protection of life, the protection of property. then there's a little discretion on the part of politicians to decide who else. politicians run the agencies, who else gets to come to work and who gets locked out. but people who are locked out or not inessential. they do very important work for the american people and they should be respected for and appreciated for it, and we should get rid of these labels of essential and inessential because every federal employee is doing an important job that is essential tremor jacqueline simon is policy director at the american federation of government employees appreciate your time. >> guest: thank you so much. >> we will hear from president trump at the 100th annual convention of the american farm bureau federation in new orleans. we will take you there life when it gets underway on c-span2. until then more of today's "washington journal." >> alex joins us. works as an immigration policy analyst at the cato institute in washington, d.c. join us after

the top administration last week decided thousands of special interest aliens encountered at the southern border as the reason for the need for the border wall. first explain how one gets classified as as a special intt aliens and what that means. >> guest: basically two characteristics that determined that of the individual traveler that comes to the border. the first is whether they're from a country that has been designated as an origin point for special interest aliens, countries that are determined by the department of homeland security and consultation with intelligence agencies to determine which countries are more likely to set or produce terrorist threats against the united states prep the second is based on travel patterns of individual involved. now as far as we canhe tell by r analysis and the government does make clear what these travel patterns specifically are, basically for not able to get a visa to come to the is directly but you get a visa or some other way you go to central america and you make it up to the border and you're from one of those

countries, that's as far as we can tell good enough to get on a list of special interest aliens. >> host: explain special interest aliens vis-à-vis terror watchlist. >> guest: they are not the e same. there are known suspected terrorist on watchlist. those are for individuals who are suspected or known to be terrorists are involved in terrorist organizations and fundraising recruitment or actuallyiz involved in those organizations. special interest a link to someone from one of those countries or a country that has produced some terrorism or a a country that u.s. intelligence agencies think could produce terrorism going forward or some point in the future, and, therefore, they come up to the u.s. border. they are not really the same unless somebody can clearly be a known and suspected terrorist and from a special country designate as as a social specil interest in the. >> host: kirstjen nielsen last weekend "usa today" had a column on the humanitarian and security crisis that u.s. is facing at

the border. she said last year dhs and counted more than 3000 special interest aliens, individuals were suspicious travel patterns who may pose a national security risk or people who are from countries with ties to terrorism at our southern border. how many of those who drink lin classified special interest aliens have gone on to commit terrorist actions, been arrested for attempted terrorism in the united states? >> guest: so therestem have bee, if you extend this list backwards to time in 1975 to get the most comprehensive list possible and include, bring it up to 2017 and include any country that has ever been on this list, because usually their countries that are put on the list and brought off of it. 63 total countries that have ever been on it, take a look at that and take a look at people who are across the border are coming to thehe border and entering the united states there has been a total of zero terrorist attacks committed on u.s. soil by special interest aliens who was a border crosser. they're been zero people have

been murdered or injured in any of those nonexistent attacks. there have been people b have bn arrested for planning such attacks on the u.s. border, i'm sort inside the united states, but so there are total of seven who entered illegally who are special interest in countries during that time, been convicted of planning a terrorist attack oned u.s. soil, but none of them have really come to the u.s. border with mexico they fall into either through candid or jump ship and the united states. >> host: alex nowrasteh with us into the bottom power. talking about statistics surrounding illegal immigration and the united states come some of these issues that of, especially comes crime rates in the united states and the special interest aliens is a reason why we're having this segment. as we're talking about this issue of terrorism, want to go

back to your column from mid december in the "new york daily news," trump's wall will not stop terrorism. why? >> guest: the main reason is terrorist to come fromm abroad and me do you harm to the united states to do not cross the soun border. to do so to commit their attack. take a look at the patterns of terrorist travel to the united states. they overwhelmingly use legal mexican into the united states, usually tourist visas are some of the temporary visa to gain entry to the united states. comment illegally to the united states crossing the southern border unlawfully is very risky, very dangerous point there were as about 16,000 16,000 border l agents on the southwest border. fewer border crossings by mexicans and others that they can hide amongst and is not an come here to to commit terrorism while there are other means to do so. >> host: what about crime rates when it comes to those across the border illegally? president trump with the tweet yesterday late yesterday evening saying that the trouble portrait of an unstable border crisis is

