[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and news about one of congressman foyers colleagues from the hill, arizona republican martha mcsally has officially announced her bid for the senate a long-awaited announcement that caps the busy week in the race to replace retiring senator jeff flake. mick sally in her second term is expected to form announcer campaign this morning in a tour across the state but her campaign tickets and by releasing a video hours before. and now here's a portion of

today's "washington journal." join us for many florida is alan gomez is reported at "usa today" specializes in immigration. good morning, mr. gomez wanted to start first with the presidents comments from yesterday.ro it was a headline in the miami herald trump leveled tirade. we know that maybe 1 million haitian immigrants in the u.s. how we are in south florida effort floor in general? what you reaction been? >> there's about 300,000 state of florida, about a third of those registered to vote which we come very important as we move ahead. you can imagine what the reaction has been. everybody is besides that suffered the president came down to south florida during the presidential campaign and addressed a group of patients specifically he spoke to them. he talked about being a champion we came to washington and obviously a lot of them are very upset with what's happened.

we've heard that the haitians have summoned the head of the u.s. embassy in port-au-prince to meet with the haitian president today to explain the presidents comments as best he can. so yeah, this something that is what this community. little haiti is a set of downtown miami is awn very long-standing community on your and its, there's a lot of people upset right now. >> host: in addition to the media reaction, what do you think the impact will be if any significant on the ongoing immigration talk in washington trip ? >> guest: that's hardest thing to figure.at the president throughout his presidency, there will be negotiations ongoing on several issues. you make comments that people are not happy with. obviously this one would reach a whole other level, but at the end of the day i don't know how much this changes that i know if all of a sudden now the white house, republics in congress pressure to provide some sort of

relief forfr the people from haiti, el salvador and some of those african nations that event shut out from the temporary protected status program. the present administration, trumpp administration has eliminated temporary protected status for haiti, for el salvador, nicaragua and for sudan so far and they still may cut off protections for more countries. maybe they feel some pressure to reinstate those in some way or to protect people fromop those countries in some way but when we talk about the overall bill to protect dreamers, deferred action for childhood program he ended months ago at how much has changed or he justw came back n twitter this morning blasting democrats what he called the terrible proposal that the pitch to him yesterday during the meeting. i don't know how much this moves the needle. we're going to be talking about in the be a lot of anger at the

president over this comment but i don't know if he changes the sort of inner workings of that negotiation process. >> host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for alan gomez. we applied for democrats. republicans, independents. and a separate special line this morning for daca recipients. alan gomez is in miami specializes on immigration negotiations in the entire issue. so the finer points about the negotiations happening here in washington. remind us what our the main sticking points now and what potential path forward you see on these issues? >> guest: basically the way the approaching these negotiations is you have the democrats on one side trying to reinstate some sort of deportation protections for roughly 800,000 undocumented

immigrants were brought to the country as children. that's what the want. that's what they're fighting for. on the other side you republicans pushing for an incredibly long list of demands in exchange. that includes funding for the border wall. more border patrol agents along the southern border, more agents in the interior of the country to arrest undocumented immigrants in the u.s. the limitations of the called e-verify which is a program for pussy needs to check the immigration status of job applicants. they want a crackdown on sanctuary cities. they wanted and was referred to as chain migration, the ability to bring in your extended family into the country. they want to in the visa lottery, so on and so on. that's a broad outline. what they're trying to do and what we thought they had agreed to during a meeting earlier this week at the white house was a more narrow approach with a just focus on daca and protecting the students, or those youngsters, andhe on the other hand, in the chain migration and the visa

lottery in some form of border security. the president said the proposal that was still at it yesterday wasn't sufficient and some amazing things worse. that's where we are. they are still very far apart in these negotiations and so that's what these groups of senators, people in house working on this at all trying to crack the solution that appeases the democrats and isn't getting way too much but at the same time satisfies that more conservative base in the house so they can get it passed and ultimately be signed by the president. >> host: if we get to calls across the country in california this week a judge made ruling regarding daca. what did the judge ruled? what is the potential long-term impact of thatt decision? >> guest: there have been ever since president announced back in september that he, he ended daca. he gave it ave six-month at the they have until march and what the judge in california ruled is that the trump administration

