executive actions, of course, exercise discretion and how ice should prioritize its are what presidents do in all kinds of realms. enforcement resources. then the august of 2011 a why is it so controversial in the immigration arena? dhs/doj working group was formed is it just because of the to review cases on the docket numbers that might be involved and the fact that it involves and administratively close some cases as a form of discretion population of people that don't because they weren't -- cases have legal status? that are not consistent with the administration's enforcement or is it pure politics and the priorities. and then in june, 2012, polarization in our system right secretary napolitano, then now? secretary napolitano announced a policy to defer enforcement in i'd also be interested to know cases involving certain whether you see a legitimate unauthorized immigrants who had separation of powers issue in arrived in the united states as play here or is the president on children and who met certain firm political ground when he education and background checks says that congress hasn't acted, i need to act? departments. the taca, deferred action for and what are the downstream effects? how does this affect the 2016 childhood arrivals. so i want to say a little bit elections afterwards? more about how these programs could be expanded consistent action or inaction? with the president's pledge to either would have an effect. consider additional executive thanks, doris, first, anna, you actions. don't smoke mushrooms, you eat so first with respect top dhs's mushrooms. [ laughter ] enforcement priorities, one . i'm republican, i -- i don't point i want to make generally know do -- i don't inhale

is that the morton memos [ laughter ] shouldn't have been particularly >> well, i just wanted to give you some advice because when controversial because they didn't represent a major shift your optimism proves unfounded in how dhs already did you may be looking for some immigration enforcement. outlet. npi published a report last week >> fortunately, the legalization of marijuana is on the ballot in showing that 93% of removals florida, which is where i live. under the bush administration >> it's only medical marijuana were consistent with the obama in florida. enforcement priorities. so this was not a radical change. overall, 95% of all removals since 2003 have fallen within let me address it this way, doris. i want to add one other thing dhs' current formal enforcement reflecting on some of the things priorities, and this includes anna said. 99% of removals in fy-2013. when republicans swept into power in 1994, they didn't work with bill clinton for a little more than a year. so one way to interpret those findings is that the obama it was only after the disastrous administration has been shut down that we saw change. successful at implementing its but during that first year where priorities, and i think that you had a republican house and that's an accurate interpretation. senate, the worst relationship in washington was between the but we can also look at those speaker of the house and the data and it suggests that the senate republican leader because morton memos, the current the senate and the house operate enforcement priorities, define on very different rhythms and in priorities pretty broadly in a different ways and newt gingrich way that lots of unauthorized was repeatedly frustrated.

immigrants fall into the he would pass bills out of the priority categories. house and the senate would gol nowhere. he referred to bob dole as the wand that in mind, one strategy tax collector of the welfare for executive action that the state and dole responded with a administration could pursue characteristic dole joke d. good would be to change dhs' news is that a bus filled with enforcement priorities to make them more narrowly defined so supply-siders went off the cliff, the bad news is that that fewer immigrants fall three of them survived. within the priorities. for example, current priorities include any one ever convicted so the belief that john boehner of any crime. so the administration could instead define its public safety and mitch mcconnell will be lovy dovy or even have a really good priority or its criminal alien working relationship? a general way i think is kind of priority to prioritize people who have been convicted of shaky, but that's another story. violent crimes or people who i don't think anybody is going have been convicted of felonies to have a particularly good or recently been convicted of crimes or felonies. relationship here. what's also true is that or it could deprioritize people whose only criminal offense was for an immigration crime. second-term presidents in the aftermath of the 22nd amendment the administration could also narrow its definition of its other two enforcement and in their final two years priorities, recent border always have a rough time of it. cross there's almost no significant crossers, which is currently defined as anybody who entered many the last three years, or legislative action. people to who disregard deportation orders, which almost always the president

suffers from that six-year itch. currently includes somebody who was deported 20 years ago. they have fewer of their owned a heerns. even those who are partisans of so in this report that we issued the president are looking ahead to the next presidency. and the idea that you're going last week, we go through a lot to go through difficult times of detail about different scenarios and i'm not going to go through all the numbers. negotiating policies where you make compromises when the next i just want to tell you that the bottom line is that when you person may come in and give you more of what you want, it just look at interior enforcement, playing with the enforcement doesn't happen. and, of course, the party out of priorities in the ways that i just described would not have a the white house feels that even more strongly. huge impact on the number of so the temptation to turn to people removed. i would say 30,000 is an executive action is always optimistic -- you know, that's a greater. it's always greater in the very far-reaching change to the second term more generally. it gets enhanced in the final enforcement priorities. the likely impact on current removals from the interior would two years. be much smaller. i would add one challenge here is that presidents almost always and the reason is, is that most suffer a major drain of people who would potentially benefit from such changes, political appointees in those unauthorized immigrants who are settled in the united states and who aren't committing crimes, final two years. one, people who stuck around for six years are exhausted and are already have a low probability of being apprehended and deported. that's not who the system is ready to go. focusing on. two, if you're going to leave there's a popular image of ice and you wait until the bitter

