a security threat. some certainly do, the vast majority certainly don't. to conclude quickly, i fear making genuine progress on this

issue will be all but impossible unless the perception of the strong link good terrorism and criminality on the one hand and illegal migration on the other can be broken. but, unfortunately, this is simply not part of the current public debate. for all that genuine efforts it has made to make the detention and deportation system more humane, the obama administration's current strategy by re-enforcing the link between serious criminality and garden-variety terrorism plays in the hands who are opposed of the immigration reform that this administration wants. thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much, ted. amy, 12 minutes. >> thank you. it's kind of a tough act to follow. i want to thank the organizers for this. it's truly an honor to be speaking here amongst such incredible minds on this issue. i was asked to speak a little

bit -- is this working? i was asked to speak a little bit about the impact of detention deportation in new jersey communities. i worked in 1996. i worked as a very young staff attorney, maybe not that young but right out of law school, right after the 1996 immigration laws passed so learning immigration law for me was learning about this incredible change in the structure of how immigration laws were processed and whether people were annual -- able to remain in the united states and when i was practicing and i might say i don't practice anymore, you know, i need estimate 7 out of 10 people who would come to my nonprofit office looking for legal assistance were not eligible for any kind of immigration status, at all. there was nothing we could do for people. we had to tell them, sorry, you don't qualify even though you've been here for 10 years, there's nothing we can do.

even though you may have a u.s. citizen wife there's nothing we can do. we've seeing this big picture immigration laws shifting and changing but with a sort of constant that has been in effect really since 1965 that shows that our immigration law are a disaster and i will steal this line which is my favorite. the immigration law textbook that we use in class -- the first sentence of the textbook is the immigration and nationality act is a hideous creature. and i think that says it all as you're trying to kind of untangle what the real story is. what's happening in our immigration law. and i agree with pretty much everything that has been said so far except for perhaps members of people who have been deported

without criminal convictions. but, you know, the issue for us, i think, is what is the big picture mean. we have this really schizophrenic policy. how is it directly affecting our families and communities? and how can we take away the statistics that claim we're deporting high numbers of people who perhaps are supposedly pose a threat to our communities when what we're seeing every single day are families being torn apart, communities being devastated? so i wanted to share about a year ago my office organized a briefing before members of congress and we brought down a bus load of families from new jersey who have been impacted by immigration detention and deportation. and we had four kids read their testimonies. they wrote their testimonies. they're available on our website. we have audio of them, and we saw these kids speak to a packed room of representatives and staffers of congressional

offices and tears were flowing. we all know these are heart-wrenching cases. i just wanted to share one very quick story. my name is joplin the last time i saw my morning before leaving to school. i have not seen her since a year ago. this is in 2010. i do talk with her but i get very sad when i do. her voice has changed through the passing of time. i imagine that she might not look the same. she probably looks older. every night i think about what my mother looks like at this present moment. i also wonder if she thinks of us and how much we've changed and grown since she last saw us. i also think about the last time we saw her. i wonder how and why she had to go and leave my brothers and i. i remember my brothers' reaction when they learned she was not coming back. it was heartbreaking to see their sad faces. my mother left when my baby sister was about to turn 1-year-old. it is challenging to take care of a baby and four younger brothers. this is a high school student very close to here in new jersey

who is now taking care of her younger siblings, is working, is trying to finish her high school degree and her mom has been sitting in mexico trying desperately to think about a way to rejoin her family. that's just one of the thousands of examples that we see. we know that thousands of people, in fact, 1100 people a day have been that deported under the obama administration and, you know, what our perspective is -- we would hope that in recognizing that the current immigration law is not working -- we know it has to change and we would hope that there would be more of a transnational approach to immigration law, not only looking at immigration from how it impacts the individuals residing in the united states but look more broadly at the root causes of migration, why people come here and consider that migration is a global

phenomenon. that we are not going to fix our immigration policies through this mass deportation as congressman holt says. the mass deportations are just a man -- manifestation of our system. we have a responsibility to be getting these stories out there and to be talking about the individuals. and i think, you know, the reality of the 1996 laws and subsequent changes to our system have created havoc. you know, it's in part due to the creation of the national security system and the department of homeland security but even before that we saw this massive increase of people in detention and people being deported including people who were convicted of crimes a long time ago and the mandatory detention and deportation of these people who have been long-standing members of their communities in many cases who have long since atoned for their sins -- those people also facing

