mexico, and on september 12th when -- between, he stood up and said the most important relationship the country had was with england and that changed the entire paradigm. we've moved now 11 years since 9/11, and during that time we still have not had this country fix its broken immigration system. i think it's time to do that. i'm just hoping that we have a congress and the white house that's willing to move forward. >> new york, mary elizabeth on the democrats line. >> caller: yes, good morning. i'm just concerned about the issues being addressed from an economic perspective. with the recent immigration and all the services that are being utilized by this population, social services vis-a-vis the social services of the aging elderly in this country who have worked and put into the system through the 40 years or so of

their working lives, and when they are aging up and needing nursing care or long-term care, et cetera, there's going to be the contradictions as to who is going to get those services. who is going to get the benefit of that money in the society from the various tax coffers. i think that is one of the issues. there's a great amount of anger against this population and the persons who are born now who are on, quote, the dole, the system, and the ensuing conflict between those elderly people who paid and supported this system for the 40 years versus people who are new, who did not pay in but in fact are consumers. can you address those issues, please. >> absolutely. in fact, the data shows that undocumented workers in this country do not use social services to the extent that

people do. the only form of public support that they use in a significant way are, one, emergency health care services. they go to emergency rooms, or, two, public education, and then you address the issue of the elderly. in fact, it's immigrants who are taking care of our elderly. it's immigrants who are, in fact, doing the long-term health care for our aging population because that's one of the jobs, unfortunately, that people in this country don't want to do, and we use immigrants in order to take care of our aging parents and grandparents. >> the affordable care act, there's a concern for your organization and latinos overall and particularly as the supreme court debates it next week. >> not particularly for our organization because we focus on political engagement. however, we do know latinos are the most underinsured people in the country, and we want to make sure that people have access to quality health care. >> 12 million projected preval.2 million latino voters, arizona

and california and texas making big strides and even when it comes to people who actually go to the voter booths. talk about that as it relates to voter i.d. laws. >> i think voter i.d. laws is a very, very dangerous development in this country because it really represents a new poll tax, a new barrier to people voting. the fact is, and in fact the department of justice this last week, decided not to declare texas a voter i.d. law because the data that the state of texas presented to the department of justice show that latinos were 46% or 120% more likely not to have the kind of i.d. that the state was requiring to vote than non-hispanics so it really represented a new barrier and a new tax for voters. >> 30 states with strict photo i.d. laws seven, states with

photo i.d. seven and states with non-photo i.d. 16. >> again, it's a very dangerous development. i mean, voting is the most cherished right in the country. there shouldn't be a requirement. if you are 18 years of age and you're a united states citizen and you're not a felon, you should be able to vote in this count country. >> bolduc, austin, republican line. go ahead. >> caller: i got three points i think would be interesting in regards to the vote. i'm sorry, i'm getting in my car right now. one thing i think that has been overlooked in this upcoming presidency is the possibility of paul getting the nomination because of the delegates that we've been looking at. i'm interested to know how the latino community would be impacted, you know, by austerity measures that he would take and,

two, i've noticed that when people talk about immigration around illegals, the argument is skewed towards latinos, but in all actually latinos are not the only people that will come el legally across the border, and i guess that would be. >> right. i think you're absolutely right. in fact, majority of people who are here, undocumented status, are people who overstayed their tourist visa and that includes people from all countries who come here, and your typical undocumented immigrant is not somebody who has run across the border, but, again, somebody who has overstayed their tourist visa and they do so because they want to be here, not only because they want to live the american dream but because they want to be reunited with their family and our immigration system does not allow that or a rational way for people to immigrate to this country. we need to fix that so we don't have people who are coming here

and overstating their visas or being here in undocumentinged status. >> it's more of a statement from twitter, but this says there are arguably 30 million illegal immigrants in the united states. mandate e-vaiify. >> the data show there are about 12 million, and the most recent studies have seen that the population has declined to about 11 million, and e-verify, the problem with that is that a data set and there are people who are included there who have every right to work here and who are being denied the opportunity for jobs because their name appears on the e-verify list, so one of the things that we need to do is to make sure that that list is actually accurate. >> is the current state of the economy affecting how many illegal immigrants are in the country currently? >> i think it has. one of the reasons people come here is to -- for jobs, and if there are no jobs, people don't come or people leave, and i think we've been seeing that. >> waldorf, maryland, tony, independent line. go ahead. >> caller: yes, sir.

