little country with rickety staff ha has a big mouth louder than iraq. if we want to manage the region, we have to have a holistic approach. and i'm done. >> thank you very much. >> closing word or two. i'd like to thank you all for coming. first, if i might say, the legacy -- make a comment or two about the potential legacy of al qaeda, if it is dead or dying, and hopefully we'll l. fade away, if in the light of who we, the potomac institute are and what we do, we're a science and technology, policy think tank where we look at the impacts of science and technology on our society. the impacts in regards to terrorism i'd like to sum up as a final word to today's conference. terrorism, as many have said here today, particularly general gray, terror up has been around

since mankind. killing them publicly has been a tactic used by many, many people. the difference today, if i might comment that this is to me the legacy of al qaeda, is that the demonstration that a small group cannot just terrorize by killing a few. but by using technology, kill thousands. that was the difference of 9/11. it wasn't a terror act where they set off an ied and three or four people were killed or brought down a headquarters building and 330 were killed, as in the middle east, general gray commented on. this was an event where a small group, used modern technology to kill 3,000 people. and they demonstrated to the rest of the world how a small group of people can have a strategic effect. that's the legacy that we're going to have to deal with and learn how to compensate and cope with for generations to come. i'd like to thank you all for joining us today. hope that you will continue to

participate with us in this attempt at scholarship and studying these issues and we hope you'll once again come back to the institute in the future. thank you very much. >> the competitive enterprise institute is hosting a panel discussion this morning examining potential solutions to the nation's immigration problems. panelist including members of law enforcement, human rights activists and academic leaders will discuss immigration laws as the supreme court reviews the contut constitutionality of arizona's policies. this is about to get under way. >> we need to know who's here.

>> well, good morning. appreciate everyone being here. officially, presented by arizona employers for immigration reform, competitive enterprise institute, national immigration forum and texans for sensible immigration policy, we are going to have a immigration summit right here in washington, d.c., where we hope the benefit of which will be to offer some solutions and move some of our members of congress to get on with immigration reform. i'm norman adams, texan, a co-founder of texans for sensible immigration policy.

and just as a setting or an open, i'd like to point out the fact that i don't need to tell any of you the immigration debate is a an emotional debate, but that's nothing new. prior to 1923, if you arrived on the shores, as most of our ancestors did if you came in first class, you went straight to your hotel room. if you came over what was known as steerage, someone looked at you to see if you looked sick, then you might have to go to quarantine station for a while, but we had no quote tas prior t 1923. yet, even then, still today, you go to new york, you see little italy, you see little germany, little france, you have the segments of the restaurants, you have a lot of people settled basically with their own kind, everyone can remember the sign in the window, "no irishman or

dogs" allowed in here. i'm old enough to remember when a pollack-czech wedding was an interrati interracial marriage. it's nothing new. just a quick rundown of i just -- i hear so often, look, what is it you don't understand about the rule of law? well, folks, that's the whole problem, is that our immigration laws are broken. 198 6 we've got i-9 law created by our labor department that says if the identification looks to be legitimate, they otherwise qualify, you must hire them. we had the e. oc saying mr. employer if you don't hire them because you suspect they're illegal, that is discrimination. we have social security administration saying, with a no match letter, this name doesn't match this number, but do not fire this worker, your responsibility, mr. employer, is to notify the worker to contact

us, do not fire them. it you fire them, again, you have the eeoc. that's discrimination. now, our great organized government in its wisdom has come along, homeland security has come along in 2010 and decided that if you have a no match letter, that is going to be constructive knowledge. yet, the eeoc is still standing there to come after you for discrimination. so, we have, god only knows, legally hired illegal immigrants since 1986 under the current system. and the current system is basically, it's bad law. and in my opinion, again, i am a right wing republican, in my opinion, roe v. wade is bad law, obama care is bad law. one time in this country, it was legal to buy, sell, and own

black people as slaves. germany, it was legal to incarcerate the jews. those were bad laws. our immigration laws are bad. hopefully we'll hear a lost good reasons for reforming them today. todd, are you ready to go? i want to introduce todd lanfried. i am from texas, as i said. todd is the head of the arz aiz employers for immigration reform. but todd was the lone ranger on the white horse in texas. todd came down and testified to the texas legislature in this last session, let me tell you, we had 108 arizona-style bills proposed in the texas legislature that is two-thirds republican dominated.

