live coverage on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

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♪ >> i thank you for coming this morning to join us about a conversation about the wall, border security, many issues such as immigration, the use economy, security issues surrounding the wall here i want to thank our fantastic communications team for preparing the video that you just saw, and also further images that you will see. president trump started 2018 by again renewing his call for the wall on the u.s. southern border

with mexico. this was one of his key campaign promises at the time calling for a structure running the entire length of the 2000-mile u.s.-mexico border. and arguing that mexico will pay the price tag for the wall. recently, some of the administrations wording has changed including that the structure could look more like a fence, there are some indications the president might prepare a see-through structure, and as well that perhaps the better your might not run the entire 2000-mile length. you saw some of the very difficult terrain in the previous images and a difficult that is to do. and it might merely replace the existing 700-mile fence, perhaps with some 200-mile extension, at least in the initial ten years with a price tag that the administration estimates correctly at 18 billion. u.s. dollars of course. there are vast differences in

the price, something we can talk about in the question and answers, but this probably a safe guess 18 billion is significant underestimate of the actual cost, especially if one factors in the need for repairing the structure as is always the case. it will also imply very difficult and highly problematic trade-off such as taking money away from the coast guard. the president has once again said mexico will pay for the border wall which it will not. there's no way to make mexico pay for the wall, nor is it at all politically feasible for any mexican government to agree to such a proposition, especially in a presidential election year. but more fundamentally, the wall is not simply about the money that is being spent. there are many of the cost to go far beyond the financial goals

and is not going to accomplish the promises that the president has made. it will not enhance u.s. security. it will not stop contraband or people reaching the united states. and it's going to previous economic well-being. while it will fail at great expense in those costs, it comes with other problems such as hurting the rights of use border communities, native american communities as well as damaging the environment. why will the wall not stop the flow of drugs? for the very same reason the existing fence doesn't stop it. traffic will simply go above, around and below. they will use goes, not just drones to flow drugs over and they will would build tidal cye under the wall. even if the land border could somehow be made more security and technology are not available, traffickers would

simply smuggle drugs and people in trucks going far down the u.s. coastline come up the u.s. coast i should say. drugs and contraband as well as people being smuggled into the united states will go through the legal ports of entry of which there are 52. already most, the vast majority of the amount of drugs smuggled into the united states from mexico that doesn't come by mail such as fentanyl from china, comes to the legal ports of entry. these ports of entry process literally millions of people, cars, trucks and trains every week. and something that physically feasible to check all this movement of people and goods, even if improving the quality and speed and efficiency of searches at ports of entry. crucial, far more important that any physical structure between the ports of entry. why will the wall not enhance

u.s. criminal groups? its farmer crucial dependent on good cooperation with mexico. today mexico turns many undocumented americans, very a forge a people who try to come to the united states, then what is turned the u.s.-mexico border. if mexico drops this cooperation that was very hard to achieve and took long time, many more people would be tempting to cross into the united states. similarly, security against drug trafficking groups, criminal groups very much depends on the united states finally being able to build up good cooperation, intelligence sharing, ability to mount joint coordinated actions and also crucially the capacity of the united states law enforcement institutions to work with their colleagues in mexico to help reduce the corruption and increase efficiency of those

law enforcement institutions in mexico. all of that would be lost if the administration resorts to very hostile relations, very hostile environment with mexico. building of this cooperation took decades. it was very difficult and there were some very cold moment in the u.s.-mexico relations, and people like ambassador in the audience worked very hard to improve that cooperation. that could easily be lost. far more important in fact, been secreted from trafficking is counterterrorism cooperation. and that's something the united states and mexico enjoyed during the cold, difficult times but also involves, in fact, security, enhancing capacity of institutions such as u.s. coast guard. the far greater terrorist threat is not someone crossing the border from mexico, but very

dangerous equipment reaching, for example, u.s. shores. get the president wants to take money away from the coast guard from other institutions such as border patrol, and to devote to the single structure, by far the least significant element of border security. why does the wall not reduce crime in the united states? because violent crime in the u.s. is not in any significant way linked to legal and illegal immigration into the united states. although the president trump has repeatedly rained against the carnage of crime in the u.s. cities, over all, u.s. violent crime has gone substantially down. they are far lower than we were at any point since 1991 with the exception of what he 15 when three cities experience significant spikes in homicides, driving homicides increases entire country.

both in chicago and washington, d.c. washington d.c. has since improved. chicago slightly improved. both this you have highs per capita murder rate in a long time. but in none of the three cities it was immigration or, whether document or undocumented, immigrants that drove the rise in violent crime. rather, the three cities had in common was high income and racial inequality, declining populations, high poverty and unemployment rates, well above the national average, and very historic trouble relations between residents and police. these conditions are conducive to rise in crime. there is no evidence whatsoever that undocumented residents account for significant amount of crime, violent crime in the united states. in fact, the vast majority of criminal studies consistently show that most homicides and most violent crime in the u.s.