i wanted to ask your guest how he feels. i'm in the construction industry, so i see a lot of latinos. i'm a subcontractor so i pick them up quite a bit. they make their money, and they -- they pretty much send their money back to their country. just wondering what your guest would feel about or has it been brought up to have them pay some kind of fine to become a citizen? it would help our economy and that's all i've got to say. >> well, actually one of the things i would ask you, sir, are you paying their employment taxes, and are you paying the taxes that you need to be paying for people you hire? and one of the things that -- reasons we need to fix our broken immigration system is many workers have been exploited by the people who hire them. they are not being paid fair wages. they are not being paid -- they are not receiving the kind of

benefits that other workers get such as health insurance and vacation time and so forth, and they are working very hard, and they are sending their money to their families back in their home country because, you know, families are suffering back there, and they don't have the kind of economic means there that we have here. >> this is a different topic, but this is american hero who says are latino voters concerned about the violence in mexico or blame america or want to do something about it? i think it's the border violence that we hear about. >> everybody is very concerned with the border violence in mexico. there are people there who are suffering, and there's been a -- an untold number of murders and people who have been killed in the drug wars who have not even been involved in the drug trafficking. i was in mexico to visit my family a year ago, and -- and they asked me how is mexico viewed by the united states, and i said, you know, truthfully,

people think it's like colum yeah, and they said,ia, that's how we feel, that it's that kind of an environment there now. >> this is stan on the democrats' line. >> caller: hello, good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: i heard mr. vargas say that there are immigrants that come in and do all sorts of work, and he said that they wanted to do -- wanted to take care of our elderly, and i think that's a misconception that immigrants do work that americans don't want to do. i think that they do work that americans don't want to do cheaper and under the table because, you know, it wouldn't make sense to have immigrants who don't speak english take care of senior citizens, you know. there's a problem here. like when i go to walmart or mcdonald's, you know, they -- even if you ask for extra ketchup, they don't understand what you're talking about, so,

you know, that's just one thing, you know, that i wanted to mention. i think that's a misconception, you know, and i would appreciate that they are saying they are doing work that we don't want to do. they are taking jobs -- they are undercutting, you know, other minorities, coming here illegally. >> so the real issue here is not that they are undercutting minorities and taking jobs for less pay, is that employers are not paying workers what they should be paying, and that's really i think what we need to do is we need to go after the employer and require them to pay their wages for their workers, and if we didn't have people who were so desperate that they would work for less pay and they would be taken advantage of, we wouldn't have this situation. i think the enforcement needs to be among employers. >> university vision and abc did a poll taking a look at latino voters and the issues they find relevant and important for the 2012 psych. as you can imagine, fix the

economy was high on that list, and as far as create more jobs and immigration, but a couple of things. one of the things that came up were abortion, gay marriage and family values. maybe 3% registering that that is an importance. relate that back to the debate we've been having here and nationwide as far as contraception is concerned is this an important issue, especially as they have heard it play out over the last few weeks? >> i don't think so much. i think people are really focused on the economy. they are really focused on the lack of jobs, and the issues that affect them day to day, jobs, health care, public education, and we haven't talked about that. in fact, the candidates haven't even talked about the quality of education in this country and the fact is public education affects latinos more than any other population because we're such a young population. you know, 51% of every single californian under 18 years of age is a latino. 48% of every sectionan under 18 years of age is a latino. the quality of public education today is affecting the future of