deportation are crucially not being heard and we are not hearing their stories but the impact on those families is one that we desperately need to talk to. what we would like to see in a certain immigration law is that an immigration judge has discretion to look at a person beyond their criminal conviction or their criminal charge. and also that at this stage, until we have this change of immigration law, we do recognize that there's discretion. and, you know, i live in new york city and i work in new jersey and i've seen i.c.e. discretion used in very different ways on the new york side of the river versus the new jersey side of the river and i think, you know, the same person having dependent where they came from is problematic for our big picture and that is not to say we should use the harsher approach but we should really be looking more broadly at an approach that recognizing the individual in each of these

cases. so as we move forward -- we meet frequently with i.c.e. officers in new jersey. i've been in the i.c.e. -- many of us have been in the i.c.e. office and to walk in there and a packed room of faces of people who are in there for a regular check-in at which they might be arrested. they might not be arrested. the fear that people have going into those check-ins, the crowded room, the sense of terror that you feel when you walk into the waiting room at the deportation office of i.c.e. in new jersey knowing that these are people who are walking free on the streets, even if they had a criminal conviction in the past, the criminal legal system has determined that they are eligible to be released, that they can be living amongst us but ice has decided and the immigration laws have decided that these people must be moved out. so when you walk in and feel

that terror, that fear of the permanent separation or often permanent separation from a family member, we know that we have an awful lot to do. and the last thing i'll say is that we also need to be in communication with our schools and with anybody who works with kids where a parent has been deported because the impact on that deportation on that child and on that family spreads way beyond that individual and hits every single person in that school, the teachers, the other kids, the neighbors, everybody and we're all deeply impacted by it. >> and we are thankful for your comments and for your brevity and your directness. before i pass the baton over to our presider, let me remind you that there are biographical excerpts -- we are not reading them in the interest of time. but i'd like to bring your attention to the presence here of individuals who are truly extraordinary legal minds including david martin, who i

suspect will be soon speaking. who has won the distinguished professor of international law at the university of virginia but who has had direct experience with the department of homeland security. we also have robert ashbaugh who is not only a member of the advisory board of the latin american legal defense fund but is also the former deputy inspector general for the department of justice, and i did mention seth grossman who is also at the department of homeland security. other distinguished attorneys around the table in the company of representatives of advocacy organizations and public officials. so you have the floor, madam presider. >> okay. i think what i'm going to do is first -- john, i don't know if you referred to comments that you want to respond to in the

presences. i would give you that opportunity now. if not, i'm going to open it up to the floor and the way we'll work is i will just -- raise your hand if you want to speak. and you can either ask a question or make a brief statement. and by "brief," i mean -- >> really brief. >> yeah. >> and by the way, there will be a time for members of the audience and sour speakers have been so disciplined to ask questions towards the end of this panel, thank you. >> the only thing i want to quickly address is what ted says and just say that i don't think we characterized our enforcement or talk about it in a sense that we're doing it for national security grounds. but what the department -- you know, under the statutory framework we have to enforce the law and under the appropriations mandates that we have, we do roughly 400,000 removals a year. what our goal is -- where are we

going to get those people? in our position to identify people who might present a public safety threat and the best way to determine that is by criminalization. and that -- again, i think it's a mischaracterization today, for this department to say that we talk about it in some of the, you know, the national security issue a public safety issue certainly and i would say there's distinction between the two. again, what we are trying to do is change the mechanisms by which -- in 2008 there were 254,000 noncriminals removed, 114,000 criminals, and 2010 has been previously 50/50 but try to change the system so the mechanism can catch less of the people who are identified first those people who have committed a criminal offense because they do pose a greater threat to public safety than others. >> i would just have one question about that. when you say you have an appropriations mandate for