agents rounding people up and end, your opportunities for the detaining them or finding people next job are reduced compared to who have been pulled over for a what they might be a year and a traffic crime and putting them in deportation proceedings. half or a year before you go. the data suggests that these are pretty unusual cases, particularly in the last few what complicates matters on this years. by far, the largest category of that front now is that if the republicans take a majority in removals today is people apprehended at the border. the senate the door will slam some of these border crossers shut on confirmations. are returning immigrants. first, if the republicans take a majority in the senate harry many border crossers have limited ties to the united states. reid is going to call the senate reducing border removals have -- back as soon as he can after the reducing the proportion of people apprehended at the election and go night and day as boarder who are formally removed much as he can to confirm as would have the largest impact on many people as he can judges and reducing removal numbers, but that would be a fundamental challenge to how cbp does executive appointees. business. i would be surprised if president obama didn't send a so a second possible approach message to all of his political would be to expand the existing appointees saying "if you're going to leave before it's all daca program, the childhood arrivals program, to cover a over, leave now" to try and fill those posts. larger number of unauthorized and republicans are going to try to do whatever they can to block youth. it's currently limited to how old people were when they entered, how old they were in people coming in because the fact is peckive the actions are

2012 and their education less effective when you have acting people or vacancies in requirement those positions how that will requirements. in a report we issued last work on the immigration front, i month, a different report, we found that about 1.2 million people potentially meet the daca don't know. mark and doris, i'm sure know better than i. but that's a complicating criteria, are potentially eligible for the current version factor. of the program and about half of as a more general matter, you them have successfully applied can take executive action and been enrolled in the through regulations, through program. those numbers would go up to executive orders and the like. about 1.9 million potentially executive orders do tend to eligible applicants if the stick around a little bit longer because it's -- it's still a administration decided to sort of play with the timing requirements, the age relatively burdensome process to requirements, the age at arrival undo one. you don't just pass an executive requirements and they would go up to about 3.1 million if the order saying "never mind." administration were also to but it's not the same as relax the education requirement. you get a big bump for that. legislation and as mark an advantage to focusing on the suggested, really, while there daca population is that there's are many avenues for executive a basic fairness argument about action and have cumulatively put offering enforcement relief to them together, it's pretty people who arrived in the united potent. it's not the same as states as children. comprehensive reform. and daca youth also have strong legislators don't like it, but ties to the united states from if there's no other alternative having been raised here and in

many cases they lack ties to the the legislators who support the policy are going to be happy countries that they originally with it, and what's always true immigrated from. is that in some cases is that but a limitation to this legislators secretly do like it approach, as indicated here, is because they don't have to take it t responsibility and they can that it's difficult to substantially grow the daca take pot shots afterwards. numbers without relaxing the education requirement. let me make a comment on what the current version of daca has follows some on what simon said. there is a better than even been promoted in part based on the idea that daca youth have chance that republicans will take the senate. it's no sure thing but if you overcome their status to become high-education achievers, and look at the majority, thoreau that's a description that applies to some unauthorized bust and vary yay gaited for the youth but definitely not to all of them so it's a challenge with republicans. they are pretty narrow and using daca as the major tool for constrained for democrats. a large executive action. it is the case that we are very a third approach would be to create a new daca-style program, possibly going to have as anna so to defer action for a new suggested runoff elections group of unauthorized immigrants december 3 in louisiana. it would be january 6 in other than those who qualify for daca, such as parents or spouses georgia. interestingly, if anybody has a of u.s. citizens or lprs. route to 50% in georgia it's so the report that we published, michelle nunn at this point, not again, the same report from last month estimates the size of purdue. but action in december i think several different population is unlikely if we get a runoff