this country because the children who are in our classrooms today are largely minority, largely latino. >> so when they hear from the obama administration, efforts like race to the top, your opinion on those things when it comes to education. >> well, that's really only affecting, you know, a small margin of public school students because federal education is really only a small role in public education. it really is a state issue and a local issue, and the fact that many states are cutting their budgets and cutting public education really has affected the quality of public education. >> al in the republican line. go ahead. >> caller: yeah. i want to ask you. how come you latinos vote for democrats and we ship guns to mexico to kill their relatives. they put farmers out of work when they -- when they shut off the water in california. they thought more about a little fish than they did the -- the mexican workers that were working on the farm and also the

illegals come in and take the jobs from the legals -- from the legal latd knows. how can you vote for a democrat that don't want to close the border? >> i think it's a misconception that latinos automatically vote for democrats, they don't. they really are the swing voter. if we look at how latinos have performed in many elections, they have demonstrated the ability to cross party -- to cross the aisle and to cross party lines. in 2,000 and 2004, about 40% of latinos supported george w. bush and helped him win the presidency in 2000 by carrying in florida. in 2008, florida went for barack obama largely on the latino vote, so latino voters really look at particular elections, and candidates, at circumstances and then make the decision. they don't vote by the party line. >> let me take it back to mitt romney in puerto rico. this is a quote in the "wall street journal." he said those people who don't think that latinos will vote for a republican need to take a look

in puerto rico. hispanic voters are going to vote for republicans if we stand for something, conservatives who bring home values. the middle part as far as standing for something hand those values that he touted. >> well, again, i think latinos are very concerned about the economy. they are concerned about the direction of this country. let's talk about the puerto rico primary. really, it was a republican people primary in puerto rico. a republican was going to win. let's not make so much about it in that sense. really what any candidate needs to do is they need to speak to latino voters in this country, in all 50 states, and we need to have a candidate that's going to actually deal with the loss of jobs among the latino community, the foreclosure rate that latinos have experienced and figure how we can move this community forward. >> pensacola, florida, eric, independent line. >> caller: hey, good morning. i can't tell you how many things i disagree with you here. you come out of left field on quite of few things.

let me just give a couple quick little notes that i was making. one -- first off here, your foundation of identity politics i think is -- i consider it somewhat racist, to think that everybody simply because of their national origin is going to vote one way, think one way, i mean, that's stereotyping. you would call that -- you would call that profiling, so i think that's one of your biggest issues. look at the name of your organization, what isn't the americans. you're too busy trying to put wedges between people and trying to find out how your little group can get something. it's america. we're all supposed to be in it together. another point here. >> do you have a question for our guest other than a point. >> caller: yeah, i do. how -- here's a good example, something you were asked earlier. who is going to determine who an organization should be paying? this is not the government's decision, and you're dooming a bunch of people to a type of slave labor by -- by continuing

illegal immigration saying it's okay because people have a need. there is a path to citizenship called legal citizenship. >> mr. vargas. >> as i said earlier, latinos are the real swing vote. i mean, they have demonstrated they will vote for republicans and democrats. they are not an automatic vote for either party and they shouldn't be taken for granted by either party. as far as latinos really want to live the american dream. they are now one out of every six americans in this country, and they represent the future of the united states, and we need to invest in latino children today when we can make sure they receive a quality education. they are the future work force of this country. they are the future leadership of this country and if we're going to continue to be a global leader we need to develop the human capital of all our people. >> shreveport, louisiana. good morning to joe, democrats' line. >> calle

