points. there is a concern about people, especially some republicans on the hill, that opening up the doors like this and increasing the number of work visas will put pressure on the job market and make it harder for americans to get jobs. i think those are real concerns. on the other side, you have people saying that they people are already working and already in the market and what you can do by giving them a legal work permit is give them a little more leverage with their employer. right now there are abuses that are happening to people here illegally because employers can take advantage of them because of their status. by giving them legal work permits they can improve their working conditions and are more likely to pay taxes and pay into the system, more likely to pay into social security. you can boost revenues to cover that. host: here is a recent piece by brian bennett. this is in the "l.a. times."

shot of the many immigration protests in and around town. you have a quotation from the speaker of the house, john boehner, last week. "we are going to fight the president to thumbnail if he continues down this path. this is the wrong way to govern." they are also talking about suing the administration. how would that work and couldn't be successful you have to -- could it be successful" discussedgress has suing the president before and the suits haven't gone anywhere. they have trouble figuring out exactly what standing congress has to sue the president. it tends to be more about theater and public relations, these threats to sue. the budget discussions, on the other hand, is a real immediate power that the congress has. right now republicans are talking about, look, if obama goes forward with these

immigration actions, we have the power of the purse and we can cut off funding to these thisams, agencies that run , or try to cut off funding to the entire government and shut it down. obviously, there is a political risk to the government if they do that -- republicans if they do that. they have been politically unpopular for shutting down the government before. obviously, there is a lot of blame to go around. that is something we will watch play out the next few weeks. host: dan in new york. go ahead, please. caller: my question is, i have a daughter who was born here. i came here in 1987 -- 1997, sorry. the problem is, i used to work for an italian company. i was sponsored by the company. when i was sponsored by the company, i got the approval from the board of labor department.

i don't knowny -- for what reason i got a letter from immigration to get the appointment, but my company did taxes,t to release the what they pay for the year, how many employees they have and stuff like that. because i am a skillful taylor. i do all kinds of handmade suits , handmade garments. i am stuck in a situation, and i'm playing by the rules. i am playing by the rules, because i pay my taxes every year, everything. now i am in a situation where i'm stuck between two rock. there is no way i'm really getting ahead, actually. now i'm no longer working for that company, because they closed a lot of stores and stuff like that -- host: you are calling on the

line set aside for folks you legally here in the u.s. explaining your situation. what is your message to the folks in washington? we might see an executive action by the president and a big fight to follow. caller: well, my main focus is that -- host: dan, you there? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: my main focus is on -- i don't know why the republicans and the democratic cannot come to a solution where they can give -- focus on the skillful workers, the people who are really paying into the system, they are going by the rules and everything, and just focus. there are so many skillful people in this country. host: thanks for calling, dan. brian bennett. guest: this is why the business

community is so frustrated with the immigration laws now and why the chamber of commerce backed the immigration bill, because they see a logjam for business in the united states getting workers who have specific skills they need and they want to be able to go on to the global marketplace with that. right now there are caps on the number of visas in different categories and certain situations, long lines for people to come in here. that thee things congress could do if they passed a law would be to open that up and clear that up. people have argued that by opening up the legal avenues for people to come here and work, whether in still the jobs or agriculture, you take some pressure off the border, and people who want to come here to work have a legal way to come you're so they don't try to sneak across the border and the people trying to protect the border can focus on drug smugglers and nefarious people who are trying to cross illegally.

you mentioned the chamber of commerce. have they come out with a position on the possibility of executive action? guest: the chamber of commerce is in favor of anything that makes business run better, and their position is that they hope president obama makes some visass that would open up for companies, and make it more easy for companies to get skilled workers in the country. host: more of your calls in a minute but more voices from the hill. a couple of voices on the sunday shows -- congressman tom: congressman louise gutierrez were on the abc program. [video clip] wouldhink the president be much better advised to wait until congress is sworn in. he is tried to pick a fight. >> but we are talking about couple months. >> a couple of things. they want a more border patrol

agents. they were included in the senate bill. we just came from an election cycle in which not only was the border not secure, but isis and ebola was coming through. they mixed all of this together and then they say we are poisoning the well. all i am saying is this -- there are 4 million americans this and children. you just heard the speaker say that this is a fight that he is going to have with the president. he is wrong. he will have this fight with millions of americans -- >>'s fight is not over immigration. this fight is with the process the president is using, a process the president himself said was unconstitutional a couple of years ago. host: flavor from the hill, the latest debate. anything you want to add, brian bennett? butt: well, it is difficult the timing is coming right after a big republican win.