made that decision based on flawed legal logic on incorrect, on incorrect point of law. the trump administration argued that obama was wrong in the first place to create daca, that it was illegal and should not even able to do that. so because of that they were in the program. the judge camey back and said , daca is legal. the president was fully within his rights to implement the program. the reasoning you are using to in the program is flawed, thus should not have done that. you need to restart the program. that was a big victory. people were excited about that but even immigration advocates are saying this mayay be very short-lived. the survival of daca is not to the courts. it's temporary.or the next court could strike again if it reaches the supreme court because a conservative majority there that can strike again. their single, a great victory, wonderful but we need to focus on was going on in congress. these dreamers need that long-term protection. they can stay with this program and ultimately everybody agrees

the president is within his rights to end what is an executive program. >> host: first call coming in for alan gomez, texas, independent. good morning. >> caller: mainly what i wanted to say is i think that we as americans, a lot of americans are missing the bigger picture. i was going to support donald trump and change my mind at the last minute. and i need to tell you, you know, yes, donald trump is a racist. more importantly than that, people need to wake up. donald trump is doing putin's bidding. his money, the dealings, i mean, come on people, wake up. he essentially are democratic institutions. donald trump and the republicans, i love the republican party because let me

tell you something. the republican party now is controlled by racists, okay? trump wants to rule america like putin rules russia. and trump helped get him elected and he is trying to get people that he wants in every country elected. because putin wants to rule the world and donald trump wants to rule this country like putin rules russia. >> host: thank you. alan gomez? >> guest: it's interesting because we've heard the term racist in the last 24 hours more than we have in really any point in the last year. this comment especially is one that has gotten even members of congress who in the past have been hesitant to take that leap, to tweet that word and accused the president of just being an outright races. whether that's true orri not, that's not for us to decide but it is interesting because on the one hand, it has gotten people

to the point where they feel more comfortable accusing him of that but atth the same time why he's doing throughout his, fisting people defending his comments about el salvador, haiti and his african nations. when you look at his presidential campaign he made no secret about the fact that thas going to cut immigration from foreign countries, that he started off as presidential campaign setting people from mexico were rapists and drug dealers and all of that. this should it come as too much of ach surprise to people -- shouldn't -- to see the president taking so much different steps either by ending protected status, ending daca, ending the diversity program, that he is going to try to limit immigration into this country i guess we just didn't expect and use this kind of language while doing so. >> host: steve is on the life in california republican caller. hi, steve. >> caller: great, great show. i've been watching c-span for over 20 years now come summer.

just a quick comment. i'm a black man from california. there's millions of us who support donald trump. a lot of them choose to stay in the shadows. a lot of older blacks know what i'm talking about. bamboozled on this wild stories don't come to some kind of racist. we've been around this man for 40 years and counting. i'm almost 60 60 and had nevern a racist bone in that man's body. it was a for donald trump mike tyson would it never gotten in boxing. haitians come to america. they don't hang around as dictator like this. africans from every part of africa come to america just don't hang around us. they have houses, , jobs can you do better than us.us guatemalans, nicaraguans they all come here do better than others. arabs, they don't do no work. [inaudible] they do no work.

you don't see them digging ditches come you don't see the building no buildings of nothing. they getting these hotels and motels. they take the same money from the united states and send it back to the country that they'ry are complaining about being so bad. >> host:en let me jump in. do you have a question for our guest while you are here? , is a one to make a comment about that. >> host: fair enough. reaction from that, it? >> guest: i don't even know where to start with that. every single wave of immigrants that have come into this country has pretty much done the same thing. they get here. they may not know the language initially that make you do, they worked their butts off, they learn the language and they assimilate in this country. i i consider a you stats about economic contribution of immigrants into this country. i can go down that whole route but i'm just going, i didn't even want to respond to that

one, i'm r sorry. >> host: some of the writing of alan gomez in the "usa today." here's a headline. what are you writing here? >> guest: so that was a story from earlier this week which seems like a month ago in c time, but that story stories me point all the sudden what you have is republicans on hill, conservatives and these hard-line groups that oppose any kind of amnesty deal are open to a daca deal. they are for the first time, in the years i been covering immigration, they're synced ok, we can live with this one. and the reason is that they might get so much in return. we used to talk about immigration reform as some sort of legalization for all of the nation 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants. this gives democrats are only asking forare only legalization for about 800,000

of these undocumented immigrants. republicans are still pushing for the entire laundry list of demands. they look on balance at that negotiations think hey, we are only giving up less than 10% of the undocumented population we might get all of this important security limiting illegal immigration. that's why you even you republicans i on board with pushing something that would provide something that the christ understand that is why these hard-line immigration groups have fled all these republican offices with fax and phone calls, mobilization efforts, political efforts, they are not put itt on that pressure that because of how much he might get back in return. >> host: monique from westge virginia, republican caller for alan gomez. morning, monique, good morning on the young black republican from west virginia and i am for removing the dream bill. these immigrants came over