400,000, what you mean by that? >> have congress give the money of roughly 400,000 removals in a given year. >> and that is a goal for the agency? >> it's not a goal so much as it's guidance in how they fund it. it's broken down -- and i think seth can have more than me. it's broken down by a target with removal cost. so it's more of a mandate here's the funding to do roughly 400,000. >> that's right. >> can you speak into the microphone. thank you. >> i.c.e. calculates how much it costs to remove a given an alien -- >> still can't hear. >> i.c.e. calculates how much it costs to remove a given alien and it's appropriated by congress. that's how we reach the numbers both for the number of detention beds as john mentioned before

and the removal we appropriately take the direction from congress that we are required to do. >> i'll be clear to say it's not a quota or a goal. but it is roughly a mandate in the appropriations enforcement. >> okay. thank you. >> i would just note one other quick thing and i do want to respond to what amy said. we -- i'm not sure if he said this we only detain about 33,000 a year. we removed roughly 392,000. so it is only a fraction of those who we are removing that are detained during the process. and again, that is tiered by public safety determinations. certainly there are indications where there are noncriminals and there are other priorities such as individuals who have come across -- been removed by previous times. it would be misleading to say the majority of people who are in the removing proceedings that is not accurate. >> david markey has some questions or comments.

>> yeah. just briefly. i want to mention one thing in response to julia's introduction. i think it was a comment that the emphasis has been for the obama administration on enforcement and not on comprehensive immigration reform. if someone has been devoted to enforcement, the department is funded for that. there's an obligation to go forward with that. there was an enormous amount of work that was done on comprehensive immigration reform from the first week of the immigration. i went to many meetings with the secretary where there was a number of key members of congress. it proved not possible to put together the right combination largely because of the inability to get a second republican cosponsor in the senate but there's an awful lot of background work that has been done. it's ready whenever the appropriate measures can be taken. so there's certainly there were steps that were taken with a lot of hours applied to it. i would also just take issue

with ted and pose a question to him. i don't think -- i don't think it's quite fair to say it's largely been a national security issue that has driven the emphasis on enforcement. as amy mentioned, a 1996 act was enacted before the 9/11 attacks and before there was a major emphasis on that. i think there's a rule of law rationale that contributes to the emphasis on enforcement. i think it's important to understand there may be a lot of people with -- with unfortunate motives with emphasizing enforcement but they find a resonance in the broad middle in other society because people are concerned -- a lot of people who are here outside of compliance outside of the law. and so i think that drives it, that led to a number of exaggerated reactions. i agree with amy. unfortunately, stripping away some discretion from immigration judges and others in the 1996 law. but you suggested, ted, that the current strategy re-enforces, if i got it right, the link between

immigration on the one hand and crime and national security on the other hand, how would you -- how would you change the strategy now? given the resources that are provided, given congress' mandate to spend money on enforcement, would you then go back to a more random collection of people who are noncriminals to throw in with the priority on criminals? >> can i respond? >> yeah. i mean, i guess how i would deal with it is through legal changes that deal with the demand side for immigrant workers. i mean, a lot of the people that we are arresting and deporting are people are going to work and the demand is there. i don't think it works outside of a comprehensive framework. if we were only doing the enforcement side and you're only going to do this problem. outside of a comprehensive framework. one of my concerns, though, is with the language we used. i was at a panel this morning with david aguillar, the deputy, a very smart guy.

everybody uses the language of threat. what are the threats we are dealing with at the border? well, the threats are terrorism, serious criminality, drugs, and illegal immigration. well, the illegal immigration is not a threat of that magnitude and we lump it all together when we talk about it and i think it works against sensible solutions. i think what your going to increasingly find if we're trying to hit a mandate of 400,000 and emphasize criminals is we're going to keep defining criminality down. i mean, a lot of the criminal offenses -- you know, a fair number fair-minded and some are quite severe indeed and those are people i think we can all agree are not people we want in this country. but in order to keep hitting those targets and continue to say that a higher percentage of those are criminals we're going to have to define criminality down and i think that that is not a productive way to get at the problem. i would like to see the administration more committed to the comprehensive solution and less focused on just the enforcement. i understand why you do it.

you're in a very difficult position politically and practically but i don't think it's the right position. >> i think the next speaker will be lucas who, guess what, is the founding national director of the american civil liberties union immigrants rights project and he was described to me by kim shepherd. i just had the pleasure of meeting him as one of the finest legal minds in the nation. go for it. >> well, with that introduction, i better have something to say. [laughter] >> i think i want to respond to a few points and i want to underscore something that amy said and that david acknowledged which is the impact of the 1996 laws and so what we're seeing today is the confluence not only of 9/11 and of undocumented immigration but also the 1996 laws in two critical respects. there are many, but two critical respects. one is that it did remove an enormous amount of the flexibility that previously existed in the law to allow for someone to gain legal status.

