chicago as a 16 year-old, got then. her daughter founder journals much later in life and published them. so published the journal as a teenager during wartime in chicago. really wonderful little glimpse of what it was like to be in america on the home front during the war. >> now from the libertarian cato institute in washington d.c. his book global crossings. the booklet sets the reasons people risk their lives to move to foreign lands. compares migration trends over the past decade. this is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome, everybody, to the cato institute. i direct the center for global

liberty and bus to the prosperity. the beginning of this year immigration has become a burning public policy issue in washington. for the first time in decades the united states is considering a major reform in a way that it deals with immigrants. the ensuing debate and the possibility of reform are welcome, but the fact is politicians are arriving very late to this issue. that is because in this country there has long been a wide gap between restrictive laws and the reality of immigration. it is a gap that reflects the economic and social fact that there are millions of americans are millions of americans from mexico, central america, and elsewhere who wish to work together and engage in peaceful, voluntary exchange but are not legally allowed to do so. that inconsistency has produced a lot of the problems associated

with legal immigration. many serious problems and some imagined. the prospects of reform have also stimulated the debate about the economic and cultural issues surrounding immigration, its impact and it is a debate that cuts across party lines and is one that has generated a lot of passion. how would it possible legalization of millions of on authorized immigrants and the creation of a guest worker program affect wages and jobs? what is the evidence say about the extent to which immigrants are assimilating into american culture in recent decades. are immigrants and that train or are they net contributors for the welfare state and today mainly come here to work or to get state benefits. for that matter the political impact of immigration is something that has been debated.

what should we expect from an increased legal immigration in that regard verses the status quo. these of legitimate questions that go to the heart of one's world views. such issues as equality and fairness, proper role of the state in regulating business and labor, cultural or national identity issues, and fiscal policy, just to name a few. so it's no wonder that the sudden interest on the part of leading republicans and democrats to address this issue has caused heated exchanges, exaggerated claims, and some amount of nastiness. that is why i am pleased today to be able to host a forum for a book that takes a balanced look at a wide range of issues that are being discussed today. the book, global crossings, immigration, civilization, and america comes at a perfect

moment. it puts immigration and historical context showing how so much of the debate today is not actually new in american politics and that we can be guided by a lot of american experience, american experience. better to let the author talk to us about that. my good friend is dead senior fellow at the center for global prosperity at the independence institute who publishes -- who has published his book. he has been a nationally syndicated columnist for the washington post writers group. he has been the author of numerous books, including liberty for let america and the guide to the perfect latin-american 88 which was a best-seller in its spanish edition and latin america. he is ubiquitous in his columns

that appear throughout america every week, and has contributed to the leading newspapers in the united states. he has been a board member of the miami "herald" publishing country to the company. op-ed page editor and columnist for the miami "herald". i could go on and on, but i would say one more thing. he has also been one of the great champions of liberty in latin america. very present in all of the most important debates on the right side of the issues to my belief, and with this book a concern in the americas. please help me welcome. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. that wonderful and generous presentation. thank-you to the cato institute

for hosting this meeting and to alex for being so kind. helping put it together. so ask, why did i write this book? why was i interested in this topic? and, well, there are several reasons. perhaps one of them has to do with my i guess identity problem. i have been called a spaniard in peru. i've been called a single doctor in spain which is a pejorative term for south american, pakistan in london where was based for a while, i know i'm called as panic which means iberian command other words, a spaniard. so i don't really know where i belong in july m. i guess it is probably a good enough reason to explore this important issue today. so let me tell you a little bit about what i do in this book. what i do is i take on all the

different methods that i have seen over the years that are really driving this discussion and debate, including the current discussion in the senate and soon in the house as well about immigration reform. i will cover all that, but i will share with you of you and give me my perspective on them. and then i hope that this will help at least clarify some of the misinformation that is out there. it's really quite striking. one first met, and all of what i am going to say have heard many people say, people of all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of places. that did not make any of this up. one final argument basically says we are getting no wrong kinds of immigrants today. we used to get the right kind of immigrants. i'm not immigration. i'm just against this current

type of current evidence that we are getting today. and the answer to get is the united states always got the wrong kind of immigrant. that has always been the case. i mean, the variety of iran sources and types of immigration that this country has received in the last two centuries, to one-half centuries is simply astounding. of course between 1830 and 1880, yes, it was mostly northern europeans, but between 1880 in 1920 it was all about seven europeans and eastern europeans and central europeans who had nothing to do with northern europeans. they look different kind of different cultures. there the mexicans of yesteryear of course after that you had to cut even before that you had people from asia, the chinese during the gold rush, the japanese at the end of 19th century in their the 20th-century.

and then, yes, you had hispanics a bit further on and indians after 1965 because of a change in the law that triggered a surge of unintended consequence. so there has always been the wrong kind of immigrant and the united states. it's simply not true. another important myth says that the u.s. is getting a disproportionate number of immigrants. just this morning radio show i heard the host site we're getting more than any other country in the world. all wanting to come here. they don't want to get other countries. again, this is very silly. about 3 percent of the world population is made up of first-generation immigrants. and illegal immigrants constitute about one sixth of the immigrants that travel to one place or another every year. so a total number -- the total

number of immigrants every year is about 215. the total number of illegal immigrants, about 30 million. the u.s. gets in terms of justice legal immigrants, one sixth of 1% of its population. clearly a much smaller proportion than many other countries. so it's not true that the u.s. is getting a disproportionate number of immigrants. this is a worldwide phenomenon, and other countries are relatively speaking getting even more immigrants. illegal immigrants. the only motive, why should we in the united states solve world poverty, i mean, we have enough poor of our raw as it is. let us take care of our own. does not solve world poverty. that's not true. to stop the only motive behind migration. in fact, the poorest of the poor almost never migrate from one

country to the other. they migrate within the borders of their own countries. europe, let's take europe. until the 1980's europe was a source of migration, of out migration, i mean. people leaving europe. and that was a wealthy and prosperous continent before they get into this mess. germany, the ridge in europe, exporting about half a million people every year until the 1980's. so clearly the motivation by now was not poverty. south korea is a force of significant number of immigrants to the other immigrants to come to the united states. and that's a rich country. bangladeshi women who are the very poor, the poorest among the poor migrate very little, even in asia, which is the continent that has the greatest number of migrants every year. so i could go on and on and on.