groups, several different scenarios and we control for different periods of u.s. in georgia. residency, how long do people -- even if the senate majority has already been decided because if would people have to have been the president took very here in order to qualify. so there's about 3.6 million significant immigration action unauthorized immigrants who in december, you would have a don't qualify for daca who fall into one of these parent lot of republican voters just rushing to the polls for a categories and about 1.5 million runoff election. spouses who don't qualify for by the way you can expect a daca, unauthorized immigrants flood of money in those states who are spouses who are citizens that will be just mind-boggling. or lprs. we have passed the $100 million those categories overlap so mark in north carolina. there's about 4.2 million people you know, the vast majority of who are either a spouse or it coming from outside groups. parent. the numbers go down pretty but if the senate is many the substantially when you started aing on long residency requirements. so if you're only extending the balance or even if we're talking about the difference between 51 program to people who have been here five or 10 or 15 years. and 52, you'll see koch brother so a few quick comments about money just flowing in and this approach. significant sums on the other you know, here again long-time side and those will dominate the residents with u.s.-based political process. families have important equities now, we did have rand paul the that are generally recognized by our immigration system so we can other day say that he hope there had would be an immigration bill

and he was optimistic because he certainly make humanitarian and normative arguments about why people like this should have an said president obama will be in opportunity to apply for legal his final stages. we can maybe get him to support status. a weakened bill. it's less obvious that a program like this would be an especially i think that is pie in the sky effective tool or an easy tool to prioritize dhs resources as and paul is going to be relatively alone out there and compared to a policy of the fact is any kind of weakened exercising discretion during the bill that you might even enforcement process. and i say that because an negotiate with senators goes nowhere in the house. application-based program to . and keep in mind that the house cover a large share of the current unauthorized population republican caucus conference is going to be more conservative or will be difficult to stand up and difficult to implement and difficult for immigrants to radical than the current one. navigate. john boehner said the other day and that's likely to be more true for unauthorized adults than it was for unauthorized "i've got 16 knuckle heads in my conference i have that to deal children because they're going to -- it's harder for them to with." double that next year. document their presence because they don't have school transcripts and they be more risk averse, especially they're you've got people like tim petri who is a free market republican, already in the work force. sol to the extent that people very conservative but problem who could qualify for a solving oriented. his replace system sharply to daca-style program could also benefit from enforcement during his right and this's what we're seeing with an awful lot of discretion, especially, you those republican seats and know, if the enforcement you're not going to have a conference that is inclined to do much of anything except an priorities were further fine

tuned to try to find this even tougher border security population, that's arguably a more efficient way for dhs to bill if that. and if you contrast paul with structure an executive action, but it's also a much lower rubio who has basically shown profile approach and it would offer a much less concrete where the zeitgeist of the party is and where it's going, you're benefit because it wouldn't come with work authorization and you not going to see very much happening and i think there a r wouldn't know whether or not you benefit unless you happen to a couple of other things as well enter the enforcement system. to keep in mind. so it -- this would be arguably a more -- sort of an easier way one is if republicans take the to provide releave the that kind senate, michael gerson's column in the "washington post" today i of population but the politics think is on point. of doing it, exercising it's going to fit a narrative and the narrative is we've got a enforcement -- exercising discretion during the enforcement process, because mandate and we're on top and it's low profile and less what we've proven is we can do concrete are quite different this with older whiter malar than the politics of an affirmative application-based voters and that's the electorate that we can look forward to the program. on both sides of this debate. next time. and a race to watch in and in the final scenario i want particular is the senate race in to mention focuses on people colorado. the poll there is show higher that the ina already defines as proportions of hispanics opting immediate relatives of u.s. citizens. for corey gardener than we find so spouses and parents of adult u.s. citizens. in other places and there's a

state with a substantial this group has an even stronger sort of normative claim for relief because the ina generally presence. there are questions about the makes green cards available for polls. it may be they're hitting the this group of people without more affluent hispanic population and in colorado, the regard to numerical limits or country of origin. polls in the midterms have been so people who are married to a u.s. citizen or the parent of an wrong. but if gardner wins then you're going to see a new narrative adult citizen can usually get a which is that we can prevail green card right away. with hispanic support without but we estimate -- npi estimates doing an immigration bill or without supporting an immigration bill and this will about 1.2 million unauthorized reinforce things for them as immigrants fall into one or both of these immediate relative well. the other point to keep in mind is that the driving force of the categories but may be unable to republican party, the apply for a green card because single-largest presence in their history of unlawful congress, the place where the presence in the united states republican nomination for makes them subject to the three and ten-year bars and so if they president will be achieved is in leave the united states to pick up a visa, they'll be ineligible the south. and inadmissible to return. and in the south, the attitude to so these unauthorized towards immigration reform, not just texas but almost everywhere, is different. immigrants could benefit to being paroled in the united in the house, you have almost all lily-white districts and states under the parole authority and the parole would count as a temporary admission that would permit people with they are adamant in their qualifying relationships to receive their green card without leaving the country and without opposition so you won't move very much this direction and triggering the three and 10-year