two-thirds republican, republican governor, 108 arizona-style bills, you could call them russell pearce bills, were proposed in texas, with todd's help, we motivated our legislature to listen and think and enter meaningful dialogue. we brought in businessmen, and todd, of course, displayed arizona as a test tube and showed us why the laws don't work. and so in texas, we are very -- we have a great deal of -- we give the credit, i'm going to tell you this, to todd landfried in the state of arizona. i think you helped texas dodge a bullet. >> thank you. i guess i've got give you another $5, right? good morning, on behalf of arizona employers for immigration reform i want to

welcome you to today's congressional immigration solutions conference. this is the sixth in a siris of conferences that are intended to educate the public about the impact, state level immigration laws have and are interehaving placed that passed them and suggest alternative solutions that could address the real problems without the damaging consequence. today you'll hear from people who have dealt with the issue not just from a daily basis. not just think tanks from organizations with axes to grind but organizations that want to solve the problem in a responsible, effective, and cost effective manner. yes, those solutions actually exist. you just haven't had an opportunity to hear about them and you're going to hear about them today. i want to thank the other sponsors of the program, texans for sensible immigration policy, the competitive enterprise institute, national immigration forum for their support of the event. last, but not least, we want to extend our thanked to arizona

congressman ed pasture for assisting us and reserving this room for today's event. we appreciate his willingness to sponsor this event, where the broad spectrum of political views, norm adams, are going to be presented here today. this isn't a partisan thing. this isn't a conservative, this isn't a liberal, this is a conference where people from different views are going to come and explain how we can help solve this problem. and finally, as you can see, today's program's aired nationally on c-span3 and we want to thank c-span for their interest in sharing the ideas of this conference with the american people. here's how today's going to work. we've got two panels, the first one addresses what we have learned from the past several years of local attempts at immigration laws, they'll examine impacts on business, the economy, social, faith-group

communities, but we're not going to be talking about the law's constitutionality. the second panel provides alternative solutions to the immigration problem from the perspective of people who lived on the border, served in law enforcement capacities or stayed at the border for many years. each speak already have eight to ten minutes, followed by q&a, we encourage you to ask many questions. hi. at 11:15, we'll break for 15 minutes to grab a lunch and then we'll come back and launch into the second panel. so we understand that immigration's a controversial issue, and we know some people in this room may have strong views one way or another. some of the information will challenge conventional views, and that's part of our purpose. but just as information we provide today is going to be presented in an informative and respectful manner, we hope that

everyone here will be respective of the views as well. with that, let me turn it back over to norm adams who will introduce our first panel. >> thank you, todd. >> wait a second. you forgot -- >> i'm going to introduce britney right now. britney nystrom, director of policy and legal affairs for the national immigration forum. the forum's mission is to advocate for the value of immigrants and immigration to the nation. her advocacy focuses on immigration reform and civil rights and human rights for all. i'm not going to read all of this. we're going to hear from you. come ahead, britney. all right. thank you. >> thank you, everyone. i just want to start by saying that talking about solutions is a great theme for any immigration conference. we all know that our current immigration system is full of problems and we spend a lot of

time talking about those problems. i'm guilty of that myself but not enough time doing the hard work to get towards solutions. i want to thank the organizers of today's event bringing us altogether where we can do the dirty work of figuring out how to move forward. what are these problems is that we have in our current immigration system? i'm going to just give a brief overview of some of the stickiest issues we're dealing with. we have families who are separated who are seeking to reunite but thwarted in doing so by our immigration system. we have businesses who are seeking a stable and skilled workforce. we have workers who are seeking protecteds in the opportunity to thrive. and we have taxpayers who are seeking an efficient and smart use of their taxpayer dollar. these problems are threatening both our heritage as a nation of immigrants and our status as the land of opportunity for a people

from all nations. we've probably all heard stories about the family separation problem, families waiting years to reunite, why they try to navigate through our thorny immigration bureaucracy, or if they get tired of waiting, risking their lives to cross the desert to rejoin family here in the united states. we've likely also heard stories of farmers unable to harvest crops without the help of immigrant workers they depend on or high-tech businesses unable to harness the talent 0 of immigrant employees either lost in our maze of immigration visas or in fact driven to our competitors overseas. what you may not have heard about is the financial cost of a broken immigration system. and in a time of shrinking budgets it's a perfect opportunity to find a solution that meets our fiscal needs as well. we spend billions of dollars each year enforcing a'of immigration laws that probably