secondly, it actually had the perverse consequence in my view of freezing people into undocumented status by virtue of the operation of the law in many ways, you know, that aren't worth explaining now but essentially say that individuals who qualify for legal status are not pursuing it because of the way the law is written. but they are, in fact, eligible. and what i want to say in addition to that is i think it's a mistake in my view for the administration to view this as purely a matter that requires statutory changes. because a lot of the operation of the law of the 1996 law -- while it ought to be changed and i think desperately needs to be changed is also amenable to administrative and regulatory interpretation that the administration could undertake in order to address some of these perverse consequences. if it could adopt regulations on adjudication of waivers that

would allow individuals to safely apply for the legal immigration status for which they are eligible. it could adopt court interpretations of the detention statute that allows individuals to get individual hearings at which their danger and flight risk are adjudicated rather than requiring mandatory detention of people who do not pose that kind of a risk. the former so-called catch and release program -- while it sounds ominous, i think it's also been demonstrated that what happened in the past is that the agency made no effort to determine who actually needed to be detained and who didn't. and when it was -- if it had had resources to do that and the willingness to do that rather than spending the money on detention beds and mandating detention under the law and failing to adopt interpretations that would allow for release, then we could have a more efficient system that would authorize detention when it's needed but not impose it when

it's not. and one last point that i would just throw out there for discussion as well is how to reconcile the secure communities program with the enforcement priorities that have been articulated. i wonder how that actually works in operation. we've heard the example of the traffic stop that could have led to the arrest of some of the terrorists but then we also understand the traffic stops do not actually trigger the secured communities. if they did and in some places they do, they lead to one of the greatest concerns which is the incentives to engage in racial and ethnic profiling in order to bring people into the booking system. but, excuse me, the other thing i would just ask is -- the secure communities operation, as i understand it and as it was explained, the booking triggers the screening but it doesn't mean in many cases there's

actually a criminal prosecution on the underlying event that led to the arrest in the first place. and secondly, i wonder how even if booking is actually pursued, how it -- how that's reconciled with the immigration enforcement priorities because my understanding at least is that once that secure community screenings is triggered does dhs not pursue individuals who are brought into this system through secured communities, if those individuals do not have a prior criminal conviction, are not with the enforcement priorities, are people then released by i.c.e. because they don't do it within the priorities or are we having the local police departments actually setting the priorities and the last one i know -- one last point i just want to ask about is where secured communities is now in relation to those police departments and i think there are many who would prefer not to

participate in the program. there are many police departments, i think, and certainly chiefs of police who have spoken about this who prefer not to be engaged in immigration screening, who believe it undermines their ability to engage in community policing, are they eligible and allowed to opt out of the program whereas it's mandated by state agreements or by dhs mandate? >> madam presider. >> so there's two secure community questions here. the discretion question and the -- >> and remember that you're being recorded for posterity. [laughter] >> so kindly do speak into the microphone, as if you really liked it. [laughter] >> i'll start with the optout. it is the policy of i.c.e. and the policy of dhs that the program is nonvoluntary. by 2014 there will be some

technological changes that will make it uniform nationwide. we do view that as -- one, there's some legal issues that might suggest that it is mandatory. two would be the kind of the uniformity issue. it's the reverse argument of 1070 in many ways. the federal government stepped up so we won't want a patchwork of state enforcement laws. the same logic applies to -- we don't want to let local jurisdictions decide immigration policy and there are many of the same arguments there. not only that, they are procedural questions as to who can decide the optout? would it be the state? would it be the sheriff? would it be the county? it's uniform and it will role out nationwide. we want to work with local communities. we want to -- i think it's the department's position largely is that victims in law enforcement organizations and i know some are represented here today don't

arrest victims, they don't arrest witnesses. absent a criminal arrest and a booking and a taking of the fingerprints to the fbi they will not pick you up. if a local jurisdiction is concerned about lower level aliens and some jurisdictions do this you don't need to run finger prints through the fbi, and there's certain jurisdictions where they don't run them through the fbi database. we will never know if you don't do that. that said, we are still concerned with the issue. so we have -- we are working on some -- taking a look at the policies in place now and working on potential policies that might specifically address vis-a-vis witnesses or defendants with interaction with law enforcement.