bars. so that's an obvious advantage that means the impetus for executive action becomes to this approach is that greater. beneficiaries would receive a green card, which is a permanent but i would add one other thing. fix that wouldn't end at the end of the administration or end in i would add that i met with a two years and it sort of an number of top staffers to the republican members in the house easier process to defend and senate and several of them procedurally since dhs has the very, very conservative people said they were getting a lot of explicit paroled authority as a push from the grass-roots now statutory delegation. having said that, parole even for impeachment. now, you know, they don't want authority has never been used for this large a group of it. they understand and the leaders and the rank-and-file members, currently unauthorized even those who are off on the immigrants within the u.s. and the political pushback for edge of the spectrum with the few exexceptions, the steve putting people in line for green kings of the world, how cards instead of just deferring enforcement could be greater ridiculous that is, how than putting them in line for catastrophic that is. temporary relief. i can guarantee you that if we so i will stop there and we can get an executive action that talk in more detail later. includes half of the things that mark was talking about that you'll see an inflamed portion >> thanks, mark. of the electorate reinforced by we've now set the table in terms of what the possible considerations are and what some talk radio and blogs saying this -- whether it's -- goes to differing degrees of scale might the courts or not this president be. simon, let me go to you next on

the issue of deferred action has basically shattered his oath because that's one of the of office and it's time to remove him and the challenge for opportunities that mark outlined, it's the action that a john boehner, assuming he was taken by the president in doesn't have serious problems 2012 before the reelection and actually moving through in january -- and i think he will deferred action for dreamers at prevail, although it's going to be a little tricky for him and that time was really viewed as for mitch mcconnell if he is the contributing quite positively to majority leader coming in, is his reelection. going to be holding those people so that if one is talking about some kind of a deferred action off. and i'll make one final point now, the question of doing it politically. let's say you get a 51-49 after the election raises the republican majority in the whole set of other considerations. this is obviously as much a senate and let's say one of the matter of politics as it is a policy. new senators in is orman in what's the benefit for democrats and for the president of a large kansas a new independent who hasn't said with whom he will caucus. there are three people to keep an eye on. norman, angus king, joe manchin. after-election action. would the election outcome in any way affect what the administration is likely to do because it wouldn't surprise me on executive action? at all under these circumstances

particularly on something like an expanded deferred action? and do you think it will that you will see an alliance actually happen or do you think with three guys who basically we might be looking at another say to the two parties "we can postpo give you a majority or take away postponement? >> those are all easy questions. [ laughter ] thanks, doris. majority and we can do it more than once unless you do what we want to do." thanks, mark. it's an honor to be on this and what will be interesting panel. there is if any portion of these all folks i admire that-to-do list is immigration. tremendously and it's really an my fondest dream is that angus king would go to mitch mcconnell honor to be here and to be with all of you. and say "i'll make you majority all of you doing the lord's work leader if you do campaign everyday and i appreciate you taking the time to be here. finance reform." mitch mcconnell, will you give up your first born? [ laughter ] and just seeing mitch squirm i think it will happen because would make my year. the president promised and -- i don't think people should giggle but that is the one caveat i about that. i think he feels committed to do would have here of a possibility it. think there was a pragmatic of something happening in the recognition that -- and we can senate along different line bus whatever happens in the senate debate this until we are all old folks that doing in the the fall given the way things were other than than incredibly playing out after the central onerous security bill goes american migrant crisis and nowhere in the house so the only given the fact that there were a

option for policy movement in series of democratic senators the next two years comes on the who said they would not support it that the president didn't want to expose, i think the executive front. broad work we've all been doing together for a long time to wow. it really is very dire to look something that could become a permanent setback for the immigration community. and we all know this is the across the spectrum in that way. are there any points that have been made that others would -- logic. we all in this room are well read. i think that was a legitimate some among you would like to take unwith each other. and pragmatic read of the landscape. we saw that there was a senate >> i have a couple of questions for the political people. vote as all of you know that one is i've heard the argument happened before we all broke and it went 50-50. made, and i'd be curious of your and that's with a significant reactions that in addition to democratic senate. the -- normally about all the we're going to have at least four, five, six, seven more good policy reasons that the president might want to aim big republicans next year. we will not have a majority of because that will be the only way something good happens for support in the senate next year for what the president is about immigrants but does it help the to do. democrats in 2016 and beyond to and so i think that the aim big and provoke a big bash lash and to clarify that president made a pragmatic democrats are the pro immigration party and decision that having a very republicans are the public and significant anti-immigration party? democratic opposition to does he want to provoke a