illegal whether or not they were babies, whether not they know the country. that is not a factor the fact is they came over illegal. it is not about race. it is not about race isn't it is not about bigotry, has nothing to do with that. r it's about these people, the illegal immigrants came over illegally and so they do not legally should belong here. they haveey been educated are giving given welfare. they been taken care of. they can go back to the countries and support the countries and to build h up ther countries. america has changed so much to the point to did not assimilate. athletic shoe, that the come over and the assembly. there are many immigrants who a language such jobs are forcing americans to learn how to speak the languages that some jobs do not hire you if you cannot speak another language. so it's not a true comet to say that i'll come and that they assimilate. i think that some politicians are playing the racism card to play on americans emotions and

to sway americans thoughts and opinions on this matter. thank you. >> host: thanks for your call. give more detail you can about these 800,000 folks. with this basic question, who are the dreamers? where are they? what are they doing? what other ages? give us a profile. >> guest: just respond to one point from the caller and this is an ivy league about quite a bit over the last few weeks, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for welfare get they don't receive medicare orre medicaid. they don't get social security. even amid a thin paint into the systems, because about half of them pay taxes. so the idea that the coming year and soaking in all these welfare benefits i've know i do with dickinson because as an undocumented immigrants you don't qualify for any of that. what they do is they, here and especially this dreamer population to address your question, to qualify for the program you have to either prove highyou graduate from

school or attending school or join the military of which there's about 900 who have been enrolled, joined the military and yet to pass a security background check which meet you could not have committed any kind of felony or any serious misdemeanor.it this daca population part of the reason that i think that conservatives are even considering giving them some sort of protections is that they're the most screened, the ones that had shown and stepped up and applied to the federal government, provides identities, addresses. these are people who make a a living in the shadows and excite to hide from authorities but all of these a stepped up and applied to the governor, handed over all the personal information to prove that they are educated, that they are working and for the are in the military. they all got here before the te of 16. that's a requirement to be in the program but it's been several years so most of them are now well into the 20s and

into the 30snt and some are even older than that. it's a broad range that spread out all of the country. there concert plated -- concert a place like l.a., chicago, so the bigger cities and figure immigrant enclaves around the country but they are all over the place. it working for universities, tech companies, in d.c. this is as i was taught to someone, one of these groups that generally oppose any kind of amnesty or advocate for lower levels of illegal and legal immigration, and even he was telling me look, this is a population. this this is a group that we shd work to protect. thesepu are americans in everything but paperwork. that gives you a broader idea of who these folks are. >> host: back to our calll for alan gomez. brad from maryland. republican caller. welcome to the program. go ahead, brad. we can hear you now. [inaudible] how're you doing today?

>> guest: good. how were you? >> caller: good. i can tell you can't answer any of the actual facts. the black gentleman who called earlier had some good points here donald trump has side tens of thousands of african americans. when he said mexican rate this coming time of the 80% incident of sexual assault among immigrant women coming across the border. i know -- [inaudible] it's hard to wrap around and argue with them, but when donald trump says statements like -- [inaudible] if you go to liberia, sierra leone, these people literally dig a hole and will go literally on the beach. he is not best and brightest. what he's talking about is he getting the best advice. i don't understand why, he's done nothing racist. it seems like you can't debate the facts on baird, so what you do is you invent racist -- that

you think democrats rely on. >> host: let's give alan gomez a chance to comment on your comments and your critique. >> guest: provide you with a simple factor the back and watch president trump's speech when he announced that he was running for president. at no point did he mention that that you just throughout. at no point did he make you talk about undocumented immigrants or illegal aliens or anything like that. he just declared that mexico is a cynic the best and the brightest, that the races, drug dealers and all that. at no point during that entire speech did he mention that he is talking about any certain population, any subgroup of mexicans fear hey cities all of them. as to comments about africans, again, i just don't even know where to start. i'm not even going to respond to that one. >> host: one of the other headlines this week came from california federal agents with nearly 700, sorry, 100, 711 7-11 stores in an immigration investigation. what went on there and what