are several times the rate is perpetrated by nativeborn americans. instead it is the kind of anti-community policing that the trump administration is promoting, attacking sanctuary cities such as new york have far lower homicide rates than many non-sanctuary cities. pardoning police lawbreakers such as sheriff joe arpaio, and crucially forcing local police departments to prioritize rates in latino communities, hunting down even peaceful, productive undocumented residents that jeopardize use of improvement in u.s. law enforcement and years of improvement in violent time in the country. there is evidence across the united states and, in fact, across all countries that if people begin to question the fairness and legitimacy law of enforcement, they stop reporting

crime. and when they stop reporting crime, homicides increased. in fact, the policing practice and immigration rates the president promotes are very likely to worsen crime in the united states. why do the wall not help the u.s. economy or u.s. workers? yes, there is some evidence that immigration has some negative effects on a small segment of the u.s. population, namely high school dropouts and prior immigrants. they often compete for the very same jobs as low skill jobs as the newest immigrants that arrive. however, the right response for the small segment population that are negatively affected in terms of employment, is for us to help them with vocational training, with providing them with medical insurance and other capacity to locate jobs that are more productive and more

rewarding. to a large extent undocumented workers work the unpleasant backbreaking chaps the native american workers, that nativeborn workers are not willing to perform. in agriculture, in seafood processing factory, and landscaping or taking care of the elderly and the terminally ill, often very psychological to many jobs as well as hard, physical jobs. these economic sectors will be hurt by mass deportation, but also the quality of life in the u.s., the quality of u.s. society will be affected. crucially, however, immigrant workers have very important net positive effect on the economy. the nativeborn population is declining, both in numbers and in productivity. at the same time the longevity is increasing. what it means is immigrants and their children will account for the vast majority of the future and labor force growth, unless

of course the present gets his wit and significantly reduces also legal migration. in this case, however, it will be very significant burdens in terms of expensive benefit such as medicare and social security. essentially we need migrants that you pay for those benefits so that we, you, i in the future can enjoy them having pay for the period and, in fact, undocumented workers often pay social security, even though they might not be able to draw the benefits of those payments later in the future. nafta which is under negotiations at the present has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from it has not siphoned off large and osseous jobs. yes, it has caused some dislocations and forced some workers to find other jobs, but it is created many others. the estimates vary but perhaps today as many as 5 million jobs

depend on nafta. crucially, however, nafta not only creates new jobs, it also enables the creation of integrated value production lines across mexico, the united states and canada which make u.s. companies more competitive and that creates jobs. but it also allows for the importation of cheaper goods. if nafta ended some of the most disadvantaged u.s. citizens, those who voted for president trump, the lower middle class white families will face the greatest burden to the end of nafta because consumer goods will become far more expensive. certain segments of the economy such as manufacturing and farming would be particularly

badly hurt. crucially dependent on exports to mexico and canada. but there are other costs that we often don't have very much about, and that, for example, native communities you saw pictures before hand that are 26 recognized in the u.s., eight indigenous people in mexico who live along the border wall, or the existing fence, cuts through the tribal homeland. separates family members from the relatives and the damages than an takes them from their sacred site and it damages the environment. the border area, places a big band use images from as well as the so-called sky islands in arizona and new mexico area are some of the great diversity places in the united states. with perhaps hundreds of animals

endangered. the wall does not merely affect those u.s. border communities and the border and private. it has deep reach into the united states. it's that something about the physical structure what about the very nature of society that the united states want to live in. the wall as the president embraces it with his attacks on muslims and other communities, with his resentment towards nafta, excessively about creating a physical structure but creating barriers and divisions in one's mind and promoting politics of exclusion and bigotry, the very opposite of the american dream. [applause]

>> thank you so much for being here today. we're hoping it's going to be an exciting panel, thoroughly public. it's been in the news all weeklong piccolo probably be in the news as debate gets going on all the different bills for a daca six of those of a lot of things that get intertwined here, and we're hoping that will shed some light on the deeper issues that underlying the discussion over the border wall or border security, and then we want to hear from you guys, what your concerns are, what your questions are. and hopefully the congressman will be able to shed some light behind the scenes that's going

on. he was at the white house with 24, 25 of the lawmakers meeting with president trump talking about budget talks, to avert a government shutdown, finding a common ground to provide relief or legalization for dreamers as well as also strengthening border security. so we are hoping that you take away a lot of important ideas and thoughts about what's going on on the hill and at the white house, and most importantly, along the border. so thank thank you, let's get t going. >> so i thought we would begin the discussion just basically by explaining what's going on in terms of basic things like definitions picky talked about poor security.