most people can agree are not working for america. for fiscal year 2012, the year we're currently in fiscally, congress spent $11.8 billion for customs and border protection to enforce the immigration laws. in addition, $5.5 billion was given to the immigration customs and enforcement agency. the government spebs an estimated $23,000 to support -- deport a single individual. and the obama administration is deporting people in record numbers. so what are we getting as a return for this investment? that's a question that all taxpayers should really be putting towards their elected officials. along our borders, and specific, we are seeing a diminishing return on the investment as border security spending climbs up, up, up, up, up, we actually see the number of immigrant as temping to enter illegally at record lows. so there's an imbalance there,

as exemplified by our border. so what does the solution look like? i -- looking forward to hearing all of panelists' views on this, we know the laws on the books must be enforced. but enforcement should be carried out in a smart, efficient way that prioritizes keeping us safe from threats to public safety and threats to our national security. enforcing broken immigration laws does not serve our interest as a nation. in fact, if immigrants have a system that they can go through to become americans, fewer people will try to go around the immigration system. finally, instead of spending billions of dollars year after year to track down detained, deport immigrants, we should implement a program ta requires all aunt authorized immigrants to register with the government, pay a fine, pay any bback taxes

learn english. according to some estimates, a legalization program would boost the u.s. economy by an estimated $1.a5 trillion that would be an added u.s. gross domestic product over a ten-year product. thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my opening remarks, and i look forward to engaging in the solution conversation that we so debt separately need. >> thank you, britney. todd in the interest of time, i'm going bring these panelists up. you want them to move on up and where would the moderator be? right here. okay. we're going to have eddie aldrete on the closed circuit, on television. eddie aldrete is the senior vice

president ibc bank in san antonio, texas. he's a texas boy, graduated from the university of texas. i can tell you this, in texas, that he has been a leader if not the leader, in sensible immigration reform. and we owe him a great deal of gratitude. i think you're going to enjoy his presentation. if you haven't seen his video on iceberg you definitely need to see that. and alex nowrasteh, where are you? cato institute, i think everyone knows alex. if they don't know him, they've gotten his e-mails. god bless you for being here, alex. reverend phil reller, where are you, phil? okay. appreciate you being here. from los angeles. we have daryl williams, baird, williams & greer. excuse my, about to forget. this is the man, this is the man, he said be sure tell you he's a right wing republican.

what daryl, in my opinion, he's a trial lawyer, defense and plaintiff, he led the charge to recall russell pearce, the author of 1070, the man that led the charge to recall russell and vote him out of office. thank you, thank you, daryl. martial fit is our moderate marshall, he's with the director of immigration policy. thank you. >> thanks so much, norm. thanks so much, todd. thanks to everyone who's worked together convene this important discussion today. >> to -- the congressman for hosting. now, while political prowess has prevented congress from tackling an overhaul of the immigration

system, it's an overhaul that's pointed as long overdue and one that many of us have been fighting for many years to achieve. the pressures of a large undocumented population continue to be foisted on state and local governments and communities. opponents of immigration reform has opponents such as state senator russell pearce that norm was mentioning, have persuaded some local elected officials to pursue what is, i think, a deeply misguided strategy that they call attrition throughent forcement. the idea of that is to make life so unbearable, so difficult and harsh for undocumented immigrants that they will just pack their bags and leave. but that's simple vision ignores the serious challenges confronting state and local governments. addition through enforcement is a strategy of avoidance that

disserves safety, economic, and social priorities of all u.s. residents. every honest observer, i think, can recognize and agree that we are not going to deport 11 million people. it's just not going to happen. and any long-term solution to our broken immigration system, therefore, has to have a program that, as pointed out, required undocumented immigrants to register, go through background tax, pay taxes and learn english. in the meantime, state and local officials have to govern their jurisdictions in the way that maximizes the interests of their constituents while dealing with the side effects of this broken immigration system. state and local leaders have tough choices to make in dealing pragmatically with a sizable undocumented population. deciding wisely and explaining those choices and decisions effectively can generate significant public support and will increase the unity and stability in the impacted

communities. as you all know, and was referred to, the supreme court is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether states have the authority to enact these attrition through enforcement policies. i, for one, believe that these measure are clearly preempted by federal law. but as noted we're not debating the constitutionality of these measures today. instead, we want to highlight why those measures raise a number of red flags that should stop policymakers in their tracks before enacting such measures. the center for american progress, we've explored three basic questions related to these laws. and the answers point to a conclusion that these state, state efforts and initiatives are misguided, just as a matter of policy. first, perhaps most importantly, these measures plainly do not and cannot solve the problem. at best, these measures displace some of the undocumented

