when his hopes for and her hopes for herself and for every different kind of work. the language your parents use ones that they want her to be behind a desk. that's what they would say. it meant they really didn't want her to have to work with her hands. they wanted her to use her intelligence and have the opportunity to create a career for herself and would take advantage of how smart she was. the great obstacle was not being able to pay for college, given her lack of legal status. i have kept in touch with all four students. we got to know each other very well because i spent six years following them as they were growing up. i met them when they were seniors in high school and i followed them all the way through the point when they were about 21, 22 and had finished college. i'm still in touch with him today, and since the book was published, but to undocumented

students both have managed to acquire the ability to work legally. one of them chose to return to mexico and apply for legal status from the. because she was married to a u.s. citizen and the parent of a u.s. citizen at that point in time, she was granted permission to reenter this country as she awaited the outcome of her case. because the student who didn't have legal status whenever the book qualified for what's known as deferred action for children to it's an executive order that president obama passed. it allows her the chance to work legally, even though she's not a citizen of the united states nor a legal resident. it acknowledges that her parents brought her to this country when she was a young child and that she did have a choice in the meta. so she was given illegal status

in our society but not through interest of her own. it's kind of a temporary fix to a big problem. she doesn't have the right, she does not the path to citizenship. she doesn't have the right to vote. she can work legally but she'll has permission to do so for a two-year period of time. then she has to reapply for the work permission to it's a very in permanent solution. it's not a real fix. if someone else was elected to office she could lose that right to work legally. it to be taken away from her jesuit a pen stroke. so she doesn't feel secure in her decision in our society. she still longs for a more permanent solution that would acknowledge that she has made her home here and welcome her into society in a more permanent

fashion. by spending six years with the students i think what i learned over time was lacking legal status something that a person struggles with in a daily fashion. so the person without legal status, they are dying to change their circumstances. they would change their circumstances in a heartbeat if our society made it easy for them to do so. in fact, we have made it very, very hard. it's almost impossible for them to change their circumstances while remaining within this country. and so we had a conversation about immigration and we say things like if only people would change their circumstances, but we forget the wound to make it logistically easy and worthwhile for people to do so. we really haven't. as long as we've had this

debate, we have not created a real path to citizenship for anybody who wishes to have that right, to join our society. the other thing that people could keep in mind as they debate immigration is that generally people long to join our society. they don't want to live in the shadows. they don't want to be old the quasi-members of american society. they really wish to be full membership and what they're holding onto on the jobs that they have secured. so as long as the path involves giving up the jobs they have a meeting to return to the country of origin, they generally would choose to stay because they have just a little toehold. it's precarious but it's better than what they have. so to bring people out of the shadows, we would really have to allow a path that will let them hold onto the jobs that they

have and yet create a path to citizenship at the same time, for them to take advantage of it. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to denver and many other destinations on our cities tour, go to c-span.org/cities tour. spirit booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> first of all, thanks to c-span for all you do on this front. it's very important service you get to the country. my folks are watching is the my kids will get a kick out of it. i hope they see their picture beyond the. i've got a pretty extensive reading list coming up not only for the summer but for the next year. i thought i would start out with recommendation for folks to prayers for people under pressure written by a former member of the english parliament. i think he knows a little bit about pressure and i thought i could learn something from them.

second new one, troublesome young men has to do with the rise of a small band of conservatives in the parliament during the churchill period, and kind of motivated by, i'm a member of the house freedom caucus. we have 40 or 50 great folks that are trying to get the country back straight, solve some of the fiscal problems. just kind of represent the people more closely, do what the people want to do. i think this book would give me a little motivation. next one, tha the title may note it away but it's called on civilization by gregory copley. he briefed me on foreign policy when they and just an amazing mind on foreign policy. and i learned so much from want to read some of his books. so is the subtitle is urban geopolitics in a time of chaos. maybe at first blush an unlikely

source of grounding for international policy, but his thesis is that some of the uncertainty and instability and chaos we're seeing around the globe which we are clearly seeing is driven by the urban-rural split in our country there just kind of with the growth of the urban cities, a little bit more detachment from the jeffersonian yeoman farmer and love of country, patriotism, nationalism in the positive sense. and maybe we need a little bigger dose of history. i haven't finished the book. i started reading about it in a little of it. next one, the desire of nations was highly recommended to me on political theology. obviously, that's public issue of our day with isis and the debate over our constitution,