dead on, saying the last two years i.c.e. office of may may 266000 arrest agreement with criminal records including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 3006 kranz, 4000 violent killings. america's southern border is eventually going to be militarized and defended or the united states asly a note is gog to cease to exist tragedy a lot of problems with the numbers he put up it when you talk but people are been arrested by isis, those are people have been released from prison. your talk of people are committed homicide over many, many decades andd then released in that year and reported from the united states. more important when you compare the crime rates especially for crimes like outside just across the board for illegal immigrants, and the once that we havend data which is texas we fd illegal immigrants about half as likely in any given year to be convicted of a crime in that state come the nativeborn american is your when it comes

to crime of homicide there are about 60% less likely to be convicted of a crime and the nativeborn american and dust control for the size of population. 100,000 for the population both illegal immigrants compared that natives. >> host: can you say where you get these numbers from and what you base your interpretations on? >> guest: the worst thing about this entire debate is just a whole lot of great statistics on crime. 49 states does not track this at all, texas does suck if this data from the department of public safety and texas i found numerous requests for public information from them and have released that information to me that allows me to compare crime rates for specific crimes and overall of illegal immigrants, legal immigrants and nativeborn americans. for virtually every crime in this analysis, nativeborn americans are much more likely to be convicted of a crime and illegal immigrants. overwhelmingly legal immigrants

are the least crime prone, you looked at specific areas with a lot of illegal immigrants, comparing crime rates versus other parts of touch with not a lot of illegal immigrants. >> guest: people are focusing on the border. we took a look at the crime rates in the border counties along the united states, all 23 compared to the interior of the united states. what we found is the homicide rate in those counties is about 25% below that of the rest of the united states. if the rest of the trait was as peaceful as as border counties are in terms of the homicide rate, the would be about 5700 fewer homicides in the united states in 2017 relative to what they really were. there's crime on the border, homicide on the border, lots of different crimes that occur there but compared to the rest of the country it's more peaceful than people giveeo cret for. >> host: thankre you institute, we might people at the cato institute does.

>> guest: it's a libertarian think tank based in washington, d.c. we research basically every single public policy issue from the perspective of support for free markets, limited government, individual liberty and a peaceful non-interventionist foreign policy. >> host: if you had $5.7 billion invest in solving thee immigration issue at the border, , howrd would you inves? >> guest: the number think we need to do is to make it possible for people to come here legally or lower skilled workers from central south america so they don't have to come to the board and ask for asylum or tried it illegally or through any other means. treating against fisa oco which of the vast majority into the legal market, take pressure off border patrol. if that's not on the table what you call isn't, the number to think that we do is make it possible for these folks for being apprehended at the border compulsive , most asylum-seekers can be released into the united states with ankle bracelets, with caseworkers who can monitor them and with other methods to make

sure they show up for their court cases so that they can sefile their claims and if the claims are denied for asylum in the can be removed. >> host: let you chat with callers. rate is waiting in pennsylvania. republican. go ahead. >> caller: i kind of missed the point of him saying how many illegals were actually come into thisin country every year. that's the first part of it. second, even if the wall would prevent one american citizen from dying, wouldn't you want that while the matter what the situation? >> guest: in total number of illegal immigrants entering the united states angeli, these are based on estimates, what we found is the total stock of illegal immigrants in the united states is down about a less than 2 trillion over the last 11 l years. in 2016 we had about 10.7 billion illegal immigrants, it was over 12 and 2007. the net annual inflow is

negative during that timeframe. that doesn't mean that are not people in illegally overstaying visas, but it does mean that more people leaving men coming in. since 2013, the estimate are from the center for migration studies in new york that about 60-70% of new illegal immigrants did so legally and overstayed their visa. in terms of the border wall, we have to think about what that money if it could prevent one bird you ask him isn't worth doing? we have to think what all the alternative uses of that money. are there better ways to prevent murder in the united states than building a border wall? estimates are across the entire border that is now the wall currently it would cost around 36-$50 billion anywhere in that range to build the entire wall across that border, even the most illegal immigrants rendering legally. if that money could be spent elsewhere on more police