population to less hostile states or communities. at worst, they drive the undocumented population deeper under ground, creating more dysfunction and more challenges for local communities. but what they don't do is drive undocumented workers and families out of the country. we've got several reports on our website that speak to this. second we have documented cost to states directly connected to the enactment of these measures. for example, in arizona we cal lated in the wake of sb1070 passing that the state lost at least $140 million in direct spending due to the cancellation of conferences that were scheduled to be hosted there. georgia lost an estimated $300 million in unharvested crops with potential first-year statewide impact of $1 billion. and those costs occurred because of the climate of fear generated by enactment of the measures, not because of any direct

correlation between the law and the economic effects. now, third, we've also explored the potential economic and fiscal costs, if the policies actually did succeed in what they were purporting to achieve. unsurprisingly, these measures have been shown to be deeply counterproductive and self-defeating from an economic perspective. for example, in arizona, removing 7% of state's population would shrink the economy by nearlies aboies abo evaporate 550,000 jobs. reduce the state's revenue by 10%. there are a, again, a host of strong policy reasons why state legislators and governors should -- we're going to be talking more about that today with some of the panelists who have seen up close and personal

what those impacts look like. so with that let me, first, turn it to eddie aldrete on live stream with us. i'll let you make opening remarks and then turn it over to the other panelists. eddie, i'm going to try to put up the volume here. >> i hope you can hear me okay. >> i think we can hear you great. >> well, just i want to share a couple of things. are you able to hear me in. >> yep, yep, you're doing great. >> okay, good. i wanted to just share a couple of things. unfortunately, when we talk about immigration, we tend to get mired in the debate of what part of illegal do you not understand and the amnesty kfrths and all of the parts of the debate that tend to be polarizing and very emotional. and the part of the picture that i believe we're missing is rooted in demographics. and i want to share a couple of

things with you to sort of help make that point. number one, as we all know, many of the baby boomers have begun to retire. we have between 77 million and 82 million baby boomers that have begun to retire. unfortunately there's 67 million people behind them entering the workforce, so that leaves 10 million to 15 million more people leaving the workforce than entering the workforce. we're going to experience major shortages and we're beginning to see some of those taking place. the second thing i want to highlight is our national fertility rate. most countries -- all countries have to have the fertility rate of 2.1 children in order to maintain replacement level. and so that means every adult female needs to have on average 2.1 children. right now the united states is

at 2.1, and we continue to decline. but when you look at the 2.1 figure, and you break it down by demographic group, anglos, asian-americans, and african-americans are all below replacement level, between 1.8 and 2.0. hispanics are the only demographic group above replacement level, 2.9. we're beginning to see that in many parts of country where hispanics are clearly producing the future workforce of the country. so you have more people leaving the workforce than entering the workforce and we're beginning to have fewer and fewer children. and no country in the history of the world has ever experienced economic prosperity while also experiencing depopulation. now, if you're beginning to see depopulation in countries like russia and japan. many believe that japan has passed the tipping point. russia's population shrinks by 700,000 people every year.

and in russia, they've tried numerous things, including creating a new federal holiday, a national day of procreation somewhere everyone is asked go home, turn out the lights, close the curtains and do their patriotic duty. if you take a look at what's happening across the country, one of the things when we talk about immigration is the many members of congress and people who get very heavily involved in debate, they like to move from immigration over to border security and there are two separate issues about. but i want to share one statistic that surprises a lot of people. and that is, that 52% of the united states' border patrol and customs agents are eligible for retirement this year in 2012. 51% of all cuss tops and border

protex protexction agents are eligible for retirement this year. don't take my word that statistic comes from the gao. so when a member of congress or a presidential candidate or anyone says, we need more boots on the ground, my question is, where do you plan to get them from? now, border patrol isn't the only law enforcement agency that is experiencing difficulties. the dea has lower their strug stand in order to become a dea agent. local law enforcements agencies here in texas, across the major cities, are now cannibalizing from each other offering $20,000 signing bonuses in order to cannibalize a neighboring city's police department. why? because many of these law enforcement agencies are made up of retiring baby boomers. so when you look across the co