>> caller: i hate to tell you the truth. i'm a democrat and i employ myself. i play by the rules, i came here legally. married for 22 years to the same american woman. i'm paying my dues to society. i don't care who you are. you play by the rules. once you break -- once you come here illegally, and this is very common among the asian and latino, they come here illegally and expect to be citizens or residents. the best solution is all of them get deported. i don't care who are you. that's the name of the game, i'm sorry. >> i think the best solution is to fix our broken immigration system. we have 11 million to 12 million people who are living in the shadows. we need to figure out how to regularize their status and how do we get a rational way of

immigrating people to this country to meet our own economic needs as a nation and keep families together. >> another aspect on the election this year. are there more latinos running for office this year? >> there is, and one of the reasons is because of redistricting. there was a reapportionment of the congress, for example, after the 2010 census, found 55.5 million latinos in the united states said, that represents about 16% of the u.s. population. so states like texas, arizona, nevada, florida, all picked up new congressional seats, and all had the opportunity to draw new districts where latino voters are able to elect candidates to their choice. after this next election i expect there to be five or six more hispanics in the congress. >> south hadley, massachusetts. this is john, republican line. >> caller: hi. i just -- i've got -- a couple of things i've got to say to you guys, and, please, you let everybody else talk. what's going on is that -- this system is being controlled by

the globalist international bankers, okay. sooner or later because of this is going on, we're not going to be able to get everybody into this system. the system is going to collapse. we already heard by these globalists that there's those out there in the background to come in for the nwo, the new world order. that's why bush did what he did, and i want to tell you something. a gentleman just said it. we just had a pearl harbor, but you know what, people in government like the president when we had pearl harbor knew we were going to be attacked so these globalists can come in here, set up all these corporations and now we don't have any rights. we're under the patriot act. >> so the question sir. >> caller: excuse me. while the corporations are sitting here ripping off the middle class and the poor, stealing, going through the imf, international monetary fund, saying that they are helping

people while they are wiping people out, 7 billion people on this planet, and all it is is depopulation. >> sir, question for our guest. >> caller: i've got a question. like the gentleman says, there are laws, and the laws are being broken not only by the people that are coming in from other countries because it's -- it's international, okay. >> there are laws. >> there are laws, and there are laws that don't work which is why we have to break our broken immigration system and which is why we're hoping we'll get a congress and a presidency that will help move our country forward and fix our immigration system but also fix the economy and make sure that all of us are able to take full advantage of, you know, living the american dream. >> sanford, north carolina, heywood, thanks for holding on. >> caller: oh, right. mr. vargas, i would like to say to you that all these people over here are coming from latino

countries, they don't have any right, and you can say anything you want to, pretend that you don't understand, but what you are doing, you're overloading our country, and your country is going free the people that -- that have these big businesses are moving to your country, but your people are not staying there taking care of their own country. >> well, my country is the united states of america. i was born here, and -- and i'm doing everything we can as an organization as well to make sure that all americans are able to fulfill their dreams and be able to live the american dream. we want to make sure that people who immigrate to this country are also able to integrate to this country and become full and contributing members of society. >> eureka, california,

democrats' line. >> mr. vegas. >> vargas actually. >> caller: mr. vargas, yes, good morning. >> yes. >> caller: i have a question. you speak of latinos. are you speaking of those who are american citizens, or are you speaking of those who are not american citizens or exactly how is -- in my opinion you're separating them from being americans because the caller from florida hit it right on the head. it's like america and we've got to stick together so if you're an american, are you speaking in terms of an american latino or, i mean, that's pretty much my question? >> sure. when i speak about latinos i'm speaking about the 55.5 million residents of this country, citizens, some of them are immigrants, who are contributing to our economy, contributing to our society and want to live the american dream.

what we want to do at naleo is we want to help them succeed. we want to help them integrate into society, make sure they are contributing members our economy and our democracy because that will make our nation stronger. >> to the integration, we go back to puerto rico one more time. >> okay. >> this is mr. santorum saying it should be english only before it's being a statehood. >> yeah, i think mr. santorum needs to do his homework because english is the official language of puerto rico as well as spanish, it's officially bilingual, and i think it really was an insult of the people of puerto rico to say they should speak english only where as a territory of this country they have been officially bilingual, english and spanish, for over 100 years. >> cumberland, maryland, judy, republican line. go ahead, please. >> caller: hi, there. mr. vargas, i've got several problems with your point of view. you seem to be representing mainly illegal aliens, and -- and let me remind you that

illegal aliens in this country abuse our health care system through impala. they get free dialysis, free cancer care, free organ transplants, it's all been written up in the newspapers so don't tell me you don't know about it, and on top of that we never get to send them back to their own country so they can pay for them. and also all these illegal latinos and organizations like you are against laws like 287-g and secure communities. you're against anything that exercises any form of control and discover illegal aliens and deports them. >> what's 287-g? >> caller: 287-g is the law that -- where that -- that empowers the police to and gives police immigration authority. >> so we need to fix our broken immigration system.