officers to prevent homicides, on ways to improve criminal justice or other techniques, i think we could say a lot more life that we rather than building a wall along the southwest border and that's what we should really consider. it is the best way to save american lives, not just the current way which is the proposed. >> host: western new york is next. jane, democrat, good morning. >> caller: thank you for c-span. i just think that, i'd agree with what the gentleman just said. i think that the woman was pooh-poohing the $5.8 billion. i mean, these are supposed to fiscal conservatives that are going about this, and maybe they should keep that go fund me thing going if they really want to pay for it and they really are behind it, just keep it going until they get the money. i think that it's so cavalier

about that amount, and yet they wouldn't spend it on getting people health insurance that didn't have it. and instead they shut people up into emergency rooms now instead of doing something about that situation trek to the government does spend hundreds of billions of dollars on health insurance for people and the united states, but i think the more pressing issue is you are absolutely correct. .. that isn't building more fences or putting more border patrol agents there. that's allowing more of these folks to come in legally so they don't have to try to sneak in illegally so border control can

focus on those people who are actual security threats, who are actual criminals, who actually do mean to do us harm, rather than trying to separate willing american workers -- willing american employers from voluntary workers who want to come here. host: who on capitol hill has been principled in this discussion? guest: that's a very difficult question. i think there's been a number of people in both parties who over the years have come to the position that we need to increase lawful immigration. i think justin amosh, the representative from michigan, republican, has come around to this position over the years and i think that lindsey graham has been mostly reasonable over the years on this issue although he goes back and forth on this. there have been numerous democrats. the democratic party is basically changed its support from -- it used to support border walls and now it's very skeptical and is generally in favor of increasing lawful immigration. but these things change quite a bit over time. we saw realignment occur sort of in 2015 and '16 within the

republican party so that's where it stands currently. who knows where it will stand in a couple years. host: virginia beach, virginia, anthony, an independent. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. let me say this. i think this whole issue is being pushed to the side. if walls are immoral, let's tear down the walls. number two, if all these people coming in are so beneficial for us, why don't we just open the borders instead of going through this back and forth, to and fro? furthermore, what are they running from? are they running from crime? are they themselves the criminals? because where we are right now is a bad situation, because if we continue this, guess what? we will not exist as a nation. the only reason i think that we don't have complete status as far as where the numbers are concerned regarding what these people are doing is because it has been done by us. we are putting ourselves in danger of thinking it would not happen but let it continue and we are going to be in trouble.

guest: a lot of the main evidence is these folks are coming to the united states primarily from central american countries, for a number of reasons. there's evidence that murder rates in these countries do influence the flow, there's work by economist michael clemens showing for each additional murder there's a large increase in the number of asylum seekers from those countries coming to the united states but there's also evidence they are coming here for economic opportunity. a lot of them have family members in the u.s. who can hook them up with jobs once they get here. u.s. rates of economic growth combined with job opportunities here combined with the fact they can enter mexico much more easily lawfully in many cases now, because mexico reformed its immigration laws, as well as with the increasingly bad crime situation in central america, i think all the main factors why they're coming here. in terms of what effect they have on u.s. crime, when they get here, the evidence is pretty clear they are much less likely to be incarcerated than

native-born americans in u.s. prisons and from the one state we have evidence for, they are less likely to be convicted of crimes once they come into the united states and even are less likely to be arrested for these crimes even though states like texas with a lot of illegal immigrants have higher police clearance rates, meaning that police are just as likely or a little bit more likely to solve crimes in states with a lost illegal immigrants than states that don't have very many. host: to david in virginia, democrat, good morning. caller: yes. i would like to point out the symbolism of this wall. you will have the statue of liberty at one end saying give us your tired, your poor, then you will have trump's wall at the other end saying keep out. if you're brown, keep out. if you're white, stay in. that's what this is about. thank you. guest: there is obviously a lot of symbolism with the wall. i think what a critic of that perspective would say is the statue of liberty is here to welcome legal immigrants to the