the role of the judicial tradition -- judeo-christian tradition. how does islam fit into this nation. so the desire of the nation's, i think most of you know, islam, the jewish tradition understanding we all use have a nice conversation around aristotle. so the conversation is possible but it requires some unity of thought. so aristotle is one nice place to be. there's plenty of others. of upon image if you coming up. i think we need urge some of our brothers and sisters open hotspots that reformation might not be a bad idea. enlightenment would certainly be a good idea. so surprised some of the things i would be reading about in the book. next one more contemporary extortion by peter schweitzer. i've dated a few years back. i'm going to give it another look. what are the politics broken? everyone ago seemed to think there's as wing right wing war

going on between the parties, factions and the right-wingers and left-wingers. i talk to bernie sanders at a white house christmas party. he shared my view that that's not the case that most of the case has to do with may be the middle in doling out $4 trillion to the insider cronies in d.c. that i think is a little stronger explanation for why the politics is broken. i think he pursues that pretty well. money correlated with elections, correlated with committee assignments, corley with everything. voting records et cetera. betrayhe pays them all up with footnotes that evidence. the next one is a shameless plug. it's called "american underdog" by a congressman named david bratt, available june 28. i'm plugging my own stuff. it's wide-ranging but i had a friend help me put it together but i sent him previous books have put together, lecture notes

over 20 years what i taught economics and ethics at randolph macon. basic thesis i ran on the republican creed of virginia, basically un-american things, but since then i went a little 30,000-foot up in the air. condensed it to three, the three pillars that have made our civilization the greatest i think, the greatest country on earth. the three pillars that hold the foundation, and they include not surprisingly the judeo-christian tradition. i went to princeton senate before i went to economics. madison went to the college of new jersey. roughly the princeton seminary. and studied hebrew for kicks when he was done come at the judeo-christian tradition leads to the second pillar, the rule of law. and then we get in 1776, also i don't know if by divine intervention or not, make up your own mind, but how does the founder of free market economics across the pond in england,

scotland, doing economics and ethics as well. he was the chair of moral philosophy, and so a lot of great thinkers weaving together religion, philosophy, economics, political theology and philosophy. in the past are now so many doing it today. that's kind of why these books have for my reading list. next one was given to me by a 4-star general up here a few weeks ago, "combat ready." by all accounts our military, army, navy, air force and come weakest level since post-world war ii in terms of troops, ships, planes, et cetera. so is an analysis of combat readiness and i recommend that we have based on what i've heard about already. next one, "how god became king," new testament scholar of note. again political theology, political philosophy. how god -- "how god became king"

not necessary what you might think at first blush. may be a david and goliath malcolm little explanation. next one by sociologist, "the triumph of christianity," again not a boastful triumph but a tribe if you look at the country through the civil liberties, strong civil rights, political rights, women in the workforce, protections, all sorts of christianity, the reformation and the like but again. basic things of which is for all the more deeply. and then a whopper, fridge biography, george washington. called "sacred fire" given to me as a gift about a year ago. washington is just one of those amazing figures. when you read about it at what others say about him. all men and women loved him and

respected him. so there's something to this guy that is particular, extra significant. the more i read about him, the more i see that but i can never get enough of seeing what resonates with such an important founder, and some argue the founder, the indispensable man, the one doing all the others looked up and loved and respected. it's good to take notes on people like that. so that is a hefty reading list, and again i think c-span for letting me have the opportunity to share a few books that i'm going to take a peek at. my constituents do i go around talking about this stuff at our meetings around the 10 counties. most people get stimulated by this kind of intellectual exchange. i sure do. and to thank you for all you do, and happy reading. thank you. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading.

tweet us at booktv or post it on our facebook page facebook.com/booktv. >> modern presidents are so obsessed with talking and campaigning and going places that they failed to take the time to think about the third step of leadership, which is implementing policy. in fact, i start the book with a quote from thomas jefferson quote the execution of the laws is more important than the making them. if you think of leadership as three tests, getting the answer right, the policy right, communicating that, and then into making it. the argument i make in this book is that residents spend so much time on communication that it leaves them little time to think about how they're going to implement the policies you want to implement. and that involves understanding

something that in the business schools we call organizational capacity. in other words, is the federal government, is the peace of the federal government that you are giving this job to come is a capable? isn't up to the job that you're asking, you, the president are asking you to do? >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. ..