president obama has promised to take these actions before the end of the year, and the republicans are feeling energized, they feel like they have a mandate from voters to do their priorities, and they are frustrated that in the middle of all this, president obama has made a promise that he would go around them and take a bunch of executive actions on this heated topic. when it comes to -- you we are in a moment where we could have had republicans and democrats coming together and saying let's find some common ground issues that we can agree on, like corporate tax cuts were infrastructure investments, and there is frustration that the immigration issue is being thrown in as a spanner in the works. host: let's hear from kevin in pennsylvania. caller: yes, good morning. thanks for c-span. i got a few comments and then a

question. the leading senator that speaks for the american workers is senator sessions. strongly thated the congress, that they do in fact have the power of the purse and that we should have a short-term funding of the government if president obama tries to do something, this executive action, which is really unprecedented in magnitude -- there may have been smaller ones. but there is a lot of different things. the election was largely about immigration, and the republicans won. workers.lites versus it is just astonishing that the other side, the workers side, is not able to really get any kind of hearing in the mainstream media, generally speaking. the one issue that never even is -- one day ithe

read in "the wall street journal" and "the new york times" that because of technology, the loss of jobs over the next 20 years is as much as 40% in jeopardy. and then the next day we hear that we need immigration reform, and references made to the comprehensive immigration bill that the senate passed, and they don't speak about the fact that it would -- 30 million workers would have gotten green cards over the next 10 years. again, it is elites who want to depress wages against workers who want jobs. it just continues -- host: thanks for calling. brian bennett, he mentioned jeff sessions, incoming budget chairman. here is a tweet he just put out. "no surrender on immigration. congress must event funds for executive -- prohibit funds for executive amnesty." i think we have some sound from

him -- we don't have sound but we do have the tweet. respond to what the caller and senator sessions are saying. guest: senator sessions is laid out for many years the strong argument that we as been in a recession -- we have been in a recession and have high unemployment rates and this is not the moment to be bringing in additional workers. the counterargument to that is that some of these service jobs, employers are finding it difficult to fill. senator sessions most recently has decided that he is going to push the republican leadership discussionso budget over the immigration bill and threatened to shut down the government. defundhe very least parts of the government that would be executing parts of the executive immigration act. host: our guest is brian bennett

of the "l.a. times." previously he has worked at "time" magazine where he was a reporter in hong kong and bureau chief in baghdad. learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of potential executive action and what reaction to it might be. jane, you have been hanging on in wisconsin. go ahead. you are on the independent line. caller: yes. i don't agree with this immigration for the simple ,eason that your forefathers when they got to new york, there were only allowed one million people, there was people shut off and they had to go back to the old country. i think maybe you should like -- people that got here that are in the 80's and had a foothold in the united states, they should stay, but a lot of these other

ones us they are always talking about -- they are always talking about 5 million. there are 11 million, 12 million people here and i don't think there is -- that is fair to anybody else could 11 million people looking for jobs, and they are taking them away from the regular citizens, and whatever happened to the nation of laws? the nations of the law on the old one says right out that you have got to go and stand in line and then get your green card, not come sneaking across the border. i think that is absolutely wrong . if i go down the street and break the speed limit, the cop is not going to pat me on the back. he is going to give me a ticket. let'sall right, gene, hear from brian bennett. guest: interesting point in that he feels like if people have been here for a long time, since the 1980's, maybe they should

have some consideration. and that is one of the points that is being considered by the obama administration. maybe you open up this executive action program just for people who have been here for 10 years or longer, and maybe have deep roots here like u.s. citizen children, and the rest of the to fend for themselves, have to find a legal way or go back to their home countries. this is really the debate. you have 11 million people here, some of whom have been here for a long time and efforts -- and have roots in the community. some of them, their only crime they comeey crime -- here illegally and the question is what can you do about that. do we want to stand millions of dollars all line -- in law enforcement resources going into communities and finding these people and putting them on our planes to go home, or should as

a society should we decide to reach out to them and do a background check and encourage them to become legal members of the workforce? host: we have someone in this country illegally from alexandria, virginia, on the line. caller: good morning. this is francis. good one, c-span. host: tell us your situation. caller: i've been here 24 years. i'm a nurse, i think the school. we are sorry we are illegals. we have committed a crime and we thank the american people to forgive us for being here illegally. now, this issue -- it is a no-brainer. the republicans are the problem. what is the problem in going to allow the congress to have a debate and make this into a law and help people? i have a daughter serving in the united states military right now. and they want to deport me?

i've been out of sierra leone for 24 years. i don't have enough relatives there. if i go back i'm going to my death. i'm sorry, america. we are begging the republicans, please have mercy. 2012, barack obama got into the white house for the second time, and it was based on, i believe, the immigrants, hispanics who went out there and voted. so let's respect that will for the first part -- let's respect that, for the first part. last week's elections is what people say and the man is taking i to his own hands and taking executive action. they are to be ashamed of themselves. they push this man to go this far and they need to do something. thank you very much for allowing me to participate. host: the words of francis there, in this country illegally, asking for mercy.