the motives, they vary. yes, of course economic conditions are part of the story. but you have everything, including distressed conditions at home, politically, institutionally cannot necessarily economically, family ties to occupational preference, adventure, all sorts of different reasons for migrating. and historical ties have a lot to do with it as well. the u.s. has historically been entangled of around the world. conflicts and all sorts of exchanges, sometimes friendly, sometimes not so friendly. that has created conditions for permanent migration. there has been a significant filipino migration to the united states, as we all know, of course, and that has to do with the involvement in the war at the end of the 19th century and also with the encouragement that the united states gave to filipinos to come to the united states is starkly including a special program set off after the second world war for filipino nurses.

all those were signals that the u.s. sent saying it's okay to come. we recognize we are bound together. come to the united states. mexican migration, the origin of mexican migration to the united states is not poor mexicans wanting a better life. it was u.s. business interest needing to replace eastern europeans, bursts of japanese workers and an eastern european workers in the early 20th-century. so they went to mexico and the mexican workers. they started coming to the united states to work, particularly in railroad construction. so all these historical ties have a lot to do with it as well . another important myth is the fact that there has never been any hostility to immigration in the united states. we have always been a country of immigrants. we have always welcomed immigrants.

we have always valued people coming from overseas to contribute to this society. again, that's not true. there has always been hostility toward immigration. of course it has not always taken place exactly in the same way. it does not always been as intense, but historically it has always been the case that there was significant hostility to evidence. if you look at what happened in the gold rush, the chinese were the object of vilification. there were frowned upon by all those taking native-born americans who were taking part in the gold rush. the japanese at the end of the 19th century and the really 20th-century, the object of tremendous, tremendous legal restrictions. there are not out to even on the property. they had to find all sorts of ways to get around the law.

in the middle of a marine century fox costs culled nativist movement was reborn. the feminist know nothing party. very much of style toward immigration. they had an impact on the government, generally on the outlook of society toward immigration. it's always been the case, and that's what we have seen throughout the 20's century and into the 21st century and the evolving situation from the point of view of how the lot just immigration, and it has always been an evolution toward more or a change toward more and more restrictions have reflected the mindset, a mind-set that was relatively hostile. not everybody, of course, but took in this. not everybody was reflected in these attitudes. there has always been, of course

, pro immigration current of opinion in the united states, but what i'm trying to get that, this is not something necessarily that is new or very different. one thing that i think we need to understand, and this is also part of the myth. whenever there is a big disconnect between the law and reality, you're going to get a black market. happens with goods. it happens with services. it happens with banks, but it also happens with people. you constantly hear this argument. of course i can see where they're coming from and i can see what it signifies that the sentiment behind. we cannot as a country that is governed by the rule of law except people who violate the law, which is not -- we are not that type of country. is there something that is morally or legally acceptable. yes, on paper, of course, that is an extremely powerful argument.

who can argue with that. the lever, the problem is when the law is simply not realistic. and the law does not take reality into account then create conditions for a systematic violation of law on a grand scale. and when that happens usually something is wrong with the law, not necessarily what the nature of the people who are violating them all. it is simply the way it works. it works with all sorts of other contacts, social contexts that stem from, of course, the criminalization of things that should not be held as being credible by the law. the same thing happens with immigrants, which is why when people say, well, there are a disproportionate number of criminals or immigrants, of course if you criminalize immigrants you make the condition of being an immigrant a criminal one, clearly you will have criminals in the country. but if you adjust for aids there are no more criminals who are

immigrant and native born. it is about the same rate. there are all sorts of studies. but you have had a, you know, a significant number of people in jail, sometimes on the way to deportation, particularly in the last few years who could have been to my guest, considered criminal simply because it was criminal to be an immigrant. so it is a burden to get this much out of the way if we are going to find no legal way to deal with what is a social problem. clearly having almost all million people operating in the shadows outside of the law is a social problem. we just to make sure that that is not addressed. from a starting point of believing these people are somehow, you know, bylaws to criminal, these people is simply the result of a disconnect between the law and reality.

another important myth has to do with culture. i have heard this time and time again. and sure many of you have heard this. these people are culturally different. unlike those previous waves of evidence you were culturally in tune with our values. these people a difference. and yet if you look at this in so many different ways you find exactly the same pattern. immigrants today are culturally and tune with u.s.-born people, u.s. society and almost any way you look at it. if you look at religion, for instance, in the last 20 years, less talk about hispanics for a moment. of course some of the most numerous immigrants and that a lot of time. 70 percent of them are catholic. about 23 percent are protestant. of the ones who call themselves catholic, one-fifth of them call

themselves born-again. let american catholics ever describe themselves as born-again, so what i'm sensing is that people want to fit in so much that they are describing themselves as protestants to in the united states. this is clearly an effort to tell the united states, we are like you. we believe just like you. we praise and pray just like you. we are like you culturally. if you look at family values, which is something i don't think conservatives who are critical of immigration kelly and a stand , you will find that there are probably more inclination toward family values today among them are rinsed and among any other part of society. for instance, half of all illegal households are made up of couples with children.

and only 13 percent of illegal tousles are headed by a single parent against one-third in the case of native-born americans. so, again, if we stand for family values, if we really mean it and we said we want a society based on family values, then surely there is a source of great comfort and support for your ideas and views among immigrants. they're not dominical to family values. they are all about family values so you convince them of this with is -- which is a tough thing to do, they're having too many children. is not fashionable anymore. and now you make that argument compatible. but then you prove to them that that is no longer the case. the birthrate is going down and down among immigrants, just as is going down and down across let america. is still a little bit higher

among hispanic women in the united states, but only as 60%. almost just have a child more than native-born women. the trend is going down. i mean, i can foresee easily a time when it will be pretty much the same rate. there is this new discussion. still a few years ago there is high birthrate. today is going down in an incredible way. and so those societies are beginning to face some of the issues that developed countries have been facing in terms of the rate of contributors to the system and transferred to beneficiaries. so they're facing the same issues. no matter how you look at it, they are culturally compatible. you could always neighborhoods that they have helped regenerate damage in the few in the book. south florida.

the process called gentrification. communities that were, you know, a complete disaster. they become very nice communities thanks to the effort that hispanics in general but also, in general and iran said put into this. again, that is a cultural side of perfect compatibility with the host nation. it is true that multiculturalism has distorted things a bit. we would not be fair if we did not recognize that. one of our heroes praise americanization.