you understand something very differently than the president apparently does in terms of what just border security to fix i thought we would begin about just getting to definitions. we talked about all the issues you raised in your essay and right now. we talked about what problem is really come is the wall really trying to solve if border crosses are down, if the drug traffickers will continue to evade authorities or finding ways to get their drugs in? eminent domain, you know, there are 90 losses been according to your account, and all obviously the evolving nature of the stress to your security like terrorism and drug trafficking. so first of all, definitions. what does the president meeting by the border wall? how do you achieve operational control of the border?

and if 18 billion is enough, what is the price tag when you get down with the maintenance and repairs and so forth? >> thank you. i will let you, congressman, speak about what the president means by the wall. you most recently were with him. clearly his view has changed. i mentioned in my opening remarks that for a long time during the campaign and into his first year he appeared to be insisting on a brick and cement physical structure. perhaps there is some movement now in terms that he prefers some see-through structure. and the administration for as i know has never specified what it means by border security, has never provided a definition. i would, however, argue are a lot of border security does that take place at the border. in fact, takes place far away from the border. in terms of screening of people who come to yes on visas, for

example, but also in terms of cooperation with countries that could be sources of flows into the united states. and cooperation with neighbors. i spoke about the necessary cooperation with mexico, and the fact that a lot of the control takes place actually on the mexico central america border i spoke about the long-term u.s.-mexico counterterrorism cooperation that survived the case that you been very, very difficult relationship with intelligence agencies sharing information and being able to apprehend suspicious or dangerous individuals far away from the border, in fact, in the territory. so a lot of modern secreted takes place very far away from the border, and the physical structure on the border itself is merely a very temporary delay at best for any flows of either dangerous contraband or people.

>> first of all, thank you so much for allowing me to be with you all and brookings institute, think again for a light as to be a i want to point out somebody in the audience. i think ambassador back there, anthony, and i say this because i learned a lot from him when he was the ambassador. let me talk about some of the points. when we met with the president i told the present let me use a a football analogy about the border. if you use football as an analogy, are you going to play defense on on the one yard lin, which we call the u.s.-mexico border? we spend right now $18 billion roughly on border security when you include everything. the present wants to add $18 billion for defense. keeping in mind we spent 18 billion total right now for border security. >> that's the budget for cbp?

>> cbp, i.c.e., anything we spent on the border when you combine altogether. now, if you play defense, and i say offense also, you have to go, you seem, using football as an analogy, play on the 20-yard line instead of the one yard line, what does it mean? exactly what you said. you expand the perimeter, and that is you work with countries that can help you. when people talk about the southern border strategy, i always remind, this might look familiar, is the southern border strategy that mexico has with wada moloch. because -- guatemala. if you're trying to stop think some coming in you use the 20-yard line instead of your one yard line where we spend so much money on the u.s. border. if you're able to do that and i think you mentioned also is mexico at times has taught more people and you put more people than what the u.s. border patrol. so if they will play a

bullfighter, just go in, that means all of people trying to come in would be at the border patrol remember some of the people were coming in at the border, some of them will come through a bridge picks him and him are going to come in between. between. some of them are going to try to eat phakic some of them are not going to fade because it will come in and say credible fear, asylum, or use one of those legal resources that they have. so they can use those so not all of them are going to try to evade so you got to understand what are you trying to stop. .. >> we added about 80 million dollars. with those 80 million dollars to help mexico on the southern

border, they actually did a pretty good job. remember, $80 million compared to $18 billion. so, we've got to know-- if you look at the budget, for example, i don't want to get into foreign aid, but perspective, five countries i call the $1 billion club. and 3.1 billion dollars plus, you've got pakistan, but that's been rolled back by the president and egypt and at one time, you had iraq and afghanistan and jordan. so you've got about five countries what are call the $1 billion club, but in our own back yard, before we did this plan, we were giving mexico about $36 million. and now, it's a little bit over $100 million. it doesn't make sense that we should-- if we're going to secure ourselves, work with mexico and southern american-- i mean, central american and

one of the things that we did, for example, when unaccompanied kids appropriations $750 million to help central american countries for security, build up those countries and less folks have to come in because we're securing those countries. unfortunately, the present administration, with all due respect doesn't look at that. they just want to play a one yard-line defense, and not look out. and i'll say this also about mexico. if mexico plays the matador position, that is okay, you guys want to get rid of nafta, you all are-- you know, trying to put a wall and attack us and call us rapists and murderers all that, look what mexico does. at the southern border, i can we can help do now. the system that mexico has is set up to help us. imagine one day the mexicans say, hey, we're going to start