certainly there are cases where we exercise some discretion. and i think we do use discretion inappropriate cases on a case-by-case basis. if you are a match and secure communities and you turn out you're removable from the country we will take action. there's a prioritization within that and you might be familiar with -- even within the criminal alien context we define those tier 1, tier 2, level 1, level 2. if you're a level 1 that's a serious felony usually a violent felony and i think violent levels. and level 2 are all felons as well. they've been convicted of a state felony. level 3's are misdemeanors. there's a prioritization within that as to who we're going to use our limited detention space on, who's we're going to use our limited expedited docket time on. so while we don't -- you know,

we will take an enforcement action somebody comes in the facilities with a positive match and we will look at that on how many resources we will expend. i will note just quickly within the secure communities context, we had 13,000 -- well, about 40 -- roughly 40,000 criminals removed in fy10, convicted of a crime. ..

it also doesn't mean they didn't fall under our priority because they have been previously removed from the country and they were a priority. a number of cases local prosecutors make a resource allocation decision if i'm going to remove the individual, i'm not going to spend the state's dollars detaining this individual in jail. i'm not going to spend the prosecutorial resources prosecuting. the department's position is that is okay. what is not okay jurisdictions where there are pretext wall arrests based on stereotypes. we are hired a statistician to make sure we're monitoring the data. we're very sensitive to that and are prepared to take actions if we find jurisdictions that are engaged in that behavior. we have not found any at

this point. and we have done some -- >> thank you. are there any other questions from the participants in the roundtable? one of the inspirations for this event is steve trail lore, who is a distinguished immigration attorney in the area. who deals directly with such cases. would you like to say something. >> i would just comment -- >> speak into the mike phone. >> i'm certain some departments in this state are more enthusiastic enforcing the law than others. i talk to other lawyers who specialize, for example in d.u.i. there is tremendous discrepancy between different municipalities what happens to a dui arrestee. >> amy wants to saying. >> i want to expand on document of points. it is great to hear all this. we don't have secure communities here in

new jersey, maybe i shouldn't say that on the record but we do not. we have a directive that the attorney general issued back in 2007 that requires local police to ask about immigration status when there is an arrest or dui or for an indictable offense, which is equivalent to a felony in new jersey. what we have seen over the last couple of years since this has been in effect, and i'm speaking of this from the perspective who we see in detention. i'm not doing a fiscal analysis who is being arrested but my office provides legal orientation programs to all detainees at the eelisabeth detention center. over last three years we've seen a surge of people there for minor traffic violations. a passenger in a car pulled over for a broken taillight. as much as we hear and i appreciate the priorities but what we see on the ground every single day is

different and, so i guess my question to put out there and maybe this is for the broader group, if we're all in agreement that we have a dysfunctional immigration system and we all see the need for statutory change and we all recognize there should be discretion why such a push for secure communities from dhs, if it is something that has been questioned and there are clearly questions about the data? you know, and it's something that is to force people into what is an unfair deportation system, why this absolute push and mandate to have it in every single jurisdiction in the country by 2013? >> before you answer, john, you never knew you had so much, power, did you. before you receive all the brunt of the responsibilities that you face, let me ask whether there are other questions for john. i would love to hear from

janice fine from rutgers. >> [inaudible]. that's a really good question. >> i'm sorry, this is, okay i just wanted to hear a little bit more about the worksite side of things. i'm curious about a couple things. one is, i'd like to understand why, how you think about work place enforcement now and in particular about the problem of, workers have been involved in organizing drives and their employers suddenly wants to discover their true status after they have been working at a firm for a long period of time, and we know that there is a move to try and protect those workers and give them some kind of either temporary or permanent status if they have been involved in organizing. i'd like for you to say a few words on that. >> before you do that, the precedent of -- president of princeton is here, kevin

wilkes, would you like to add something to this. >> princeton burrow has yet to borough has yet to establish a presidency. they may be working on it. i heard some suggest despite appearances of these impacts i hear from the community from people presiding in our community about people whom we're discussing that, the actual impact that creates the fear and suspicions on the streets are really quick per sways -- pervasive and quite intense. we're interested in princeton borough in keeping our local streets under control and civilized and friendly to all. to the extent that we have a segment of our population that makes itself invisible to us on account of its fear for prosecution and despite the fact that the chief of

police, the chief and i met with the local population to suggest the attorney general's regulations and what they are for these limited amount of offenses anecdotally the stories are as amy described there are a lot of other things that get you caught up also. causes people to disappear from the civil component of our society to the extent that it actually perversely becomes hard for police to enforce safety because people won't come out and say what they saw happen on the street corner the night before when someone got beat up and their wallet taken. we've had a series of events like this. it is, at our small level, you know the numbers you cite, 400,000, 40,000, way beyond our ability to comprehend, the fear locally is such that it makes it very hard for us to create a secure community. >> you want to take it away?