and that they get there is something to be said for americanization. aspects that were chauvinistic and i guess abuses that were sometimes committed. by and large it was a healthy thing. not so much government policy. a general cultural attitude across society. some of created incentives. become familiar with the values of u.s. society. all of these things. and that was a positive thing that began to change in the 1960's. of course when this whole new paradigm, multicultural as an today emerged. i'm not going to go into a lot of detail. it is a fascinating discussion, but i don't want to be sidetracked. quickly i would say that essentially what happened was in the era of decolonization after

the second world war i began to look at values in a different way through relativism. began to see values as exchangeable. all values were equal. all ways of looking in society and institutions were pretty much equal. that gave rise, of course, to a whole new way of analyzing and studying societies from the past and then from then we went on to a think of minorities as this collectivist entity that was somehow in need of special protection, special rights to correct an imbalance that was historical in nature, the legacy of past abuses. and this, in turn, translated, of course, into all sorts of social engineering based on

ethnicity, and we saw things like gerrymandering along ethnic lines. a positive discrimination. gradually it went beyond what was really compatible a free society governed by the principle of society governed by the law. that was bound to generate a backlash of some point. and, of course, it did. my argument is this. the people who are to blame for multiculturalism are not immigrants. they are u.s. academics mostly. and it was mostly something that was emerged out of academic, not just in the united states, to be fair in europe. so there has been a distortion there. there are things i myself as an immigrant here to not feel at all comfortable with. if we are going to fight multiculturalism, the way to do it is not to fight immigration. it is to fight the ideology behind multiculturalism.

so from then i go to -- this is one way to prove that it is not immigrants or to blame for this, the issue of assimilation which is laden with the smith. and constantly told the don't assimilate anymore. joe pass such and such community . there were all speaking spanish and reading spanish newspapers. it did not use to be that way. of course it always was the way. german communities in the midwest, what did they do? a print german papers, spoke german among themselves. that is a first-generation italian state and asians as well. sometimes they do that still in california. it's human nature. people want to feel they belong to something, protect themselves for a little while, but that doesn't stop. enter of the process of assimilation. the processes to what used to be at three generation process. a first generation make some progress, the second-generation is bilingual but speaking bespatter and whenever other language were talking about.

but the third-generation they don't even speak the other time. and messiness among hispanics. it's really a fascinating process. it was always the case to mesa to the way it worked with italians and the polls, the germans. it's always been that kind of dynamic. again, just as in the past, the second-generation does better financially than the first. a third-generation assimilation again is complete. if you look at marriage, marriage beyond the community, which is one way to look at this , we see this same pattern today as we saw in the past. i compared second-generation italians in the early part of the top two century. second-generation, in particular mexicans, the rate of up marriage among second-generation italians was 17%. today it's a little higher. almost 20%. by the third generation cowberries is very strong. so, again, to a very, very

similar patterns of assimilating . of course since you have a sort of constant or permanent and low of first-generation hispanics, it's only natural that you're going to see, you know, some pockets of i guess spanish-speaking communities almost on a constant basis, but that is not because they are not a simple it -- assimilating. is because the end luckies appearing. so there is nothing to fear. there are assimilating. that is something we need to embrace. so a bit more time, but the economy. again, another important source of math. i'm always hearing this. i mean, we would like to have high skilled immigrants, but these low-skilled immigrants, why do we need these? will, because a modern economy needs low-skilled immigrants. since the second world war we have had all of these imbalances that needed to be corrected

among developed and undeveloped countries needing to be corrected through basically migration which is why the germans signed treaties. they needed turkish workers. the spaniards with the moroccans to my french with the algerians in the united states took and mexicans. it is the way it works. you need certain repetitious mechanical jobs the going to be part of it. and somebody is going to have to fill those to my take up those jobs. that's something that migration helps to do. to the hurt the economy? they do exactly the opposite. emigrant help make the pie bigger. i went to the most prominent academic critics command even he recognizes that illegal immigrants contribute about $22 billion to the economy every year. so we updated the data. it is a very conservative statistic.

i think it's more than that, but let's accept that for a moment. we updated his calculation. that would translate into about 36 billion today. .. people moving up the scale and upset by the fact that immigrants help these labor-intensive industries be

more productive, and they help keep prices down. so as consumers, everybody in society is benefiting from that. so the effect is, of course, a very potent one, positively potent. not to speak of high-skilled immigration. don't have much time. but high-skill immigration, how can that not be a huge contribution to the economy. a third of doctorates in engineering, technology, sciences, involve immigrants. a fourth of nobel prize winners in the 20th century in the u.s. have been immigrants. immigrants made silicon valley miracle. immigrants founded many companies. they created half a million jobs, so it was always that surge that the rules, the prevailing rules -- i hope they're going to change now but were such that the quota for h1b visa, the high-skilled visa,

would be exhausted on day one. as soon as they were open for applications they would be taken up. i think the ceiling at the time was 65,000, just until a few years ago. because clearly there was a greater demand. shoot was economic south suicidn the part of the united states. let me finish we touching quickly on the issue of cost versus benefit. that's another huge myth. the idea that they cost -- immigrants cost a lot more than they contribute. fiscally, i mean. that is simply not true. there's so many studies -- bun great study by the national research council. they calculated not only the fiscal impact of legalizing immigrants now, they calculated what would happen for the next 50 years, because they were young so we can expect they will be working for the next 50 years in legal conditions, and then they calculated the net present value of those 50 years in terms

of what they will put into the system and take out, and they come up with -- that included, of course, children who are in school today, in public school, but will come out and work for the next 50 years. so you have to bring all of that into the equation. and their calculation was a net cost, just a one off cost, a present-day value of $5,000, which is nothing. i you weigh that against the contribution i just talked about to the economy. other studies go even beyond that and say even the net contribution without taking into account the contribution to the economy, just the fiscal impact, is going to be positive in terms of generating more rev -- revenue for the government than taking out, and alex has written about this forcefully. so my message is basically this. we are in an age of globalize. >> we have won the intellectual case for free trade. we can't say we have ideal free trade conditions along the world but we won the intellectual case

for free trade. nobody says, i'm against free trade. they say, i'm for free trade, but -- and then they talk about the level playing field and all of that. intel electric tombly we won the case for -- intellectually we have won the case. we have not won the case for free immigration, and i think it's simply not reasonable to expect that a world moving gradually towards free trade, can continue to contemplate immigration in the way it is. but trade in goods, constitutes about equivalent of 45% of world gdp. about 20% of world savings are invested outside of the country in which they originate and only three% of the population is first generation immigrant. this imbalance have to be corrected. the dynamics are pushing the world in that direction. so you can either accept and embrace and channel that energy, or try to put barriers against it and you will be overwhelmed.