backlash? something that's so important to >> i think president obama recognizes that if he takes a big step here i think just as immigration community was not something that he felt was going simon said it's going to hurt to be good in the long haul and he made a tough call. more generally politically. that's what presidents do. it was not an easy decision. i think it was the right one, it may -- i mean, generally personally, and certainly i the's a floor there. >> thanks, norm. advised the white house that >> and the floor is probably that's what they should do and so you can blame me and not the right around the 40% mark where president. he is. but i think he's going to do in there's another complicating the december and once we get factor here which is you saw the through -- i think they know stock market drop earlier in the they have to do it in some ways. week and there were two reasons but i also just want to counsel that part of where i think -- for that one is the fear, a legitimate fear as we see let me just sort of project serious economic problems in forward, doris, in 2015 a little europe that we may hit a global bit. i think what mark let south that recession and maybe even there's no low-hanging fruit deflation. and if that happens, then the here. there's no simple easy thing. in many ways, the very reaction against something more significant thing that's comprehensive on the immigration front as it always does with happened which is essentially the ending of the deportation of people in the interior without difficult economic times the hurdle gets higher. criminal records which is by far i dent see that president obama can do nothing without not only and away the overwhelming majority of undocumented

immigrants in the united states, hurting himself but the that's already happened. democratic party with that core and i think that the immigration community has frankly given the constituency. democrats and the president far less credit than they deserve but he may ratchet back what he for how much the president has does under those circumstances. fundamentally altered the system to essentially have removed the and he may do this in stages. threat of deportation over virtually every undocumented v just to see how things should immigrant in the country go with each of these individual already. that's already happened. as mark said, we only had 10,000 people from the interior of the action actions. >> a lot of it depends on what country without criminal records deported last year. that's down from hundreds of the executive action looks like. thousands in previous years. the number of people that were i think if i were in president removed and returned from the united states last year were obama's shoes i would say, you almost a million people less than in the first year of the know, you're going to get a backlash and pay a political bush administration. so one of the great falsehoods of the current debate is that price, whether it's small or somehow the administration is actually ratcheting up big. so size matters. go big. enforcement regime. it's, in fact, the exact opposite that's taking place. we're removing and returning far >> just two points, one is that, fewer people than we were a you know, one thing i just want everyone in this room to think decade ago and long-settled about, which is with the families in the interior of the country are no longer a priority temporary part not the green -- the pieces -- the pro in place for deportation and, frankly, the numbers have plummeted very that leads to a green card is

rapidly. so first of all i think that the give than these are temporary community is -- some of the low-hanging fruit has already actions that can be rescinded by been taken by the a future republican president, i administration. and, in fact, if you look at the mean, the moral question of central argument that the republicans are making against the democrats and why they asking undocumented immigrants walked away from cir, it was to come out of the shadows and over these steps. identify themselves to the this is the central critique the government knowing that that may republicans have made, that the president violated the law. be a temporary thing that could be rescinded and therefore the government knows who you are and you become first in the deportation line. i don't know how significant it. and i think that there are many it's taking so long because it's people in this room that have not easy. worked more directly with i also think we have to immigrant communities than i recognize that there's going to have. so i know that there are be significant organized probably strong feelings about opposition to this on a scale this, but i still think this is that is not true for probably one of the reasons why just any of the other executive personally i've fought every day actions that were taken in all to get comprehensive immigration the proceeding years. reform passed in 2014 and did not believe this was ever something that we should ever really settle for because of how it's going to meet pragmatically tenuous it all is and about whether or not there really is -- look, only half of the there will be far fewer people eligible kids have applied so that apply for the executive far on something that was action whatever it is in the process because it will be so controversial and if you're an universally praised. what do we think the uptick's

undocumented immigrant, you want going to be on any of the to be doing something that's permanent like a green card, not something that's temporary that temporary programs when you have could be taken away that's half the country screaming impeachment over it. tremendously controversial. you think a quarter of folks? and we have to recognize that it becomes hard to go to an immigrant, yeah, i think you the republicans in 2013 and 2014 should do this recognizing that you have to go to your employer in the house passed two and acknowledge that the name i've been using for the past five years really isn't correct and go down the whole list of immigration bills one was to revoke the authority of the things. president to do prosecutor these are complicated real life discretion at all. decisions that i think -- the advocates that argue this is and why because he stopped simple and easy have again deporting freedom the interior of the country, which hay didn't painted an inaccurate picture of how complex this is going to be. like because the basic republican strategy is in the the second thing is -- i just house, not all republicans, not want to note that rand paul anna, not john mccain republicans but the voted against the comprehensive conservatives, they want the imminent threat of deportation immigration reform bill, by the over every undocumented way, let's put him in a place of being a constructive actor in immigrant to be reestablished as this. part of the -- as part of their it's possible that he might be. political strategy and they're but there was one other piece angry that that's been removed. of -- i'm forgetting what the the second point i'll make is, other thing i was going to say. look, we could have a majority republican senate and i think >> i think you've criticized rand, you've criticized rubio, it's very likely we'll see a bill passed in the house and a