message is a fed up with -- federal government center folks who work at 7-11 and other places? what message arere descending to the employers of those folks? >> guest: that was really the first kind of high-profile example of what we're going to see from the trump administration when it comes to worksite enforcement. if you go back to the george w. bush administration, the used to do these big high-profile raids of meat packing plants and poultry plant with round up workers for working at these plants. that was a focus, to tug at the undocumented immigrants we get these big factors. under the obamaha administration their workforce enforcement turn white and auditing process with you folks want employers and try to identify employers who are hiring and document immigrants, helping them forge the paperwork and get in there. so they focus more on the employers. what is first rate at the 7-11 shows is that the top administration is going to take

an above, all of the above approach.ey they initiated audits of all 98 of those 7-11 is that are spread out around the country in 17 states but also arrested 21 undocumented immigrant workers were working at these 7-11 strict the acting director said recently that is goingct to be a strategy moving forward. he wants to get the employers, give the employees to send the harshest message possible that if you hire and document immigrants or if you're an undocumented immigrant working here at i.c.e. may be coming to get you very soon. that's what that raid showed us that they're really trying to go after him after bothto the employers and employees. >> host: william is on the democratic line for alan gomez. >> caller: good morning, mr. gomez and c-span. i'm a fourth generation african-american -- [inaudible] spending time in the military --

i'm a 20 year veteran. most people come and on this in fort hood -- [inaudible] that most people with power don't realize until then the opportunity to exercise it. that goes on down the line. so i would say that races is not only defined come should not be defined on the word in derogatory terms. it's your actions. because no one knows a persons heart, budget action will show you their internal feelings. that's just what -- food for thought for anybody who calls in to say that they know this for that. look at your actions. the actions surely you are. thank you all and have a blessed day. >> guest: this is, have called the president a racist. not a physician or my job. all i can do is provide all the

information possible. as you mentioned you watch the actions of the president come of the administration, you make your own judgment on whether they're going in the right direction and doing what you think is best which obviously most of the country, or enough americans during the election agreed with to elect him president and now it's a question of what happens now. >> host: we have a tweet, have many democrats been specific of what they're willing to compromise on with daca? >> guest: we got some broad outlines of what they propose yesterday there is the legalization component for the dreamers and what they did on the other side, it sounds like the border security package that the proposed was going back to it president trump's and mystery question or to well-funded was $6 billion for the border wall, i forget the exact number but a number of these billion or so to

add more agents and more technology along its southern border. here since increased the request to $18 billion which is where, that's where the gap is there. then the president as for two and chain migration and very the democrats came back saying that yes, we will eliminate a specific category of the chain migrationch which is a you a citizens to sponsor the brother and sister and their children, and take those visas and redistribute them in other directions. same thing with the visa lottery. they suggested that they should end the program to take those visas and redistribute them to other programs including this temporary protected status program that were talking about. the response for the president so far that we've heard on twitter ise no, we're not talking, we don't want to redistribute. we want to limit it was simply democrats are trying to maintain as many of the season as possible for legal immigration, the republicans are come back and say no, we just want to cut those averages the overall

number of immigrants coming into the country. >> host: let's go to laredo, texas, democratic caller, syndicate is the name and where stand you're a daca recipient. good morning, good morning. i'm from laredo, texas, and i just wanted to make a point. i don't understand what america is so unwelcoming of immigrants when were actually very hard workers. right now and get ready to go teach at a local high school and they do this job from eight to five and sometimes i i stay lar to just venture the success of my students. also want to comment on how we should stop treating -- [inaudible] people are come from all over the place. why do we go create wars and create -- [inaudible] and met other points are this is a demographic war on the border if she's been constructed on some mexico and border u.s. pirg and also my other point, the

chain migration, the lottery ticket, those are the only tickets to freedom for many individuals. we have to consider all these things wereid taking down your unit, actions of leader arrested youth are power wisely. why do we just use degrading terms? what we teach our kids? >> host: several points. wanted to touch on the proposed border wall by the president we know he is going out to california after the state of the union later this month to look at prototypes.er where exactly are we with this issue of a border wall and how much of a wall it would be, how much it would cost and what is its future? >> guest: well, so the president has backed off on his insistence of having this great big beautiful wall from sea to shining sea, and the pacific ocean to the gulf of mexico. and instead what their proposal was was for against $18 billion

to expand and replace a lot of existing wall. right now it's about a 2000-mile border. about about 650, seven miles already has some form of barrier on it. the president is proposing to add ant 350 miles to that. that gets us to about half the border. what you think is after examining the issue, he realized there some areas where there's mountains, valleys, very, very difficult places to get through in parts andys so made we don't need a wall on the entire board. look at a more scaled-back approachde of again expanded frm about 650 miles to expanding 35. they would then make an assessment and start going along the border from california to arizona, new mexico and california to determine where the wall would help. there are places in san diego is a good example where instituting what they have, looks like a demilitarized zone. they of two separate fences picking between your room for