even because the negative effect of actually being able and managing to control this will be huge or because you will not be able to control them, and then by the time you accept you will realize you will have spent a lot of money, and with all the side effects that come with it, in trying to stem the flow. immigration ills -- is not a danger to the united states to its values, economy, standing in the world. it is exactly the opposite. it is one of the best ways to keep the united states a free country, prosperous country, and keep it as a model for the rest of the world. thank you very much. [applause] >> our next speaker is alex nowrasteh, an image policy analyst at the cato institute before working here he worked at the enterprise institute on

immigration issues and he has degrees and economics and economic history from george mason university and the london school of economics. he has been an exemplary policy analyst at the indicate koa institute, and has been quite involved and very inflew enshow in the current debate on immigration. please help me welcome alex. >> thank you, ian, for the nice introduction, and thank you, alvaro, for coming and talking about your fantastic book. part of the reason why free trade is accepted intellectual bily so many people around the world today, as opposed to 50 or 60 years ago is because of the heard work of alvaro and other classical liberals around the world and united states and central and south america, and wherever around the world and that hard work has paid off. we are able to do so much at the

cato institute in part because people like myself or able to stand on the shoulders of intellects of alvaro and others who have forcefully argued for this point for a generation. so thank you very much for that. i want to go into some other details about this fantastic book, global crossings. some details we were not able to touch on. one of the issues that a lot of people raise when it comes to immigration is they think national school they think today it's a different environment. we have global terrorism, al qaeda, issues like this, and because of this we can't be as open to immigration also we were in the past because of all these issues. well, just like the other point made in this book, that's no different than a hundred years ago. very few people remember there was an intent terrorist campaign in the united states in the early 20th century, carried out by it tallan anarchists and

communist who blew up dozens and up to 100 bombs across the united states, targeting people leak the attorney general of the united states, a. mitchell palmer, and other public officials across the country, and people had a reaction at that point. they said, we can't have this type of thing. this is a new experience. it's internationally throw terrorism, a time when communist were marching across the world and having success, in europe and eastern europe and the chaos and the soviet union, and these people were seen as an extension of that, and we need to close our borders to block this out. that's no different than what we hear today about islamic terrorism and other issues like that. take a look at the middle east. but what is even more astonishing is how a lot of our immigration policy makes it easier for national security threats to persist. make it easier for these problems to grow, and then a lot of cases increase the ability of

these national security threats, these opponents of liberty across the world, to more exploit their advantage by taking advantage of american immigration law. one modern example of this is in 2010, there were about a dozen somalis arrested in mexico, either rumored they were a member of the militia, an islamist terrorist militia based in somalia, and they were arrested in mexico, and the mexican authorities released them area without any kind of records, and there was a big, for lack of a better word, freakout in the american media. they thought these guys are coming here, definitely coming to the united states, going to wreak havoc, and as a result, border patrol was beefed up and these people were apprehended or stayed away and nothing happened. but the point is that because american immigration enforcement and our laws are so focused on keeping people out for economic

reasons, small amount of what they're able to do is focus on legitimate threats. instead their more concerned with asking, how will an additional worker affect the wages for american tomato pickers, how an additional worker will fact the labor market conditions for computer programmers in silicon valley. they're more concerned with where a high-skilled immigrant will take a conference call, whether it's at his home and whether that home is listed in the forms as a place of residence or as a place of work, than they are about these legitimate threats out there. so we're really concerned about this. if we think we live in an age that is so dangerous internationally, that immigration northeasts to be restricted and regulateed case, if you believe that, you should argue to a total reforming of immigration on keeping willing workers and separate them from willing employers and focus on

the small but real national security threats that exist. now, throughout history, these threats have also been used tole our disadvantage, national security. think about the numerous hoops and hurdles american immigration enforcement put in the 1930s and set 40s on scientists trying to flee europe and come to the united states to work. that eventually were employed to work on the manhattan project and government research projects to help win the war there what enormous bureaucratic fear to keep people out because of national security. a lot of these people had alleged ties to communist and they were kept out because of fear of national security. there was a chinese rocket scientist. he died in 2009, now, he was involved with rocket research in the united states in the '50s, because of national security law that said that communists could not be employed emigrate to the united states he was investigated by the fbi, and they said there was enough circumstantial evidence that he

had attended a communist rally 20 years before that he was kicked out of the united states and deported to communist china, where he was the founder of the international rocket and missile program. the entire rock program in china was based on this immigrant to the united states, who wanted to stay here and live and work, was forced back to china as a result of that. now, i'm a libertarian, i don't believe that china is a threat to the united states or anything like that, about if you're worried about this, about national security issues, coming from other countries like this, the last thing you want to do is to send talented foreigners who came here to learn these issues, back to their home countries. that's the last thing you want to do. i think, switching gears to culture and and how really americans have taken a look at immigrants and treated them the same throughout history. we have always been skeptical to

them and compared them negatively to other immigrants. there's a quote in a recent article from june, titled "abstract immigrant immigrant" where he writes the immigrants of today are very different in many ways from those who arrived here 100 years ago. now, i think he massively exaggerates the differences between the immigrants today and back then, and we heard about these differences. what is also different are americans today, and it's true. multi culturallism has impacted american society to an extent and i think that's a bad ideology, but we're also in a lot of ways more welcoming. americans today may say nasty things about immigrants today, but let's not forget the largest mass lynching in the american history was in the 1890s in new orleans of italian immigrants by a mob of white americans who thought they had committed a crime and they had gotten away with it.