letting the north koreans come in and vacation in acapulco or let iran send all of their folks over here. they keep away folks we don't want into the u.s. so the visa system helps us. the law enforcement people, ice, dea and other officers that we have there are there working with the mexicans, should i say, so they do a lot of security so when we talk about nafta and i know we're talking about borders, but talk about nafta, people need to keep in mind, those countries help with security. the last point, if you talk to some of the central american countries or even talk to our officials here, in the past, people said that the only people coming in was mexicans, everything was mexicans, but when you look at it it's almost a u.n. if you look at people coming in, without mentioning countries, i can give you countries throughout the world coming in, and that's why we've

got to work with mexico and central america to make sure we extend our security not at the one-yard line, but pre-screening and other work that we do and that's where the administration-- i brought this up to the president and what did he say, oh, you know, people just want money. we don't need to give them money, that's our money. you know, and this is what we're saying, we've got to understand what are we trying to stop. last point, if you're trying to stop people coming into the united states, keep in mind that if you built the most beautiful wall, according to the president, 40% of the people that are here without documents are through a legal permit or visa, visa overstay. so you can build a wall, someone's going to come in a ship, across the bridge, or by airplane. the wall is not going to stop them. if you look at drugs, the latest dea report if you're talking about land, where are they coming through? ports of entry.

i represent laredo, texas the largest inland port in the country, after l.a., laredo, a little town of 250,000, we handle most of the trade from mexico through that land port. we have been trying to get more money into the port, but most of the money goes between ports because most of my colleagues they don't understand the border want to put it in border patrol, which i support border patrol, men and women in green that want it add a wall and national guard, that's basically their solution, but if you look at it, you've got to have the men and women in blue, which are the cbp officers, those are the ones that we have at the ports. you've got to have the technology, not only between ports, but also, the ports of entry, because that's where drugs are coming in. so, to conclude this point, you've got to know what you're trying to do and if you don't know what you're trying to stop or how it's coming in and not

even touch the water, because the drug dealers, you know, they're not backwards type of individuals. they're rather sophisticated, or should i say, they are sophisticated and they hire people that are sophisticated and they'll use drones to do certain things, they'll use the catapults that you talked about, they'll use submarines to bring in drugs and speed boats plus other things, and they will adjust. in the 1980's, when miami vice, remember miami vice, where was the drugs coming in? they were coming in through florida and those areas. the u.s. put a lot of pressure. some of us used to say, hey, it's like, you know, it's like you push a balloon in and it's going to come over here and sure enough, it started coming into the southern border. so they're going to adjust because they're sophisticated organizations. >> so on that point, talk about the president said that he's a successful businessman, that's

his background and he at times has been criticized for trying to run the country like he ran his businesses, right? so when you talk about a $18 million initial investment because obviously the cost is going to be much higher when we're done with this, so what kind of return on investment is he getting for that $18 billion border wall? >> well, maria, i think that it's clear by now that both the congressman and i believe that he's getting very poor return on that investment. and the use of the 18 billion is the initial cost to build the structure, big ironic part is that it's meant to replace right now, while 700 miles of an existing structure that is there in the first place. but of course, that requires then the repairs. and we also are not fully committed to being on the wall. the physical structure itself is the least important element. the far more important in terms

of even using just the amount of time that people or goods have to cross the border, is the centers along the border, lights, and little specification of what actually there will be in terms of radar, signal intelligence and other sensor elements of security that are far more crucial again than just the physical structure. and rather distressing evidence that the president is proposing or the white house is proposing to reduce those sensor technology platform elements of the security and to put more money into the physical structure. so once again-- >> is that because like the budget for fiscal year 2019, apparently there's a memo out there where the white house officials were saying let's take down funding for those areas and increase it for the

border wall. >> yes, indeed, and there have been other reports about some of the budgets, those that aren't being made. i alluded to short changing the coast guard and to relocating money from the coast guard toward the wall. again, i think that's extraordinarily poor choice in terms of far greater dangers to the country's security, namely terrorism threat, the threat from major terrorist activity in the port in places like boston or new york is far more significant-- or baltimore is far more significant than the land, dry crossings or crossings of immigrants cross the border. you know, my thinking is they think the least amount of border counterterrorism, u.s. security, homeland security and giving a tremendous amount of

money that results in often a waste of money. >> you know, he campaigned and won on the pledge to build a wall and have mexico pay for it. obviously, things didn't go well. he didn't invite the mexican president over to the white house and then things went downhill from there. and then he kind of laid back from that -- from that pledge, but he brought it up again this week. he again said, oh, by the way, mexico will pay for it somehow. why-- if we all know that realistically mexico is not going to pay for the wall, why do you think he keeps bringing that up in his rhetoric? >> well, obviously, he believes that is a way to persuade congress and taxpayers to layout those extraordinary

expenses for the wall, that somehow it will come back in the future. it will not come back from mexico in the future. the president has previously spoke been ceasing remittancesies that go to mexico that's nearly legally or forensically-- cannot be done even if they sort money from undocumented workers. but, also, even if somehow you could go through the enormous enterprise of trying to sort remittances that come from undocumented people from documented people, that would be be counterproductive in terms of security in the united states and in terms of the president from texas such as through immigration, legal and illegal into the united states. for mexico, remittances are the