guest: francis has been here for more than 20 for years and his daughter is in the u.s. military and he is working as a nurse. he obviously has deepe roots here. is there a way for the government to allow francis to come forward and -- i did this wrong thing and i want to pay a fine and get right with the law. right now there isn't a way to do that for someone like francis , and the question is should the president do that on his own, or should you wait for congress to do something like that? one thing that francis brought up is that last year the senate passed a compromise solution, a bipartisan solution, and some people believe that if the house had taken it up for a vote, there would have been enough votes to get into the house. but speaker boehner didn't feel like he had the backing of his caucus to do that, and never came up for a vote. host: here is a question via

twitter. "cookie guest explain why president obama said he couldn't take it action two years ago and now he can?" guest: this is absolutely a dilemma for the president. he said in 2011 that he couldn't take action on his own. that was in the run-up to the senate bill being debated and he was trying to put pressure on congress to act, and he was trying to answer lessons from the inner regret -- from the immigrant community, who were frustrated by the large number of people who are being deported under his administration. and so he was making the point that there is only so much i can do on my own and i need congress -- the person who made that comment has a good point. there does seem to be an inconsistency there and he believes yes the authority to do it now. the difference, if you want to parse it a little bit, is there any exact -- any action obama

does take will not be permanent. another president could reverse it. betweenthe difference the executive action see my take on immigration and an actual law. the: remind us with president's deportation record has been and what is happening right now. guest: when the president came into office in 2009, president bush presided over a massive increase in the number of order virtual agents and a large investment in the deportation apparatus inside the country, and that started to play out while obama was president. i know the united states can deport about 400,000 people. -- right now the united states can deport about 400,000 people. what president obama decided to do was say i have got this deportation apparatus and i want to focus it on people who have recently crossed, who are a threat to public safety, or who have violated the immigration law will double times and been to -- multiple times.

what we're seeing is the number of people who are being deported have been apprehended close to the border is going up over time, and the number of people being deported from the interior -- which is sort of what normal, average people think about when they hear the word "deportation," people being deported from the interior united states, taken from their places, that number has gone down over time. if you can imagine, since obama came to office comes yes deported fewer people from inside the united states and deported more and more people from the border areas. host: laura is standing by in pennsylvania, republican caller. caller: good morning, gentlemen. republican, i am with jeff sessions basically saying that the election had consequences. most people want the border sealed. they don't want the illegal people just crossing over, including the children that came unaccompanied. it was an outrage.

that is what the election was about. newslimbaugh and the fox has been showing tapes of obama do some of this legally," and yet he is proceeding to do this illegally. i think the compromise would be if he is calling on republicans , i think the bill 2 things who could be in the ner andth by boeh mcconnell to get together right now and say we agree, let's do border security right now, so and, you know, any other illegal person can't come through the border without us knowing. second is employer verification. although people who have been calling in saying they are illegals, was social security number have they been using? know, we need to have employer verification where we say that these are the legal people here and if you want to give up 5 million people knew social security numbers, you

wait until the new congress comes in and then the president, who lost this election, deals with those. host: thank you, laura. brian bennett. guest: it's a good question, could the republicans come up with a border bill right now that could pass the house and the senate? they would be reliant on president obama signing the bill. obama does have the power of the pen. one thing that has changed is that the republicans, because they control the senate and house starting in january, they could put together a sort of republican version of the comprehensive package, and then they wouldn't have to be negotiating as much with senate democrats or democrats in congress. they would just be negotiating with the president. there could be a possible path by which the republicans say, look, let's put forward our solutions come here is our solution for tightening the border, here is our solution for

opening up some of the legal avenues that the business , and we arents going to put this together in a package and put it on the president's desk and see if we can get him to sign it. host: chris in florida, independent caller. caller: how are you doing today? host: doing fine, chris. caller: i want to clarify a couple things. with all these people being deported, the high rate that they are not departing from inside the country, it is actually the people turning away from the border. they are not even coming in, but obama is counting them as being deported and that is why the numbers are so high. fee-based.is is that going to cover the social security that these people are going to receive, the disability, or the older illegals that are going to be getting this amnesty? that is every teacher out there

with over crowded classrooms, let's bring in more kids. how do the unions feel about it? in my area every construction job is done and roof that is put up, it is illegals on the roof. they are in our health care system and not to mention the swelling prison population. all of these costs are not being addressed at all, but you say that we could spend millions of dollars, but we are spending billions of dollars in pricing these people to come in. granted, bottom dollar, more people are going to flood the border. host: touching on a number of different areas. guest: this is a good question. i don't know what the cost would be at this point of the executive action that obama might take. we don't know what is actually going to be -- we don't know the scope of it. when the senate was considering their immigration bill, they had