u.s. customs border patrol to travel in between those fences because incredible lighting, radars, people always manigat and that's important in an area like that because you have the mask of santa diego against the water you have this mass of t1 of against the wall is a need that kind of all to make sure people don't just live in. -- tijuana. there's places we don't need that much. right now we're entering a a pe where to look at the border, identifying areas where they can't expand what would be helpful and crossing off places made we don't need anything. .. from massachusetts. republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to ask the questions. how are the illegal immigrants housed, fed and clothes until their kids were school age? where did they get their income? did they come with a stash from

mexico or wherever they came from? and what does the american citizen get out of this agreement besides the $329 billion bill that will be for the future. that does not count what it cost to have them here for the decades they did n nothing to emprove their status. please explain that to us. >> host: thanks, carroll. mr. gomez. >> guest: when they get here, most undocumented immigrants crossing border don't show up $10,000 worth of cash to extend themselves. coyotes get you across is very expensive. they don't have a lot of money but what think do get to work. the numbers, there are 11, 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, according to pew research center at least eight million are in the workforce. not like they come over here. they don't equal for federal benefits.

not like they can come here to get unemployment or welfare check. they come here because there is work. that is the driving force of illegal immigration for all these years. if you look at any chart represents what our economy looks like, and you compare it to charts showing the levels of illegal immigration and number of undocumented immigrants into the country, they mirror perfectly. i heard people refer to undocumented immigrants as amazing indicator for the economy. when they're coming, they are coming for jobs what is they are coming to do. when they don't come during the recession they know jobs are not here. they start providing for themselves and for their families and their children. >> host: alan gomez, i wanted to ask you as we wrap up here, two groups of people, one whom may need to leave the united states per a decision by the administration. those are 200 el salavador rans.

what would be impact of to this country of those folks leaving? >> guest: that is 200,000 people from el salavador living here under temporary protected status that was created in 1990 by congress to allow foreigners to stay in the united states if their country is affected by war, earthquakes natural disasters things like that. el salavador rans have been here since pair of earthquakes rocked that country in 2001. what they have been doing since that time, the el sar -- salvadorans have been at least 25% are working the biggest industry working in is the construction industry. a lot of salvadorans were

working in louisiana during hurricane katrina to help that area rebuild. so many sal have dorans working in southern texas and state of florida as the state recovers from hurricane irma. most of them are working. the u.s. chamber of commerce even issued a letter to the department of homeland security urging the department not to end temporary protected status of sal salvadorans that they pay $100 million a year in property taxes. center for immigration studies they pay half a billion dollars into the medicaid program each year. now they will have to leave. never able to reap the benefits of that. contributions are pretty broad. mostly in the construction industry that we'll feel a hit if they are all forced to leave the country. >> host: finally since you are in florida, want to ask you about another group of people,

several 100 how strong now, they're already americans, coming to the mainland, coming to florida, in great numbers, puerto ricans following the storm. what is the impact to the state of florida of that large influx right now? >> guest: florida is a big state. we can handle, we can handle a lot of people coming in. we're used to waves of people coming from the caribbean, from latin america. i don't know how much of a strain therere has been on sortf the infrastructure and government services down here but we are all watching for very closely is to see what effect those puerto ricans will have on upcoming elections. they're flooding into orlando as conditions in puerto rico continue to deteriorate. and after seeing the performance of fema, of the federal government, of president trump responding to hurricane maria, and as many puerto ricans will tell you maybe not responding as well as they should have, that's going to possibly, there is expectations that that is going

to drive a lot of these puerto ricans to come to florida and vote democrat come the next election. it is florida. there are 1000 different components going on here. there is still tons of people coming from the north settling down here. a lot of them who are registered as republicans. so there will be some balancing that goesis on next couple years but that will be a big, big number of puerto ricans coming here. the majority of which are expected to be democratic voters.te >> host: alan gomez, miami, "usa today" reporter, thank you for your insight. appreciate it. >> guest: thank you. >> we're standing by for president trump at roosevelt room in the white house where he sign as martin luther king day proclamation. while we wait, here is more of this morning's "washington journal." >> host: executive director ofe holly harris, justice network. the topic is