third most importance source of revenue and for central america, it's often a number of one social revenue, very important social revenue in some countries amounting to a third of the gdp. a reduction of remittances from the united states to those countries would mean far greater impoverishment and far greater gratuities for the criminal gangs, as well as drug trafficking organizations that intimidate and terrorize people. and number one, the remittances from those countries, 1.5. year two we can expect far greater number of people trying to make it into the united states. >> and vanda, share with us, what are the major differences between what's happened back in 2006 when president bush signed into law the secure fence act, i have in my notes here that 26 democratic senators voted for

it, including then senator obama, senator clinton and joe biden, and schumer. what are the big differences between what happened then and the kind of debate that we're having now over a border wall? >> well, some of the-- of course there are some similarities, including one that has potentially emerged very surprisingly this week. part of sense, narrative of the george w administration, the george w. bush administration was, of course, that there would be a comprehensive immigration reform and that securing the border to reduce the flow of immigrants across the border would be the first step which would then allow bipartisan work in the congress to achieve comprehensive immigrati immigration. and the obama administration had its own replay and although not building a new fence, but

brought remote technology elements to parts of the division, parts of the border. it was not as comprehensive as was envisioned in the original planning, but nonetheless, a lot of technological assets, visibility assets that allow for more rapid response were put at the border vet and the obama administration engaged in deportation of a lot of people from the united states. >> close to 3 million. for a while, president obama was called the deporter in chief, towards-- in his last two years of the administration, most of the people who were deported were either voluntary, but people caught close to the border within a short amount of time and people who, in fact, had criminal records. they were the vast majority of deportees in the last two years, but this-- both the deportation and the

virtual border of the obama administration was once again to pave the ground by bipartisan support for comprehensive immigration reform, once again. just like during george w. bush administrati administration. >> and that's perfect for the next set of questions that i had. congressman, you know, we're talking about two sets of deadlines coming up. we have the january 19th deadline when government will run out of money and congress needs to either do another cr, you know, continuous resolution, or find a longer term budget deal to avert a government shutdown. we also have the march 5th deadline that president trump is imposing on congress to find a daca fix. so, we have two things going on. but we throw in the mix the ruling from the 9th circuit this week, where basically it's saying it's illegal to stop the daca program.

this would be renewing permits while the litigation is sorted out in the system, in the court system. talk about how that affects the timeline that we're dealing with on the hill? >> well, first of all, i sit on the homeland appropriations and defense appropriations, so we work a whole year on getting the budget and most our work is done already. all we're waiting for republican friends so we can work out a deal we call the top numbers. the top numbers is basically you add $1 new dollar for defense we want to have and $1 for nondefense appropriations and i think the last numbers we saw, republicans wanted to add $54 billion, new dollars to defense and about $37 billion for nondefense which includes everybody else, except for the defense, so, we're trying to get that up so we can do that. now, there was a proposal yesterday of a two-year deal,

which is the way we ought to do it, because once you get those top numbers, our work is done. all we need to do is increase certain things. what makes it a little different this time, and i don't like cr's, if there's any government employees or anybody here, nobody likes the cr's, because that means we haven't done our job. the reason we haven't done our job because for some reason our friends haven't given us that number and part of it because they were busy with the tax bill and i thought that after the tax bill we'd get the numbers because once you get those numbers, hour job will be done quick. what complicates this this time is everybody's trying to use leverage. and the leverage is daca. the democrats are saying, hey, we're not going to give you the 60 votes because republicans have 51 votes in the senate, and they need nine democrats to get up to the 60. we're not going to do that unless we use daca. so, what complicates it is democrats are trying to use the

spending bills as leverage, even though the march 5th deadline is over here. >> but the thing about it, what democrats-- what i'm hearing democrats saying is that republicans may not feel a sense of urgency, but there are a lot of kids that are already losing the permits, some 122 dreamers are losing their permits on a daily basis. so, for them, obviously, it is a big deal because they're losing jobs. they're losing homes. they're at risk for deportation, and so, for them, for the advocacy community, there is a sense of urgency, and they're saying, democrats need to use their leverage and like you said, it's through the budget process because republicans are demanding that this be dealt with separately, but if it is, then there's little chance of getting a real daca fix. >> right, and i'm one of those democrats, and i'll tell you this. i support daca and supported this for a long time, but i'm