bill passed in the senate, could christie? did you want to criticize christie? pass in the senate, that revokes >> i don't think christie is executive action and tries to running, so i won't waste my repeal -- challenges all the time. i hope jeb runs. i want jeb. executive action measures that >> christie did want to bring are taken and reinforces that all of the different communities they want to revoke the in new jersey together just by pushing them into one lane. prosecutorial discretion authority that's removed over the undocumented immigrants in the interior. [ laughter ] >> appropriations. we should expect we may see the most hostile anti-immigrant legislation we've seen in the >> but what does this do to the last 20 or 30 years take place over the next 12 months, six 2016 election? months, 12 months. i mean, if -- the prevailing it's already the position of the house republicans because the two things they voted on in view is that he will do something. and it will become controversial 2013/2014 -- i'm sorry if i'm and it will be polarizing, but being a little pessimistic but at the end of the day, it's part i'm not exactly enthusiastic about what's going to happen of the legacy that the president here and i've been working on this every day of my life in wants to leave. he does not want to simply be washington with the white house and congress for nine years so i deporter in chief. he wants to, in fact, have have some experience in this. something to say about the the second something that the republican primary campaign for president is not going to be effort to improve the circumstances of a large pretty. population in the country. let's hope jeb runs. >> for the love of goth god do

not endorse him. but is this more about a political announcement and being [ laughter ] i would actually like him to able to take credit for that as win. >> you're going to -- let's hope -- let's everyone in this compared with actually providing room pray that jeb bush runs to an improvement in the living create some counterweight to conditions of lots of people in what's happening on the republican side. ted cruz, the texas republicans, this country? ted cruz has now become the is it about setting up even leader in the anti-immigrant clearer lines in 2016 that give movement in the united states. he's being dragged to the right an advantage to one party and by the future lieutenant governor of texas, dan patrick disadvantage another? who will be emerging -- if you i mean, look at the way in which the immigration issue played out thought joe arpaio was a bad guy, wait until you get to know in the republican primaries in dan patrick, the next lieutenant governor of texas. he's going to be the most vicious and effective and 2012. i mean, romney probably lost to powerful anti-immigrant politician we've ever seen and some extent over just the simple he'll be the lieutenant governor, which is a more phrase of self-deportation. powerful position than the governor in texas starting in january. his number one issue border so why -- you know, keeping this security, all this anti-immigrant rhetoric. controversy going in this way so he's dragging the texas and making it even more republican party to the right. controversial and making the that's going to drag cruz and differences even more stark

without actually improving to a perry to the right we saw the large extent the lives of people first republican to introduce a travel ban for west africa was that are caught in this is a marco rubio who is now -- has real cynical strategy. now abandoned his position on is that what we're in? immigration reform. so the republican primary won't be a pretty thing in this debate >> cynical strategy, my next year and i think the goodness. >> how new would that be? president is going to demonstrate or self-conclude by the minute i said it i thought showing a lot of courage that in it was a little -- >> to the broader question, the face of all of it he's still going to take action but we have to recognize that all of us in doris we're not sure how this this room who think this is the plays out over 2016. right thing better be spending there's no doubt that the two time and energy defending what gets done, reaffirming the need parties if they go down the paths they've been going, it's a to fix the broken -- the overall disaster for republican. broken immigration system and to they'll be left with older white men as their core. recognize that this could end up and as my wife tells me every becoming a very consequential day, older white men are in the the group you want to trust. and significant and ugly part of the national debate. [ laughter ] i don't think it's -- i'll >> and narrow that down conclude by saying there are straight, older white men. many advocates who are my and they ain't what they used to friends who argue that this is simple and easy there is nothing be. simple and easy about what's to >> but that doesn't necessarily happen.