the congressional budget office run the numbers and they found that based on all the different ,hings they were planning to do legalizing some people here illegally, bringing in some more foreign workers, that there would be extra money coming in to the u.s. treasury through taxes and social security payments that would offset some thate additional costs would be incurred by the social welfare systems. -- it is worth looking very closely at what the cost implications long-term for communities would be by allowing people to come forward and giving them a 2-year work permits through a program that obama is considering. king republican from iowa, warning of a constitutional crisis over all of this.

what can you tell us about timing? congress is not in session next week, but what about timing? guest: so we don't really know. the president is returning now from a long trip to asia, and my understanding is he is going to be presented with sort of a final draft of options. and he could make a decision as soon as friday to announce what he is going to do. they could decipher a whole list of reasons to delay that a few weeks. the president has promised to act by the end of the year. but there are other considerations. they do need to congress to pass a bill that would continue paying for the functioning of the government between now and the end of the year. they are going to have to weigh the decision of whether to take this action now or have it play into the negotiations over the funding of the government. to take aother tweet look at from congress meant guittierrez.

have signed a letter asking for executive action soon." we have bruce, republican. caller: good morning. i am passionate republican. imf and american. i accept the fact that this is the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. obama didn't lose an election. the people that didn't follow their team, they lost the election. to all themises people and he had to live up to those obligations he spoke of when he got elected. i understand that people want immigration to work the way they want it to work, but they have to consider some things, like if we are going to let people in to the country, all of a sudden, and everybody -- and they raise

the minimum wage -- obama can't do everything he wants to do. it would be crazy if the republican party allow him to do everything he wants to do. my heart goes out to everyone with a problem in the world. america has got broad shoulders but it can't support everybody. people come across the border law,on'ts of the rule of -- and we don't set the rule of law, we alienate our neighbors to the south. we have to live with these people forever. they are not going anywhere could how they feel about us as neighbors matters. we can't just ignore them. but at the same time we can't ignore the rule of law. host: thanks for calling, bruce trade any thoughts? guest: it is difficult timing for the president here. she has promised to take executive actions and the republicans have come off a major win at the polls and they feel like they have amended to execute their priorities, which

do not include the president's .riorities on immigration and so we are going to watch this play out over the next few weeks and see what kind of reactions the republicans have to whatever steps the president decides to take. host: down to our last couple calls. burke, virginia. caller: thank you for c-span. in theoyment of illegals united states can be stemmed, if regulation and rules can be set up to make sure that employers are not hiring these folks, with that be more of a long-term, sirius radio kind of put a halt to this thing -- long-term, serious way kind of to put a halt to this thing? guest: i think that is something that republicans and democrats have compromised on. in the senate bill, bipartisan bill, there was agreement that

they would increase employer verification. right now there is a voluntary verify thatled e- employers can check the immigration status of people they hire and that bill would have made that mandatory and required employers across the country to do those checks. and the argument being that you deter people from coming into the country in the future. if it is hard to get a job here, it will be harder if you don't have papers, then you make -- you create a disincentive for people to come here in the future. he doesn't address people who are already here, which is something that policymakers have grappled with. people already here, people in the workforce. we are an innovative group of people and people find ways to get around innovation. host: one last caller, ross in texas. caller: thank you for taking my

call. comments. first, congress is up in arms now, but for the past two or three years, they have been busy in voting obamacare 35, 45 times come when they should have been working on it first. secondly, what the caller before me said, we are really not going lid on the problem until we start locking up company owners who employ illegals. we needed to lock up the company owners and that will solve the problem with th -- right there. guest: that is another question, something the business community is reluctant to sign off on, doing tougher employer enforcement. under president george w. bush there were more workplace raids where immigration agents went to workplaces and checked immigration status of workers directly. the democrats -- a lot democrats didn't like that because they

felt it was like punishing the workers themselves, many of whom were working in substandard conditions and didn't go after the employers enough. this is something that policymakers have to hash out, what is the balance between punishing employers who take advantage of illegal workers and hire illegal workers at substandard wages. host: we are just about out of time. what else are you looking for as a reporter in the next coming days? guest: i will be watching for exactly what the president decides to do, we are going to be watching for why the program that he designs will be -- whether it could be tailored to welcome about one million people to come forward and apply for this work visa, it could be up to 5 million people who would be eligible. >> women read on the website.

>> because he is promised to end of the by the year, she brought it was a make an announcement and he will leadership team around him. we don't know, we will see.