not going to shut down the government for one issue. the republicans did over health care, that was wrong and we don't need to-- many i'm not going to support the shutdown of the government over a single issue. even though daca is very-- we need that leverage to get the job done. the issue here is, can we get to the principal? and i'll talk about what happened at the white house. we said we're going to talk about four things, one is daca, one is-- and this is on top, that we've still got to get the top numbers because we've got to get those top numbers. once we get that you'll see that our work will be done quickly because it's been done already. we worked on it last year. daca, two, and i remember the republicans kept saying, the wall. and i said no, it's called border security and they agreed, okay, border security and i'll get into the

definition what you start off with. the other one was chain migration, is that chain migration changes to only daca, chain migration to everybody else. >> and just to be clear, the conservatives are using the rhetoric of chain migration to really talk about, you know, family reunification visas. you know, it was established in 1965 and now they're saying it's being abused. let's stop it at some point because, you know, we need to have a better control of who gets into the country. so, it's important to understand what we are we mean by that. >> chain migration, basically, one person comes in. do they bring their immediate families or they bring their abuellos and tio's and everybody else. how far do you go beyond. one person can bring in more than one individual so it goes on a long time. so, there are so many-- >> what does the current law say right now?

is it just immediate family or extended family? >> no, no, extended families. you know this very well, because you've studied th mor than just the immediate family and that person that comes in can later bring in. now, does it take a long time? yes. now, to finish my thought, so, the third thing with chain migration. the third i think this was diversity, the lottery thing. some of us feel that maybe we need to look at the security a little bit more, and keep in mind that the lottery is not a-- has become an issue that's very important to not only this caucus, but the black caucus. the last time we looked 40% of lottery were coming in from africa. so the black caucus had come in and said ex, oh, this is something we have an interest in. we saw a vote where this came up. i bring up four issues. yesterday when i was talk to go

my republican friends they said, oh, by the way, we need to talk about this and this and this. so they brought in a list. >> the securing of america-- >> they're bringing in like 24 issues and i thought there were four issues. they said, well, border security covers, the sanctuary cities and some of us have certain opinions on some of those, but they're not talking about four issues, now they're talking about a whole bunch of issues. >> that particular bill is only one of many on the hill, but that one in particular, democrats are saying and advocacy groups are staying it's a nonstarter because you have a lot of poison pills in there that democrats and the immigrant community are just not going to accept in exchange for protection for the dreamers. that has a 24-point plan and it's a wish list. >> and the point is, there are -- there are positions with all due respect.

the left says all we want is a clean daca bill and that's it. >> and you don't agree that that's possible? >> let me finish. it's not going to happen. it's not going to happen. i mean, first of all, republicans control the senate, the house, and the white house. if you count to 218 there are now 218 democrats in the house and we've got to get away-- daca by itself is not going to happen. now, on the other side you've got the people on the right that don't want to see daca, want to add all of those positions that you talked about. so you've got two positions out there. at the end of the day, we work something out the far left and far right are not going to be happy and depend on people in the middle, democrats and republicans, then to put something forward to work it. and on top of that, if i can finish more, because it gets a little complicated. it's not only daca. so we've got to come up with those top numbers, we've got to deal with daca. i think what's going to happen, we're going to do a cr to mid

february, is what i think. i don't like it, but i think that's going to happen, practically, i think that's going to happen. what happens in march, that's another big issue that we probably have to tie in. anybody know? debt ceiling. so, somehow we're going to try to put all of those things together to address those issues, whether together or separately, but i just want to give you the inside perspective in appropriations, looking at appropriations top numbers, looking at daca, how do we use that as leverage on the spending bill. and the debt ceiling that will be coming in. >> and so, on that note. we want to toss it out to you guys for questions, comments, there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes, of course, and so, we'll take like one, the first round of questions. >> yeah, thank you congressman

and thanks for the panel. regarding your 20-yard strategy, which i think many of us could endorse, so many of the central american migrants make it through mexico on the railroads, farrell mexico and other railroads and i know it's an issue discussed between the u.s. government, mexico and the railroad, as to how to ensure that they don't hitchhike on these trains because this is the major-- as i understand it, i might be wrong, the major artery that gets down to the u.s. border. perhaps discuss that. >> anthony-- it was called the beast. it was the train that would come from central america, mexico, called the beast where they would just jump in and unfortunately, sometimes those folks would fall off and get killed. when we did that work with the

southern strategy with mexico, their southern strategy, there was work on that to try to get those people to stop from coming in. keep in mind, if you think about it, the drug cartels are -- they might be in drug cartels, they might be selling drugs, human trafficking or smuggling, and you know, whatever makes money for them. they control routes. they control routes. by controlling routes, that means that they have the area greased, that is their-- they've got officials that are turning their heads and they've got some routes. so they'll be able to do it. think about this, when the cubans were coming in, different issue -- that was in central america, all of a sudden, hey, how did you go -- how are you here in costa rica? >> we were in costa rica. >> we went to cuba, ecuador and then colombia, panama and ended up in costa rica and when