it's going to be deeply play out that way in 2016. unpopular. it's one thing with kids who came here on no fault of their and of course, the state of the own. economy will matter in this it's fundamentally different instance as well. the nature of what the president when it's the immigrants does and what the reactions are themselves who snuck into the and all of that. country and where people who may some of it will depend on how feel they're undeserving for that republican nominating getting special treatment and i process goes. you know, if you get a jeb bush think from a public opinion stepping up and saying this is standpoint, you know, this is probably going to poll at 35%, an act of love and let's move forward, and he somehow prevails 40% is my guess at best. and it will be one of the most and wins the nomination and unpopular things the president unites a party behind him, then will have done during his entire you've got a very different presidency. dynamic. i think the odds of that that's my prediction. happening are small. i'm keeping an eye now on one of however he's still going do it the more interesting figures in because it's the right thing to the republican party, john do and i hope the immigration community is far more supportive kasich, who is unlike many of of him and what he's done than what's happened over the last his midwestern republican couple of years. gubernatorial colleagues, going >> there are some good issues to to win handily. in fact, in a landslide. chew on. anna, let's turn to your side of the aisle and start with a couple of them. part lly that's because he's goa first of all, the house really crappy opponent. republican leadership has been but because he's governed in loud and clear that anything different ways than scott that the president does on walker, tom corbett or even rick executive action at this point would poisen the well for future schneider, but it will tell you

something about the nature of legislation. of course they also stopped the party that yesterday john dealing with future legislation kasich said not only forget in this congress so it's a bit about repealing obamacare, but of a -- both sides. he also said it's not just because politically it's do you -- do you think that if unfeesable it's because we're talking about flesh and blood there is an executive action of and real people who have any scope and scale that the benefited from this. which was completely against the party message. today what does he say, i republican reaction will be to pull out all the stops, see it desperately want to appeal obamacare, it's horrible, we as sur patient of its authority? really need to do it and he's sort of backed away from that. so i think the idea that kasich try to use the appropriation would take a position on process to stop? any of the tools that they have. immigration even though he has and and -- or could bit the basically put health care and the expansion of medicaid, for other way. that if the president actually example, in religious terms. finally does something it forces we're trying to help people. the hands of the republicans to and the moral question does come come forward with something at up. that makes it a little more least possibly in the dream act difficult. so i think we're likely to see category as part of the leadup stark differences between the to 2016? parties and those stark >> well, first of all, thank you differences between the parties for inviting me to be here and will motivate white voters in it's going to be incredibly hard the south much more than they to follow that light hearted will elsewhere unless it's optimistic presentation. working class whites because the

economy's deep in the ditch [ laughter ] that simon just made. again. and it's likely to turn i think a lot of it is going to depend, frankly, on the election generations of latino voters who results and depend on the politics of the time. we know if you vote the same way three times in a row, that's it i have been surprised and i'm so for a lifetime, moving in a different direction. i would follow on what simon cynical it takes a lot to said, if you look at greg abbott surprise me these days but i have been incredibly surprised and patrick, you're moving radically away from the kind of by how readily the people governance we saw with george w. responsible have accepted and bush and even with kerry up till admitted that the decisions or now. that's likely to accelerate the lack thereof on immigration in changes in a state like texas and move that in a different the last few years have been direction as well, not in 2016 politically motivated. but further down the road. >> can i jump in? i was frankly flabbergasted when the white house it will it fiter you know, a really interesting into the media that the reason question. i know there are people who are they were not taking executive arguing that for the democrats, action before the election was this is great leading up to the because it put red state 2016, but you know, let me -- i democrats in danger. and i was equally flabbergasted think the differences between the two parties on latinos are actually starker today than when the people in charge and they've been ever since the time

the leadership said, yeah, we it began all of this. have these standards and people the democrats, you know, gave, are in agreement with these standards. it's not there is great pushback passed the aca, which is going to affect far more people than against the standards but there's pushback against the immigration, more latino timing and bringing it up at a families than immigration reform bill will. time when it's going to hurt you know, the latino community republicans in tough elections. has already seen at least about a -- based on some data, so they're not even pretending one-third drop in the uninsured that these decisions aren't rate in the first year of the political and when we look back aca. it's a dramatic thing. it's having a real impact on hell yes you should be giggling socioeconomic status. at the idea of a president obama democrats want to make sure that promise because we've been it's easier for everybody to wearing a promise ring for a vote. the republicans are denying the hell of a long time. ability for people to vote all over the country. we're getting old waiting to be democrats are defending social take on the the altar. i would say that about both security and medicare, the republicans are trying to cut it. democrats are trying to advance parties. the difference is, republicans haven't even made promises which and put more spending on education, republicans want to cut it. democrats want to invest in i wish we had. if you look at how the politics urban transportation, which will create more labor mobility, has played into all of this, republicans won't grant candidate barack obama promised to do immigration reform in his additional transportation first year because of politics. authority. democrats passed dhaka which allowed over 6,000 now young he didn't do in the his first people to get legal --