united states. the wall is to keep out illegal immigrants. that's what a critic of that perspective would say. what i would say in response to that is that it is very difficult to come to this country legally, especially if you are a low skilled worker. it is virtually impossible. there are about 5,000 green cards a year for low skilled workers who aren't related to americans. there are very few guest worker visas available. if that had existed when our ancestors came here in the 19th and early 20th century, there would have been many, many more illegal immigrants back then coming to the country than there is today. i agree that the wall is a bad symbol and i love the symbol of the statue of liberty. i think it defines who we have been as a country in the past and who we hopefully will continue to be going forward, but the main issue here is not necessarily the symbols but the laws that are behind them, the fact that it is very difficult to come to this country lawfully, which is the main reason why we have the illegal immigration problem that we have today. you fix that law, make it

possible to come here legally for people who are lower skilled, you solve that problem. host: here's j.d.'s take from twitter. the gentleman seems to just want to legalize the undercutting of wages of american citizens and lawful workers, currently taking place by unlawful workers. not a winning platform. guest: it might not be a winning political platform but the economic evidence is pretty clear on this. the most negative study, the largest study that's been done on this has found that immigration from 1990 to 2010 when over 30 million people came to this country lowered the relative wages of american high school dropouts by 1.7%. during that time period. while the wages for every other group of americans went up. it's important to note that high school american dropouts are about 9% of the american work force. the vast majority of american workers do benefit as a result of immigration and that is according to the most negative study from harvard university against my position. there are many, many more studies that find even

low-skilled american workers who are high school dropouts actually have higher wages as a result of immigrants coming to this country, even low skilled ones. host: jacksonville, florida, david, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i've got a question, i hope this is up your alley, about the illegals that are already here. we are worried about 15,000 so-called caravan coming up, but there's estimates ranging from 11 million in the far right media, what's to say there's over 20 million illegal immigrants already here. i don't understand a lot about this e-verification but why is there not more discussion about that, and penalizing the employers that are hiring these people? when i was working, we went to great lengths to make sure everybody was legal. if there's that many people here, there ought to be serious

penalties against those companies that are hiring them and what is the actual number? guest: the estimates by demographers is there's somewhere between 10.5 to 12.5 million illegal immigrants currently in the united states. could be a few million more than that or a few million less than that, but these are based on statistical evidence and estimates from census data. take that for what it's worth. but the professionals and the experts on this tend to agree on that set of numbers. when it comes to e-verify, other sort of proposed interior enforcement methods, e-verify is a government system. what it's supposed to do is when you get a job, the employer is supposed to sign on to this government system and run your identity documents, the identity document you give your employer through this system and make sure you are guaranteed and verified legal worker in the united states. the problem with this system is that they check the identity documents that you give them, so let's say that i'm an illegal

immigrant and i'm looking for a job in the united states, and i hand them your identity documents. e-verify checks your identity documents and approves me for a job. that's the loophole in the entire system. that's why in places like arizona, where we have seen that the impact of e-verify on wages is very, very small because most illegal immigrants who know about this system get better and better fake identifications to be able to go around it and to skirt it. what's even more interesting is that states where e-verify is mandatory for all workers, states like arizona, mississippi, alabama, south carolina, a few others where there are partial e-verify mandates, basically only about half of new hires are even run through the program in these states. these states do not want to enforce an e-verify mandate because it would be very costly and it would hurt a lot of businesses, mostly small businesses, and nobody wants to hurt small businesses if they don't have to. host: on enforcement, mary beth on twitter has a question when it comes to e-verify. what are the penalties?