nicaragua said, no more. all right? and i said where are you going? and i think i knew the answer already. >> they said laredo, texas. and tell me how did you pick lare laredo, if you're from cuba, how do you come to laredo? >> again, there's a smuggling-- there's a way to get over here, and the smugglers are able to move people and drugs around. and if you think about the unaccompanied kids. how do the unaccompanied kids all of a sudden go to south texas? because they control routes. it might be rails, but there might be other ways of moving people over here. and i say that is because we've got to understand what we're trying to do. the administration doesn't -- i think they have a lot of people that understand it, but certain voices are winning in the white house. and that's the thing is, they

just don't understand. for example, they say the border, it's violent, it's all this. if you look at the latest fbi statistics, and i do this every year just to show you. if you look at, for example, murder rates on murder rates and you mention this, which is very good, the annual national murder rate in the u.s. is 5.3 murders per 100,000. 5.3. if you look at brussels, rio, laredo, none of those are above that number. they're below. and i've always said, you know, hey, what's the most dangerous thing about being on the border, when i leave laredo, texas, i fly to washington d.c., because washington d.c. has more murders than my hometown of laredo. if you look at violent crimes rates, which is also rapes and assaults, all that. the national crime rate, you find it at the border lower

than the national crime rate. so there's a lot of fallacies and people just are using why the wall, why the wall. it's a winning argument for the president. it's a winning argument, but it doesn't make sense because it wasn't a memo that they put out, it was their budget request to us, where they took money from the national guard, they took money over there to build the wall, which is the most ineffective way of doing this and i'll finish with this. >> i guess what he's trying to get at. you know, obviously, you talk about trying to find the middle ground and make it a win-win for everyone to address concerns about border security and address the needs of the dreamers and everyone else on the road because the president also seems to be saying, we're going to get to a comprehensive immigration reform in a second phase down the road, obviously, a lot of conservatives didn't take that to well and there were a lot of nasty comments on twitter against that. so, i want to get to another

question before we're done. >> thank you so much, great presentation. so, you mentioned, congressman, that mexico has the ability to be the matador at the southern border, their southern border. they're not doing it because they're so dependent on nafta talks and et cetera. that doesn't change. my real question is to both of you on the panel, how important are the mexican elections for the future of this relationship? does it matter a lot from the u.s. perspective who is going to be the president? >> it does. and it does, and for us, for some of us who have been working with mexico, keep in mind that mexico for many years was a very-- it's a very naturalistic country. they're very proud and at the same time, they have the relationship with the u.s., we want to be neighbors, but at the same time, they haven't forgotten that the u.s. took

55% of the territory. and i'm serious. they have that in mind. imagine if some country took 55% of your territory, you would remember that like if it just happened yesterday. so, for many years, especially in the '80s and '90s, a lot of us were working on trying to get mexico closer to us. we've got them apart and then the president comes in and starts pushing mexico away. nafta is very important to us, security is very important, they work with us on those issues on that. 40% of everything we export as a country, 40% of everything we export goes to latin america, mexico, central and south america, 40% of everything, but we don't treat them as neighbors. if you look at the world, there are some countries that don't have very friendly neighbors. we, as the united states, are blessed to have canada, and

mexico as neighbors. and we should take advantage of that and what i said is, when some people see russia as a friend and mexico as an enemy, that world has been turned upside down. >> one last question, 'cause we're running out of time. >> i work for the tomorrowson ritter foundation, and we look at trafficking and such. the wall and the threat of the wall, if you could address a little bit what sort of impact it's had on life along the border and, say, working conditions, labor conditions among those people without documents and also people who do have documents, but might be frightened by the situation? >> vanda, do you want to start that off. >> i want to tell you it's not just the wall, but the broad rhetoric of the trump

administration and raids in the latino community, and not just the latino community, but muslim citizens and muslim residents has created a significant atmosphere of fear and for many people terror. we saw it immediately, of course, in the houston hurricane disaster where people not only undocumented workers, but people who had families who were undocumented were afraid to come to shelters despite the efforts of local officials to come to shelters, where you had very immediate situation and people putting their families in dire risk for the fear of deportation. of course, we talk about dreamers and the psychological difficulty for them. i do want to speak about crossing the border. i mentioned in my remarks that crossing the border is a method of daily life for border communities, with the economy of particularly smaller u.s. cities and towns, not as large

as laredo or el paso, but small ones along the border depending on people from mexico buying goods on a daily basis and the reverse also holds for people from the united states going to places like cuidad suarez and tijuana. >> we're talking about a dynamic border community of some 12 million people, correct? >> on the u.s. side, and extend it into mexico even, the larger community. in fact. and you know, there is also the notion, i think, that's very antiquated that the community is the people within 100 miles in each direction. the reality today is, of course, that many people have families as far as michigan and wisconsin, very deep into the united states. so, the notion of the border being somehow separate from the rest of the united states,