the largest mass lynching in american history in the 1830s you hat mobbed of pros tess stands going out and burning down catholic churches of the irish, burning down convents, raping the nuns inside. here stuff. the rhetoric today about immigration for americanss who are opposed is nsay and gross but we don't have this level of cultural aversion, violence to the extent that people are going out and doing this. americans are behaving much better in the face of immigration than they did back in the day. and i think that comes across as well. but these worries about immigrants being different are totally exaggerated. the classic example is a great one. immigrants today are majority catholic, just like 100 years ago. just they come from different countries in in the world. and what is most remarkable about the case of assimilation, especially from mexican-americans and the

descendents of mexican-americans, so many of them came illegally. they came to this country illegally, and they lived for years often times in the black market, but the extent to which they and their children have assimilated truly in a lot of way out pace italians who came legally and were able to live entirely above board in the legal market. what is remarkable, and i think if immigration was allowed to the extent that all the mexican immigrants who came here today had come lifestyle we would see a better pace of assimilation. realize that immigrants who come today are more american when they come, and they become americans faster, despite having to live in the black market. i think a testament not just to the entrepreneurial and energetic spirit of immigrants and they want to become americans, but a testament to how much american culture has influenced so many people throughout the world and we're still a beacon for millions of

people who whatnot to come -- who want to come here and want to become americans, and this book goes into some fantastic detail about that process, about the cultural process by which people become americans, and to differentiate it from a lot of other books out there and the sociology profession that write about assimilation, is describes the process very well. it creates a model for how this happens, and it was the first time i had read that third generation. the third generation of americans -- your grandparents were immigrants, your parents are born here, third generation, you look alongingly back on that ethnic or religious identifier of where your parents came from or your grandparents came from, and that's a feature of success. that is a mark of success of becoming an american, because as americans we don't have a ethnic or racial identifier. the largest ethnic group in the united states by last name is german. that's going to change in the

near future because of waves of immigrants from central and south america. we don't have a blood border collateral conception of being an american. it's a values conception. it's a civic notion of being american, and that is something that it virtually unique throughout the world and unique throughout history and what this book does is it describes that in some of the best detail i've ever read anywhere in the literature in both sociology economics and academics and even in popular booked made for a popular audience-for that notion -- i study immigration policy and sometimes i become skeptical the way my governmentdog does things, skeptical of the united states and immigration policy but this filled me with more enthusiasm and more hope for the ability of this country to assimilate immigrants and the ability to be a beacon than any book i have rather on this topic. i couldn't recommend it more. it's a beautiful book.

and thank you very much for coming today. [applause] >> we have time for questions, if you have a question, please raise your hand and wait for the microphone and identify yourself and your affiliation. we'll take the first question up here in front, please. right there. wait for the mike decree phone, please. >> my name is steven shank i have no affiliation. i was kind of interested in this notion of low, unskilled workers versus high-skilled workers, as whether we want immigrants who are high-skilled or low-skilled. always seemed to me that human beings are a resource, and therefore, if lots of

low-skilled employees is resource. it doesn't mean that we don't need high-skilled. but this idea that there's only a set number of jobs for low-skilled, look at all the people that came into new york city that were low-skilled at the turn of the century. jobs were created. i think there's a misconception that you look at an economy and you say, well, we only have this amount of need right now for low-skilled. but i think the answer is, if you bring more resources, that is, more low-skilled workers, businesses will take advantage of that low skill. we'll produce goods that will be -- that will tack advantage of these low-skilled workers, even if that production doesn't currently exist, it will come to exist because of the incentive. so, what i'm saying to you is -- my question is, isn't that

another big misconception, that you guys seem to overlook, and that we're -- you always hear so many people say, we want -- only want high-skilled laborers. >> thank you very much. i couldn't agree with you more. i look at it in different way. one way to look at it is just look at it domestically, because much of this discussion would be better understood, i think, by people if they thought of these issues in the domestic context. since the second world war, the u.s. has added about 100 million people to the work force if you count baby-boomers in general and women in particular. if the arguments made against immigrants were true, on an economic level, then those 100 mental people would have destroyed the u.s. economy, would have made everybody poorer, would have generated so much unemployment that would be

the number one issue in the united states on a permanent basis, and that's not the case. there's never been -- i you know no these 60 years, never been long-term unemployment of any kind. there's been unemployment in times times of reseeings session, of -- recession, but that has different causes. look at arizona, which is such a sensitive place for this debate. just before the bursting of the bubble issue looked at the unemployment rates in arizona, and among the lowest in the country. 4%, sometimes even less than 4%. 3-point something%, and yet 10% of the work force was and i assume continues to be immigrant. so, clearly, it is not generating unemployment. it is generating growth, because arizona is a wealthy state. and it is helping make, as i said, the pie larger. that includes both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants. the idea of separating low-skill from high-skill is wasn't i

don't like very much. unfortunately we are forced to do so because the terms of the debate are such, and because it's been framed in that way. so we need to kind of take them apart and explain to people what low-skilled worker does to the economy, what high-skilled workers do but ultimately it's all about production. the talk of capital in the u.s. has been going up a rat of 2 or 3% a year for the last few decades and that's why the economy has been more productive, and we have able to generate a rise in salaries, and yet at the same time we have had a constant inflow of immigrants. so that would not have been possible if immigrants were hurting that productive process. >> if i could add just one mall something to that. i have been doing a series of disease baits and this issue is always brought up, and the analogy i like to use, we have 100 high-skilled people in a

room, let's say, 100 college graduates and we bring in 50 more less than high school graduate into the room, the economy gets bigger, production increases. the critics say you lower the average education level in the room by doing that. and that really shows the danger of knowing a little bit of math and knowing not very much economics. because an average is a terrible way to describe that. that's an example of the danny devito policy. just because he walks into a room, yes, the average height in that room will decrease. but nobody is actually any shorter. and that's something that is pervasive. so talking about public policy and the impact of immigration on the economy by using broad averages like this is probably one of the worst ways to do and it betrays a total lack of understand hogue economics works. -- understanding how economics works.

>> question right there. >> i'm steven. a wonderful and holy d wholly convincing presentation. other i wonder about the effect on the nations immigrants leave from. are those nations any worse off? for example, it was said that when the 1848 revolution failed in germany, a lot of german liberals came here and, therefore, germany became more autocratic, and today a lot of immigrants see the united states at a more fertile place for applying entrepreneurial skills. so are countries that immigrants leave from worse off, say in terms of entrepreneurial skills? >> that's a great question. well, if we look at -- forget about nation states and borders for a moment. what are we talking about? we're talking about how people

are able to create the most value. in other words, they choose their location according to where they can create the most value, and then we all exchange the fruits of our labor according to what we need and what we can offer. if you look at it that way, then you'll realize that people moving in or out is not going to have a long-term effect of a negative kind in any way. europe, was exporting people, again, until the 1980s, and those countries were becoming more' more prosperous. the math tied is completely different ropes. we have had the same in latin america. people migrated to venezuela from countries such as peru. peru on a consistent basis for half a century. peru is today a much wealthier country than venezuela. look at it this way as well. chinese immigration in the united states has played a key role in the economic -- growing economic prosperity, gradual

economic prosperity of china. they they have not only of course been able to export stuff to them and import stuff to them, they have also invested in china. so, i think that borders and barriers are artificial in terms of the impact on the economy. we all benefit from a constant circulation of people. the same thing happening in europe. some of the eastern european or central european countries have been exporting people to the western part of europe in the last few years because it became legal to do so, andest they had been becoming more and more prosperous, poll land is much more prosperous than 50 years ago and have exported people to including spain. >> i just have some very small things to add to that. he's 100% right. about the german 1848ers, german liberals left behind in germany complained about the liberals leaving.