how is it being enforced? >> really, the penalties depend on the state level. there is no e-verify for -- what e-verify is, is a tool that allows employers to use it. some federal contractors have to use e-verify for certain federal projects but there's not a federal mandate. so there's some states that require e-verify to be used for all new hires and a lot of them, there are no penalties for not using it if you don't use it. there are penalties in a lot of them for knowing or intentionally hiring illegal immigrants but not for not using e-verify. in the state of south carolina, the government actually does do audits to make sure people use e-verify when they hire folks, but the penalties are usually very small, something like being put on a government list and they monitor you for a six-month period to make sure you use e-verify and you get off that list. some of them say we will revoke your business licenses but that's very rarely done. when governor napolitano in arizona in 2008 signed a bill to do just that, she called it the

business death penalty. it was used a total of three times in the state of arizona. since then, twice have been on businesses that were already bankrupt so it's not really something that politicians like to use once it's in effect but it's a good talking point. host: david from fairfax, virginia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. just a couple quick questions. first, thank you so much to the institute for doing this research, even as a republican and even though it's a libertarian think tank, i'm curious to know all the information. i don't seem to be able to get that from standard news media on either side, so i'm very appreciative of that. how do you spell cato so i can get online and research some of what you guys are doing, second, what would the recommendation be for fixing this problem as a whole? it is an issue. i have many friends from many different countries, from

australia, central america, south america, europe, who for various reasons can't come here, have a hard time staying here, they are here legally, a few people who i know who are here illegally, but they are good people. how do we fix this problem so we can keep good people here? guest: first off, thank you very much for the compliment. i'm very proud to work at cato. check out more information at c-a-t-o, cato.org. i'm also on twitter so you can follow me there to get information on this. when it comes to solving the legal and illegal immigration problem in the united states, there's really two things that i think are important. one, it -- we would need to make it easier for people to come to this country legally, to be able to work and live. legal experts have said that the united states immigration law is second in complexity only to the income tax. in other words, the income tax is the only set of laws more complicated in the u.s. than the

immigration system. we need to make it easier for people to come here legally and if they are good people, if they are not a threat, to be able to stay here, work and live legally just like our ancestors did. if we liberalized it, made it easier for people who are low skill, mid-skill, high skill, entrepreneurial, who want to start a business, who want to live here, we need to make that easier and cheaper to do, make it so it's available to more people. we do that, it will solve the problem dramatically. on top of that, i would say legalizing unlawful immigrants, those who are here illegally, who aren't violent or property criminals or national security threat, giving them a path to at minimum a work permit, preferably a green card and eventual citizenship if they want to is the way to solve this problem going forward. host: arlene, san francisco, california, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just have a comment. i think trump has laid government workers off in order to create chaos in the country to get our focus off of his

closeness to putin. trump is very close to the russians. they have bought condo is in -- billion dollar condos in the top floors of his buildings. i will take my answer off the phone. thanks. host: care to comment on the russia investigation? guest: i have no comment on that issue. host: we have about 30 minutes of phones coming up in a little bit. certainly a topic we can bring up in that discussion. sin yee th cynthia in steubenville, ohio, independent, go ahead. caller: i believe the wall simply stands as a symbol. what we desire, all who come into our country use the system and the processes that we require. this makes it fair for those who choose to come legally. i don't believe that it's a symbol we don't want anyone to come into our country. it just keeps out those who are undesirable, makes them do it

like everyone else who is wanting to do it legally and comes in fairly. i applaud trump for making the effort. i have no problem with the go fund me. i'm certainly part of that. i feel that those of us who have the same idea that i have are willing, more willing than those that think just open the borders, let everybody do what they want and yes, eventually this country will not be owned by this country because all it takes is one or two terrorists to get in illegally and they can, consider 9/11 or any of those. i thank you for your time. host: before you go, how much have you personally pledged towards the wall? caller: you know what, i have not made that pledge yet. i am going to research it more. the comment was made now, i thought to myself that's right, there is a go fund me and shame on me, because since i'm so interested in this, i should go for it and i am going to. it might only be $100 now and at a later point, i don't have a lot of money but i sure as heck