>> i will take it in reverse order. so i do think we could do a better job explaining how secure communities work under the community policing side. i think that, first thing we have not done a very good job talking publicly about what secure communities is and what it isn't. i think that impacts your communities. the reality is, that if someone, has a legitimate fear of being caught up in secure communities and an understanding how it actually works they would know that they should only be fearful if they committed a violation of your laws which your officer will arrest them and book them in jail anyway. i understand that is not the perception that is different. i think we need to do a better job engaging with communities, with advocacy groups, with forums like this to explain how secure communities works and what it is. before i worksite i will take on the question real quick, along those lines i think if i am someone in advocacy group i want i.c.e.

to expand secure communities faster and do it even more. i know that sounds counter inif you tiff. this administration and next administration, they said they are firmly committed to legal change. they're going to be doing 390,000 removals a year. you want them to do ad hoc basis people we find in work sites, people we find her, people referred to cis or cbs a variety of ways in 2008240,000 noncriminals and 214 criminals and remove the 390 from the jails. people booked and largely convicted of a criminal offense? i think the answer has to be the latter, recognizing in perfect world this problem will go away. frankly under cir, most people criminal convictions will be a disqualifying factor. so the reality is that you want expansion of secure communities because it's a program that enables us to

get over the 50% mark for the first time criminal to noncriminal. allows getting further and further up in terms of who we deport being convicted criminals. and in 2010, driving down the definition of criminal. the reality that the numbers don't necessarily support that. we identify 248,000 people in fy-10 through secure communities. people were booked into jails who are matched for being in the country unlawfully. that was when secure communities was only in 650 just exit is. we added additional 400 this year for over 1,000 total jurisdictions now. the point being as secure communities expands our ability to identify felons, people booked in jail on felonies, in the country unlawfully will be greatly enhanced focus our resources limited resources removing those individuals not people in your community, not the people who have not been arrested for a serious criminal offense. that is why if i'm sitting in your shoes i'm saying, want to expand secure

communities. there are other ways that, -- >> she doesn't. >> i know -- >> she clearly does not. >> i can tell you the numbers you would see that. the people that are referred to, systems are -- immigration enforcement. person with visa not eligible for u.s., dis those people are still being fed in the system. as long as there is mandate and ability to remove those people they will be removed. you want to focus on people with criminal offense in our communities, that is who you want to us remove. >> thank you. >> quickly at the worksite, we are working with dol on a variety of issues. we expanded use of visas to accommodate situations like that. we're very cognizant of those and sensitive to them. we will continue to work with the department of labor to insure that where there are allegations of work place labor law violations that we just don't rush in and remove people. >> madam presider, would you like to intervene at this

point? >> i was just going to make an observation based on my reporting which is that the local context i think is very important for the execution of the carrying out of the, of both the 287-g program and increasingly the secure communities program and especially in light of the proliferation of state-level legislation designed to curb illegal immigration or punish illegal immigration at the state level so that, one of the more, the clear examples i can think of is the state of georgia which has made it a, a detainable offense, dui, i'm sorry, driving without a license, not dui, but driving without a license in the state of georgia is mandatory 48 hour detention now on the first offense.

and so that puts many immigrants who are driving without licenses because the driver's license is not available in the state of georgia to a person who does not have lawful status. that puts that person then into the whole immigration database. although it is in many cases driving without a license is not a serious offense. and previously was, an offense that could be dispatched with a fine in the state of georgia. similarly, that kind of local legislation i think is increasingly occurring across the country. and so i just make that observation from my reporting. how is, what is dhs doing to insure that the, implementation of secure

communities under the 287-g program will not be vulnerable to the interpretation of local law enforcement and the differing severity of local laws? david, did you want to -- >> as timekeeper, let me just advise you of two things. the first one is that there will be overlap with a second panel. so we may actually want to table some of these questions for after the break. i would like to know whether there are, we have time for another intervention, very brief. and two questions from the audience. so would you like to say what you have to say this? this is -- the executive director of the latin american legal defense and education fund. >> it is my sense and would like to get that if we were to have any kind of legislative reform, that would help provide the most