americans complain about the autrey thattic germans bringing their socialist notion of collectivism and destroying american individual allity -- individual it. and it formed the core of the republican party but that's an an neck dote about the feeling that immigrants destroying the core of america. so the issue of, does emigration with an e leave the sending country worse off. that takes the frame of the brain drain. they say the best and the brightest or the most energetic and then what is left behind, everybody else suffers. that assumes a person in a country is a property of everybody else in that country, which is a terrible notion. that no person who has any concept of individual freedom or liberal in the classical sense could actually view. what we actually see is when the

opportunities to leave occur, people increase their education, they good to school more, they acquire more skills, in order to do better in a country where they want to go to, but a lot of them end up staying. so we see this in south africa in nursing schools. a lot of people good there to try to immigrant to the u.s. or the uk but a lot stay behind in south africa. we see net the philippines, and it was mentioned the filipino nursing program. they have some of the highest percentage of nurses of the population in any country of the world because of the possibility to leave when they have that, and as a result the rest of the filipinos who remain behind gain from that. so you're absolutely right. this is a weird argument used by mostly restrictionists, to say immigration is really bad for people in poor countries, when it's really just not true. >> i would add, free traders and economic multiculturalism turns them into socialists in the united states so it's exactly

the opposite. >> yes, right up front. >> george washington university. i'm one of those academics you speak of. and i love the presentation. thank you. i'm a little bit uncomfortable with your romantic vision of assimilation and acceptance, though. we all know some groups are more asimmable than others so tell us about how you're defining assimilation, because how many times have a third or fourth generation immigrant been asked, where are you from? what language do you speak? so maybe you can talk about how you're thinking about assimilation, assimilation is based not only on the desire of individual to assimilate and also the desire of the larger society to allow that person to assimilate. >> well, about -- the first part is, are they assimilating -- immigrants, hispanic, asians,

assimilating today they way they did in the past, and the answer is definitely yes. the research is very extensive, and i looked into this in a lot of detail. there's many ways to measure it. whether it's the use of english. whether it's mingling with the native born population, marriage. whether it's entrepreneurialship. that's another way to measure this. the idea there's a lot of entrepreneurship that is home grown but the hispanics are bringing in notions to entrepreneurship and that's not true. the rate of self-employment among hispanic almost equals the rate for native born americans, almost 12%, and the number of companies that are founding every year is just amazing and astounding. what does happen is this. which is something alex touched upon in his comment on the book. which is fascinating. the first generation, of course, is first generation. they're just trying to find their way around, trying fit in,

at the same time they have attachments back home. and incidentally you should look at the people asking all the time, well mexicans so so tied their home country. didn't used to be the case. read the letters from italians in the early 20th century, expression profound nostalgia for back home and wanting to go back and sending money back home as well. so, that's only natural. now, the second generation moves in the opposite direction. they're so conscious of this, of being seen by u.s. society as not really fitting in, as being somehow different, but they escape from their roots and they reject the roots to an extent. i wouldn't -- that's not fair for everybody, but certainly there's a big percentage of that. and yet by the third generation, they feel so secure that they go back to those roots. but in a different way in a purely sentimental way they

begin to embrace national holidays and those things because they know they're so secure and so accepted by u.s. society there's no risk in that that's really how cinco de mayo born. that was never a big deal in mexico. it's a big deal here, and because it's such a big deal here, mexicans back home started thinking this is uncomfortable because mexican immigrants are more patriotic than we are so we have to assume this is a national holiday as well. so now in mexico they're celebrating it. but that is a result not first or second generation immigrants. it's third generation immigrants feeling so accepted they thought it was about time to start celebrating, and who celebrates. not gun mexicans, americans celebrating cinco demyow just like italian holidays and irish holidays. this country is not -- the nation state is not based on

blood. it's a nation of nations, a state based on credo, and the reality speaks to that. >> the cinco de mayo is great. i can't think of a more american holiday than celebrating the defeat of the french army, and that's what it is to go into some more -- this is -- he writes a whole chapter in here about this phenomenon. it's about the immigrants moving toward the main stream society and then the mainstream society moves towards them. and i learned everything i like to do on sunday comes from the germans. i like to go bowling. i like to go to the shooting range, and that is something the germans did on sunday that was really unamerican in the 1870s and people were really afraid of because the old puritanical version of sundays, you stay at home, go to church, sit at home, read the bible, and basically cloister yourself and don't do anything that is fun. and the germans were like, no,

we're not going to do that. and now on sunday we have picnics and go out and have a good time. that's an example of american society changing and asim late partly to the immigrants and their culture. it's clear that the immigrants do most of the changing. >> take a question in the back and then the front. >> i'm emily collins from the atlas network. my question is, seems there are couple of institutional thing necessary government that maybe could change in relation tipples, such as the manipulate wage -- minimum wage or welfare, because a lot of immigrants come and work under the minimum wage and illegal immigrants take welfare, if they became legal they might take more welfare and people argue that would also be

a social drain on society. so i was wondering if you would speak on whether or not that's been discussed in the house and in the senate, or your opinions on that. >> sure. the congressional budget office came out with a report calculating what the impact in fiscal terms would be of legalizing 12 million people for the next decade and beyond, and they did two different calculations. one -- i don't want to get too technical, dynamic scoring, you calculate what the effects on the economy are going to be and then calculate the fiscal impact. the other way is simply calculate the fiscal impact assuming there's going to be no huge change in the economy. which of way you look at it, the impact is beneficial. and what they do is simply calculate what impact it's going to be on the deficit, and it's going to be a very positive impact in terms of reducing the

deficit. but as i said there are many studies that are -- very respectable studies that indicate the contribution is very positive. just thinking of one at this point. i mention the national research council. there's another one that was significant at the time. jeffrey passel did a study of what happened between the 1970s and the 1990s. that's two decade perfected. and -- period, and he came up with a figure. the net contribution was $25 billion. but again, when you look at it, always think that the effect of immigration on the economy goes beyond what they themselves produce and consume and what they themselves pay and what they themselves take out of the system, because the impact the whole of u.s. society. they make all of society more productive. the entire economy more productive. so it's almost impossible to calculate exactly what the impact will be but we know it

will be positive because if the economy becomes more productive and you're producing more goods and services, by definition you're going to bring more revenue to the government. ultimately if that were not the case, though, -- well, that's a great arguement to get rid of the welfare state. i mean, immigrants were not to blame, are not to blame for the fact that government spending has gone up by a factor of 15. until the second world war they weren't even entitle to relief programs and in the 1990s we had welfare reform that impacted immigrants as well so now they use that system in a very limited way. >> very few things more dangerous about at the welfare state than it changes the perception of people being assets and good for society, to being liabilities and viewing people as costs and look at this one government agency and see, well, people who take from there are net costs are terrible.