there are laws in this country that are simply not working. nobody wants to have an illegal immigration population in this country. certainly we don't in this country. we don't want people living in the shadows. we don't want people exploited by workers as we've discussed earlier this morning. we want to make sure that people are able to fully develop their human capital and potential and that only helps by a rational system by which people can migrate from country to country. >> she mentioned secure communities. does your organization take a stand on that? >> well, we have. many of our members -- >> for those who may not know it you may want to give a brief explanation. >> if your community is a program whereby local law enforcement is able to cooperate with immigration authorities at the federal level and be able to check people's immigration status as they are being detained or arrested for any

violation, but the problem with the secure communities in some areas is that people are being taken in. for example, a woman who reports domestic violence. typically what happens is that law enforcement shows up at the home and arrests both parties, both the woman and the man, and the woman is being -- if she's undocumented and she's reporting domestic violence, she herself may be subject to deportation, and all she's doing is reporting a crime, so what these communities may end up doing is depressing the number of people who are willing to call the police to report crimes and the that's really a problem that many law enforcement agencies deal with secure communities. >> new york city is next for our guest. jason on our independent line. hello. go ahead. >> caller: yes, hi. i've got to say you mentioned education, and for most of the callers that are calling in, yeah, education is greatly

needed. on the other hand, i do agree a lot with mr. vargas on a lot of points. the reason a lot of people little legal here is because of the immigration system. i came in as a green card holder with my family when i was 10 years old so i know it has changed a lot, and it seems to have gotten more difficult. i have a wife outside of the country, and due to -- >> which country, by the way? >> caller: she's japanese. >> go ahead. >> caller: so dealing with that, i mean, she's not breaking any laws. she comes in for three months and she goes home while we wait for my citizenship to go through. it's just that they are making it more complicated so people want to be with their families. people are doing anything because you -- some don't have the money to go through a lawyer and the legalities to come into the country, to be a legal citiz citizen, a legal resident. so everybody is pointing to the illegal immigrant saying the illegal immigrant is causing all these conflict, the system needs to change. it doesn't matter you're coming from, but asians have someone

speaking for them, latinos also need it. they are the majority in here illegally and mexico, hello, is right over the border, right next door so, of course, they are going to be coming in a much more larger amount, so i -- i think mr. vargas has a very good point. i think we do need to find another way. thank you. >> well, i think he has demonstrated how our broken immigration system is affecting families and keeping people separated, you know. what we need to do as a nation is figure out how do we again families together? >> is there a figure as to how much it costs to become a legal resident of the country? >> to become a legal resident of the country, you know, you need to wait years and years and years because there isn't enough visas for people to migrate legally which is one of the reasons why we need to fix our broken immigration system, and there are many people who take advantage of immigrants and charge them hundreds and thousands of dollars and don't provide any services so, you

know, people are being exploitd and i think we need to fix our system so people can live their lives. >> how many visas allowed per year? >> i don't know because it chang changes. >> alex, democrats' line, hello. >> caller: yes, yes. i was calling just to, you know -- i was calling to congratulate mr. vargas because, like i said, what he said about the congress and obama, that's just the truth. we lost a lot of seats in the congress, and that's really what's held us up, i feel like, but like i say in schools, you go to elementary schools, high schools and just -- they are showing that the spanish kids are definitely exceling past our kids, and like i say with the melting pot being the way it is, with all the people in the country like we did, it's something that we need to allow and go ahead