relief on immediate basis and restore some rationality, would reinstatement of 212-c perhaps be the most desirable? and if so, should we ask representative holt to perhaps try to spearhead that effort? >> excellent. >> -- david martin as well. >> we have rush holt and david martin. back to you, and then to the audience. >> thank you. i began by saying i don't think that we should be planning for major changes in immigration law in coming months. so the question is how do we use what we have and one of the things that i certainly am going to take back to my colleagues on the

appropriations committee is that they should make clear to the department that funding sufficient for that number of deportations should not be interpreted as a quota to reach. i, it's possible that's what they had in mind. i hope not and i certainly want to take that, to take that back. i've been listening very closely and i think i detected a significant difference in the approach to the existing law as discussed by amy gottlieb and ted alden and especially lucas guttentag and john sand wig.

mr. sand wick -- sandwig. everything comes back to you and you're the enforcement agency. >> [inaudible]. >> i believe i heard you say that we are targeting populations that pose a security threat. there's a big difference between that way of phrasing and amy's and lucas's phrasing of individual, individual, individual, that's what they said over and over again. and i think it, i think it has to do with whether an individual who is picked up is then subject to an evaluation to determine whether that individual is a security threat, rather than the other way around. i'm not saying it's profiling but i think it is a different approach, and

i'm having a little trouble expressing this. but i thought i heard a difference that makes a, that, would be reflected on the street. and, i think, maybe congressional instruction of what, what is intended here might, you know, might be useful. clearly, we want people who pose a security threat and that's that's what i will try to take back. >> david, briefly? >> let me try to pull together a couple things. maybe i will take off from that. part of the problem is, it's not easy to identify who is a security threat just because you have them in front of you. there are security threats in the national security sense. there are also people who wind up committing much more

serious crimes later on. i think one what is to focus on that. i think it's more damaging to the general image of the person who is illegally present than dhs enforcement policies is when there is someone who has been in the system before somewhere and then commits a serious offense. we've had some very recent ones in virginia. a rape of a junk girl. -- young girl and dui, commit the several dui offenses but here unlawfully and drove again and killed a nun in an awful auto accident. the dilemma for dhs is how to address those kinds of situations. obviously lacking the complete foresight. it is extremely damaging to dhs and the effort to get sensible immigration reform for those kinds of episodes to go forward. i think secure communities should go forward. i acknowledge what julia says about the driver's license offenses which, in my overall value judgment,

driving without a license is not automaticly a 48-hour detention kind of offense but, dhs can't solve that problem. that issue came up in the state legislature. it was fought out. some people stood up against it and couldn't make the case publicly the public stood up and -- hillary clinton talked against that as a candidate. that quickly found out that wasn't going to fly. are almost all states treated severely driving without a license and have all people have legal status to drive with a license. the point of it from the beginning to take away the discretion which could be misused, a certain range of discretion that could be misused by law enforcement officers. check everybody. make a decision by the federal immigration authorities. not the joe arpaios which ones will be followed up and try to proceed in that basis. it is imprecise. it will leave some hard cases on either side of the line. i think that is the way we need to proceed.

discretion, there could be much better ways to exercise discretion in the system but also i think, we may not have overall legislation. i would share that view in the near future, comprehensive immigration reform legislation but very easy to attack -- tack riders on to appropriations bills and exercise of discretion in certain ways by agencies can trigger legislative reactions that cuts out that discretion. some of the more ambitious suggests for broad use of prosecutorial discretion i fear would trigger legislative reaction. we had something like that in the 1996 act. come back to 212-c. i didn't forget that. 212-c is form of discretion, several forms of discretion immigration judges could let somebody stay even though they had a deportable offense. there were some efforts to cut back to that. while it was in the conference committee the board of immigration appeals exercised, issue addition that gave a very broad and generous application of that

discretion. the key members of the conference committee didn't like that and they cut that way back, way beyond what it was in either the version that passed the mouse or the senate. i offer that as cautionary note to think about how, that we need to keep our eye on the long-run game. a key part of the effort is to try to create the right kind of image, to try to build support, gain as much support from the middle of the political spectrum and sometimes some hard decisions have to be made in that effort. >> thank you. before john sandwig and we're hopeful seth grossman close this part of our meeting, is there a pressing question from members of the audience? questions? speak up, please. >> thank you. my question is for the mr. sandwig. -- couple that congressman holt raised at the beginning of the session. my husband, henry is under