fundamentally, doesn't hold true. so, yes, there are significant, significant impacts, negative impacts. and i want to go back to the points that congressman cuellar and i were making before in multiple ways to think about border and border security, to think about the safety of the body of the united states is not only a method of what happens here, what happens in the heart, in the brain, it's about what happens at the external environment. how do we shape the external environment and how do we encourage cooperation, and for example, antagonizing mexican politicians some who perhaps already have perhaps nationalist and anti-u.s. positions to start with, is not going to help. it's not going to help secure the united states. it's not going to make it a healthier, happier, more prosperous country. >> so on that note, i do want

to bring this to a close and wrap it up. i'm going to give you guys a chance to do a one minute pitch on what you envision to be, would be a smart border security plan for the united states. >> not build the wall. invest more money into improving legal ports of entry, not simply in terms of security, but also in terms of efficiency. that might include pushing security such as container and cargo security deeper into canada and importantly deeper into mexico. the obama administration tried this and there were some successful pilot projects and far more could be invested. invest money in people, officials, agents, who work at the border, and do so in a way that influences their quality of life and also not just mass increases in work force, training, and vetting, resources they need.

put more money in coast guard, don't take money away from coast guard and conceive of the border as being part of the larger body of the united states, as part of a larger organic environment. the border is not just the line of separation with a structure on it, it's a membrane of connections and that's how we should think about it. >> and congressman cuellar. >> when we look at the border, it's not only the southern border, it's the northern border, the coasts. we've got to look at how things come in or how people come in or drugs come in. you've got to understand it's not only the southern border, it reminds me of the french and the germans in world war i where they built this defense, and the germans just went around on the other side. so, you've got to understand how security works, and how you stop it. technology works very well. you know, for example, all you need is about 100 of the right

aero stats and we have surplus from the military. all we have to do is cover 40 miles, 40 miles and you're able to cover the whole border with about 100 of them. and the personnel is also men and women in blue and green, not only border patrol, but cvb technology that's used well and you've got to look at, keep in mind if you add more border patrol, you create more activity and so you've got to have judges, district judges, you've got to have personnel, marshals, the support staff. i've added something that nobody's done for a long time, i added 55 immigration judges a couple of years ago, i added 25, but the obama administration wanted zero, which is beyond me, but i told my republican friends forget about obama, and add those 25 judges. i got 65 judges now this year. and the appropriations i intend to add a little bit more.

immigration judges are good because they will tell somebody, you stay, or unfortunately, sometimes, you go. and you've got to have that judge make that decision. finally, the last thing is you've got to understand what's happening in homeland. did you know that border patrol is losing more personnel than they're hiring personnel? at one time we were at 21,500 right now we're at 18,500, maybe 19,000 and it's got to a point where the trump administration is paying hundreds of million dollar to a private company to hire border patrol. so, i mean, what are we doing here, guys? what's wrong with this picture? and by the way, we've got to understand demographics, also. it's not just homeland, secret service, other folks. there are a large number of people that are going to be retiring and we're not hiring enough people there so we've just got to make sure that when we look at diversity of

immigration, a lot of those immigrants are going to be filling some of those positions that we're trying to hire. >> okay, well, thank you so much for joining us in this important and timely panel. follow the news and you know, you can follow us and ask additional questions through the brookings institution. we want to thank you for joining us. you have a great day. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> u.s. senate is about to

gavel in for their final workday of the week. lawmakers are scheduled to consider two district court nominations, the first a noon confirmation vote on nomination of michael brown to be a judge for the northern district of georgia and after that, a vote whether to limit debate on the district court of texas, if approved his confirmation vote would happen at 1:45 this afternoon. that's it for the week as members will be out for the mlk holiday. lawmakers will be back on tuesday, january 16th. and now, live to the floor of the u.s. senate. this from the hill this morning, the trump administration has unveiled guidance allowing states for the first time to oppose work requirements in medicaid, a shift in the health insurance program for the door. the move opens the door for states to apply for waivers to require medicaid enrollees to work. it never happened in the history of the program. democrats are opposed saying

people will lose coverage if they can't meet the requirements or new bureaucratic rules will prohibit them from applying. you can read more on the mill.com. the u.s. senate meets at 10 a.m. eastern, live coverage on c-span2. lawmakers expect to work two district court nominations. until they gavel in, we will show you some of the floor debate on daca. >> senator from virginia. >> i appreciate it and rise as many of my colleagues have this afternoon and i've risen on the same topic to talk about our dreamers. usually when i've risen in the past i've told stories about virginia dreamers. we have about 13,000 dreamers in virginia and i've highlighted stories of dreamers from latin america, dreamers from africa, dreamers from sweden, dreamers from asia. one of the students i talked about, gloria, justra