we did some research at the cato institute. we hired professors to do a study how much welfare, poor immigrants use compared to poor native-born americans. that's the relevant comparison right there. apples to apples. poor people to poor people in the same level. what we found was that if poor americans used medicaid at the same rate as poor immigrants and took the same amount of benefits that program would be 42% smaller. a huge savings. but for some reason people, when they look at an immigrant taking a dollar of welfare, all of a sudden the damage is magnified beyond all comprehension compared to an american citizen taking the same amount. now, i favor getting rid of the welfare state for everybody, but if we can't do that, let's build a wall around it at least and try to improve that perception of -- and try tree -- to remove the perception that immigrants

are takers when in fact they contribute far more to society than the paltry amount they take in welfare. >> okay. we have a question in the front row. >> thank you. my name is -- i'm an economist. thank you very much for the presentation, specially thele myths. my question is in spite of the overwhelming economic and cultural arguments of the benefit of immigration, how is it that the antiimmigration arguments find such a fertile soil in certain groups in this country, and if you look at experience of other countries, which i'm sure you have done in the book, but can we draw any lessons from the other countries, say europe or canada, the way they have dealt with the myths to have immigration policy that makes sense. second question. one myth i couldn't agree with you.

you said there's a myth that the immigrants have a lot of children. i think that's a myth that cannot be refuted because they do have a lot more children but it's precisely one of the bench fits publish benefits bring, younger population, and for a generation or so will have more children and bring in influx of people into the nation and into the economy and that's a plus. >> great point you make. the first answer, i'm thinking has to do with fear. any community that is faced with an influx of newcomers will be afraid, and it will rationalize that fear with arguments of the kind we tend to hear. you prove them to those arguments are knot true, you prove they're myths, you show them all these statistics and historical experience, and yet that fear remains, and i think it has to do with fear.

at the time of irish immigration, the idea was that all irish men were drunkards. maybe one or two that liked a beer or ten, but all italians were mobsters. maybe one or two was on the wrong side of the law but not all italians. not all catholics were respeakssive. now we embrace catholics because they're awful about religion and family values but a few centuries ago, catholics were hated by people who were already here because they saw them as european repressers. so, today we have again this stereo type that hispanics are different or worse. now we begin to embrace indians, of course, because of their contribution to silicon valley, but a comb decade -- a couple decades ago indians were the object of stereotypes here. so i think it has to do with fear. about children. it's definitely coming down. even in europe. there's no question. it's slightly higher than the native rate in europe. it's about two children. and here it's 60% higher than

the native rate, but the tendency is coming down, and that is also the case in latin america. and incidentally, one more point about the previous question connected to this. the average age for immigrants is 27. the average age for americans is 42. so, again, that is a -- if the welfare state is what we really care about, clear live that's a plus because that's more years of contribution to the system. and in terms of taking money out of the system, of a transfer system, only 1.2% of immigrants are over 65 against 12% for the u.s. population. so, again, if those arguments were real, then those fears should be disspelled by the evidence. but i think there's fear at the heart of this and it's very, very difficult to disspells. >> about why the rest of civilization, society, doesn't take up these well-known arguments and facts and economics, i mean i wish that immigration was the only

instance of that. there's so many economic notions that have been known for quite a long time that are not taken up in the mainstream society. intellectually i think we won the debate about free trade. but when you ask the common person, do you think that we should be able to import goods and services from china without any kind of government barriers? the would be no, takes american jobs. of course there should be barriers. the notion goes beyond this to the conception that there is a fixed pie. people have this notion there's a fixed pie of wealth, fixed pie of jobs and x, y, and z, and having more people come into the country will decrease the amount that it available to us. it's a wrong-headed notion and something we have been fighting against in every sphere of public policy for a long period of time when it has to do with economics, and we have a lot of work to do with immigration, especially, but in numerous other issues. >> we have time for one more

question. if there is one, and we'll take it right there, please. >> my name is mike. i'm a retired foreign service. officer with the agency for international development and i was previously the officer in charge of central america desk. and so we looked at lot of issues in central america, and i looked in your book and was going through the idea that most of the poor people do migration within their countries or region, maybe in central america. but then i read in your prologue that kidnappings in the certain peered of time what mostly poor central americans and effect timly the drug war going on. this is a key issue. because we have a disease in central america right now for coffee plants, called coffee rust, and it's going to impact about three million workers in central america that work in

that sector. we're talking about maybe 40 to 50% loss of the sector and loss of the employment. if they can move north, i think they may. i'm not sure this is on anybody's radar screen. but if you're right they won't move north, they'll basically change their area of location within central america, that will also have impacts. i just want to get your perspective of what could happen. and this is happened in the past with hurricane mitch and we have different types of outmigration from central america before, but this one is pending and is coming up. >> well, i mean, it's not inconceivable that a small percentage of them will try to move north and eventually come to the united states, but empirical experience they will most live migrate within the area. that happened normally in central america, happened even in mexico. migration inside mexico is something that people don't talk about all that much.

i know the experience of my whole -- home country, peru, very well. a country that in the last 50 years has seen colossal amounts of migration internally. so much so that everything has been impacted. the economy and institutions. the story is no different in the united states. domestic immigration is four times larger than international immigration for the united states. so, it is just a pattern that seems to be repeating itself everywhere. so i don't know exactly what will happen with those people, but with can go by historical precedent, it is very likely that will not have a huge impact in terms of international my migration. it of course will probably have an impact domestically in terms of the economy. that will take us into the whole issue of the central american economy, institutions, drug war and all of that. but different issue.