threat of deportation. he is in deportation proceedings now. i filed i-130 for relative every nongay couple would file when they get married. that was rejected last month with the defense of marriage acting cited as congressman, made the statement calling for a treatment of couples like us in a way similar to dream act potential beneficiaries and also widows a certain point they were threat of deportation. >> thank you. >> the question is just, what policies being formulated that would respond to the activism we've done in the media, calls now from holt and several other congressman and the president's statement that doma is unconstitutional with the legislative acts also in the works that would repeal it? >> thank you very much. another question? >> yes, i have a question. >> yes? >> my name is joyce phillips. a lot of people in this room know me i've been practicing

immigration law in new jersey for almost 20 years. first it is not a perception about secure communities, it is a reality. the reality is racial profiling everybody in this room knows it. you get a ticket for riding hispanic if you walk down a street and certain color you get picked up and it is a real problem in this state. there is a need for discretion you. what happens with your quota system is that the quotas are indeed increased and increased and increased so that the point is that in new jersey what happens is there is no discretion. people are deported. families are torn apart and you are really not practicing what you're preaching. if you want to practice what you preach, come down here and talk to our local i.c.e. person and to all of the representatives and make sure they do right. >> was there a question there? >> yes. when are you going to do that? >> okay, john, you have the last word. and seth, feel free to come to the assistance of

mr. sandwig. >> just on the doma issue, the defense of marriage act issue, the president's directive was to continue to enforce the law as it is currently written until there court determines it is unconstitutional. we are, that is our, that is where we are going with that. there are a couple of, we are, in a couple instances holding cases in abeyance until we get formal guidance to the field. reality we'll continue to enforce the law until doma is declared unconstitutional. with regard, anecdotal story about abuses in secure communities, all we can do to monitor the numbers overall. we are doing that. as i noticed earlier we hired a statistician to take a deep dive at numbers to make sure we're not finding discriminatory patterns. we're looking arrest patterns before secure communities was implemented, arrest patterns after to see if there is a shift. we're looking at from a thousand different angles to use it as a tool to identify

any abusive state and local law enforcement practices. that said, issue driving without a license raise tough questions. we're not seeing any wholesale abuses in the practice. more importantly we are seeing identification of some individuals charged with some very serious crimes, level 1, serious violent felony offenses who this is a tool we're able to rethem from the country. that is definitely a public safety issue. but, if there is anything more to add on doma. >> seth, do you have anything to add? >> no. >> not at this time? >> if i may, i think i was quoting the attorney general correctly when he said, and this is, i believe a direct quotation, the president has also concluded section 3 doma am applied to legally married same-sex couples is unconstitutional. given that conclusion, the president instructed the department not to defend the statute in such cases. i realize he is not talking

about deportation cases but, he is not saying, well let's wait until the law is declared unconstitutional. he is saying in certain cases we will not enforce doma. and, i'm saying, by a fairly easy extension, it could also apply to deportation cases. >> seth is working on this issue directly and i can let him -- >> we've been working very hard since the attorney general made his announcement about a month ago. what the attorney general's directive says in terms of a litigation position the united states government will no longer continue to defend the constitutionally doma as you alluded to in court but the attorney general's statement and his letter to congress makes crystal clear in our view that the executive agencies which the president is ultimately the head of must continue to enforce the law as they did before. this has in the past when hiv servicemembers case. legal counsel which creates

finding, constitutional determinations for the federal government has looked into this issue in the servicemembers case and other cases. our guidance is quite clear although i think for a layperson it seems strange there is this divide between what you do in court and what you would do in terms of agency practice. we feel the attorney general's guidance on working with justice is very clear. until either congress repeals section 3 of doma or authoritative judicial determination it is unconstitutional we have no discretion given the president's direction to change policies. if and when a change by virtue enactment of congress or final judicial determination we're dread did i to implement that determination as well. >> thank you very much, mr. gross man. we are going to break right now. there is food but i will ask you to move back to your spots in 15 minutes exactly. thank you very much, all of you.

[inaudible conversations] >> former pennsylvania senator rick santorum outlines his vision for u.s. foreign policy today at 1:30 eastern. we'll have live coverage here on c-span2 mr. santorum has formed a presidential explore committee. he will be at