feel the desire to have a symbol that we want everyone to come the legal process that we want into this country. guest: first off, none of the 9/11 hijackers entered this country illegally. they all entered legally, 18 of them on tourist visas, the other on a student visa. some of them did overstay their status and eventually became illegal immigrants or what would be considered illegal immigrants today but none of them entered that way. thus, even if the wall existed in the past it would have had no effect on these people entering the united states. the majority of illegal immigrants today, between about 60% and 70% according to the center for migration studies, enter legally and overstay their visas. the wall has no effect on that. i'm not interested in the symbolism of this. that's for a lot of other people to debate and determine what that is. but in terms of the effectiveness of the wall, it's a very expensive project, it will cost between about $24 million and $30 million per mile to build and an additional million dollars per mile to

maintain each year after that. i don't think it will be very effective at keeping illegal immigrants out of this country, especially since a lot of them, most of them are now coming in legally and overstaying their visas. i'm much more interested in the effectiveness of it, not the symbolism of it. host: time for a couple more calls. charlotte, houston, texas, republican. go ahead. caller: yes. i hate to say this, but i'm going to say it. you are all a bunch of pencil pushers. you don't even live in the areas that we are being -- i live in the south. i live in texas. i see the illegal immigration and what it's doing. i worked with people that are here illegally, making the same amount of money as i am and then collecting because none of them are married, they have two last names and they use it and you know, come on down and really see how it is. you push the pencils around, you give these little figures but you know nothing. you truly know nothing.

host: a chance to respond. guest: one of the reasons i'm interested in this issue is because i grew up in los ange s angeles, also in ventura county. los angeles and california in general has more legal immigrants than any other urban area or any other state in the united states. i grew up with it. the farms where i used to run by in gym class in high school are full of illegal immigrants who are stooped working in the fields doing very difficult manual labor. i went to school with folks like that. i do have first-hand experience in dealing with this and taking a look at it and taking a look at the issues. i'm not in favor of illegal immigration. i don't know anybody who is. i want it to be legal, though. i don't want to punish people who haven't committed other serious crimes just because they broke our immigration laws, which are primarily just international labor market regulations. i want to find a way to legalize these people and make sure we don't repeat this mess going forward. the reason, if we are going to just focus on enforcement, just going to build a wall, just going to have these extra border patrol agents, we are setting

ourselves up for another surge of illegal immigration in the future, people who won't legalize. the way to fix this permanently going forward is to legalize these folks and to make it possible for immigrants to come here legally in the future to work and live, just like our ancestors did. host: last call. baltimore, maryland, robert, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to comment on how libertari libertarians [ inaudible ]. guest: what about libertarians? caller: i'm sorry. i would like you to comment on how libertarian views like your organization sort of dovetail with classic liberal economic policy that advocates for protectionism which is, you know, basically in line with labor policy that you described. i want to thank you first of all for even using the words immigration reform in context of border security. i would like to ask you how a

portion of border security actually contributes to the larger issue of immigration policy that you allude to. also, comment on how historically this in the last 20 or 30 years has grown, starting with another conservative trump platform, that was to get rid of nafta and i would like to ask you how you think nafta started to contribute to that boom in illegal immigration that you alluded to. host: a lot there and only about a minute or two left. guest: the boom in illegal immigration from mexico began in the early 1980s, more than a decade before nafta went into effect. mexico had a very unstable currency and economic situation then that caused an economic collapse, that caused a surge of immigrants to the united states. most of them, a lot of them came illegally so there was no legal way for them to come. nafta, the evidence is that it increased a lot of economic growth, especially in border regions of mexico so if it had any effect, it was probably to

decrease illegal immigration just a little bit to the united states. nafta really isn't a contributing factor. over the last 30 years, really since the early 1980s, almost 40 years, immigration has been a big issue in this country. we have had surges of illegal immigration, we have had legalization, we had massive increases in border security, there are about six times as many border patrol agents today as there were in 1986 when reagan did his amnesty but we had many many more illegal immigrants because we have not made it easier to come to this country legally. we have made it more difficult. that's the number one issue we should be talking about if we want to solve this issue going forward. host: cato institute, c-a-t-o, cato.org online. always appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me.

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