>> few hispanic -- i dids' research and from 2000 to 2010 the increase and origin of different countries of migrants. central america was 16.5%? it was off the charts compared to any other origin. the next was 9% for south americans. mexican country of origin, people not bon here but coming from mexico is 2% increase. something is happening. even you -- you map it out here. incredibly difficult to come but people are still coming and from central america they're really coming. so, -- >> but it's because central america is not doing that well and mexico has been doing a lot boater -- better in the last few yearses, which is why i predict in the few years from how to in the argument for the united states will be, where the hell are we going to get immigrant workers. the new president wants to

engage free market reform and if he does that will go up to 6% and that will be enough to take care of to the work force, and they will be replaced until central america takes up reforms and until we get rid of the drug war which is devastating the whole area, bit the -- by the way in which case we need to find them in iceland. i don't know where. it's going to be an issue. believe me, it will be an issue. is this recorded somewhere? two 20 years from now the probable policemen with the mexicans don't want to come to america anymore. >> sent 2008, lawful immigrants coming to the united states, asian have outnumbered hispanics and you use the word hispanic broadly. i'm an american so i use it central and south americans, asians have outnumbered them and the gulf is getting wider every

year. asia is the new source going forward of immigrants to the united states. the new historical dynamic. so, i predict that my kids when they're adults will look back and say, alex, why were so many people upset about hispanic immigrants. it's absurd to me. and then i'll be like but these indians, or these southeast asians are different. they're taking our jobs. that's what i'll hear from my own kid if i did a for job educating them but also from other people in society. >> it's been a fascinate and can encouraging discussion i and i hope our friends on capitol hill pay attention to the points made today, and read out of the book which is on sale here at a discount for all of you who are interested. thank you all for coming please joan my in thinking our great speakers today. [applause]

>> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know.

>> when tide the u.s. slave trait standard and how did it start? >> the u.s. was involved in the slave trade from the moment that we sort of began as a colony of britain, and indeed one of the interesting things about u.s. history is that in the constitutional convention there was a comprimise between the states that had slaves and states that didn't, and the u.s. constitution says that the federal congress couldn't take any action against the slave trade until 1808. and the u.s., at the first

moment it could in 1807, president jefferson sent legislation to congress that banned participation in the slave trade by u.s. ships and u.s. persons and congress passed that, and so in 1808 the u.s. prohibited the slave trade, which is a long time before, of course, slavery itself ended in the united states. but the issues were seen as different, and even southerners were in support of banning the slave trade. >> why were southerners in support of that? >> a lot of different reasons. one was that it was perceived as the more unjust or inhumane part of the traffic. but also they had an economic self-interest. they already owned slaves, and the environment in the u.s. was such that slave mortality was not as high in southern plantations as it was in places like cuba or brazil where slaves didn't live long because of the environment and diseases. here in the u.s. if they were well treated, as well-treated as they could be, they would live

for a decent life span. so explain -- slave owners thought it would increase the value of their slaves they own. so it was an odd coalition. >> you have a chart in your book here that shows -- i want to use the word importation of slaves. what does this show here, a real spike. >> a real strong spike in the number of slaves in the u.s., right before we ban it. everyone knew that as soon as the clock turned in 1808 that congress was going to ban the slave trade. >> the other half of your book is about the international human rights law. when did human rights laws start becoming part of this discussion on the slave trade. >> around the turn of the 19th 19th century. what is interesting is that people think that international human rights law is a product of

the 20th century. people say it was right after world war ii. show holocaust happened. as news of that came out a bunch of things happen right after world war ii, the nuremberg trials, and trials in the far east. the u.n. was founded. universal declaration of human rights. that's when international law started to look at human rights issues. but it was in connection with the slave trade that international law was idea for human rights purpose so n in the earl 19th century, 1807-1808, when countries like the u.s., britain banned the slave trade, and it began to spread throughout the countries that had been engaged in the slave trade. but this is no longer a practice they wanted to participate in. i it was perceived as violating natural rights, the same ideas of rights that underpinned the u.s. revolution, and the revolution in france.

the declaration of independence says, we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are crete create it equal. there was a tension between that and the existence of slave iry but those idea of narl rights were spreading throughout the atlantic world, and there were some religious revival movements. the quakers and other groups were active politically and they perceived slavery and the slave trade to be morally wrong. so as those groups becamemer active they started to put pressure on the government to say, we have to stop the slave trade, and because it was an international problem, all the countries of europe that were engaged in travels on the ocean were participating in it. it wasn't something that just one country could stop. so, even if the u.s. said, we're banning the slave trade, oor even if britain said, we're ban thing slave trade, that wouldn't be enough but a spain, portugal,

france, the netherlands, other countries were still going to pick up the slack. they were going to begin picking then slaves from africa and transport them to the new world. so it became apparent that in order to eradicate this practice there would have to be international cooperation. and so put pressure on governments and especially the british government was receptive to the pressure, and they lobbied other governments to enter into treaties that would prohibit the slave trade, and at first those treaties, like many modern international human rights treaties were what we call cheap talk. they said slavery is wrong, we want to ban the slave trade but including no enforcement mechanism. but pretty quickly the tide turned and they said this isn't enough. so the british government began pushing for enforcement measures and actually created treaties in 1817 that not only banned the slave trade but created

international courts to enforce the ban. more than a century before the nuremberg tribunals. courts treated by treaty to promote human rights objective of ending the slave trade, and if a ship were caught engamed in illegal slave trade it would be brought before an enter national court and if they found itself was a covered by the treaty, spanish ship and there was a treaty between the british and the spain, the slaves would be freed, the ship auction evidence off, the money split win at the sea captain and the governments. so these enter national -- international courts heard some 600 cases and freed 80,000 slaves, which is a huge number in the scale. >> all post 1808. >> all post 1808. >> what was the name of these international courts? >> they were the mixed --

treaties give them different names. a bunch of bilateral treaties between britain, spain, portugal, brazil, and the u.s. essentially joined during the civil war. they calls the mixed commissions or sometimes the mixed courts and the reason they were called mixed is because they involved judges from different countries so there would be a british judge and brazilian judges for example, and if they couldn't agree they would toss a coin and pick a third judge in from one of the two countries to help decide the case. >> next, science writer, anna lee-lee row counsels the mass stinkses that have taken place. ...

funding is being cut to sciences at the national level, so we need to keep pushing for as much science education as possible. so, i have just finished writing an optimistic book about the apocalypse. and it did not start out that way at all. average did not realize that the book was going to have a happy ending. it actually started because i have been a really fast in my whole life with how stories about destruction, especially massive global destruction and apocalypses and everything from kind of the underground cannibal apocalypse to sunday stories and cancellous court -- stories. guzz i