year because of politics. >> i feel like i should say that was very disillusioned unpaid political ad paid for latino community 2012. by -- he did daca right before the >> then the republican response in congress has been not just to elections because of politics. be against but actually to take he promised executive action because of politics and he's action to strip legal authority delayed it because of politics. from existing communities. first, the dhaka kids which was the main focus of the republican house in 2012, which was to take did the minor children on the people who had been given status and take it away, which was boarder have a role? yes, did it affect public something they hadn't tried to opinion? do before, and then the rights of the kids on the border which definitely. what's going on is you've got democrat candidates like mary was also an effort to try to take away legal status they landrieu, like allison lundgren already had. there was an escalation of grimes in kentucky who was even attack in the republican house on immigrants. running ads until a couple of so part of my own view is that days ago on the immigration the way that a lot of democrats feel right now is that, you know, there's been a starker issue being against the contrast between the two parties immigration issue until latinos today than there's ever been and and other grant groups started the attacks by the immigration community have escalated against us, right? protesting. so why do anything else? so let's be clear eyed on what if we're going to be punished we're doing, where we are and why it's happening. for having stood up and fought and i would say the same thing hard for the community we all on the republican side.

there was this impetus to get care about and we're not getting credits for the things we have immigration done after 2012 done which is ending because we got shellacked and deportation, then taking then we got shell-shocked by the executive action, the expectation would be that we're idea that 71% of latinos had going to get attacked more in 2015 and 2016, not less. voted for the democrats, for so we won't ameliorate and make president obama. so, yes, that was the big anybody happy. so there will be an escalation. the idea that this will somehow motivator. and, again it didn't happen this reinforce the difference is a year because of politics. bad reason to do this. i want to reinforce what anna said. i think the president should do so it's important we be honest it because he thinks it's the and clear with this and where we are because it's time that we right thing to do. and i don't think that anyone stop being political pawns in i've spoken to thinks there's an this biggest chess game by both ounce for kms if we're not getting ready for things we've parties. this is an important issue, it's already done. important not just to the latino barack obama has done more for community, the immigrant latinos than any president in community, it's important to the american history and house country, to national security, republicans have been more opposed to latinos than any to the economy, to modernizing congress in modern history and we're still getting attacked. what is a decrepit immigration and so i don't think there's a lot of generosity of good will, system. it's important in so many frankly, towards many of the aspects and factors. latino immigrant groups because so i think that's the first of what's happened over the last 18 months.

thing. let's be honest and stop trying >> okay. i'm going to turn to the to whitewash what we all know in audience -- >> correct the record for a minute. this room is true. let's remember that the first on the executive action, i person that called for a tweaking of the law that allowed happen to not like the idea of the central american kids to executive action because i don't stay and not be deported was like band aids and i wish, i president barack obama. let's remember that the wish that it could be solved potential presumed democrat legislatively because, you know, i'd like to see the a permanent, nominee, hillary clinton, also came out strongly and quickly to comprehensive approach and say send those kids back. solution and this be addressed so again, i go back to saying, responsibly in a bipartisan way. folks, let's stop whitewashing i realize when i say that i this stuff, let's stop with the sound like i've been smoking half truth and the spinning, let's stop being political pawns mushrooms but that's in my -- >> medical mushrooms. in the big game when it comes to [ laughter ] >> in my ideal world that's what immigration. we've got the be smarter and demand truth and action from boat parties. >> okay. i'm going to open the floor for i would like. i think a lot would depend on questions, and you can use the the election results. mikes in either aisle, and we'll we may not know who who wins the

go from one side to the other. senate until january. there may be a runoff, there's please tell us who you are. start over here. surely going to be a runoff in >> hi, i'm virginia from louisiana. that's not going to happen until lutheran immigration and refugee december. there may even be a runoff in service. my question is for mr. rosenberg. you mentioned that the obama administration has all but eliminated the risk of georgia that won't happen until deportation in the interior. january. i would be shocked if in the speaking as someone who works middle of those two very with 20 direct social service providers around the country who contested races that might work with care givers of the decide the fate of the senate in red states where democrats are unaccompanied children who are crossing the border, that's not the message that's in the communities. i get asked when i service having a hard time, president obama will take executive action clients if i'm immigration. before those elections. so we don't know because maybe dondy immigration in really, do i look like i'm immigration. they lose -- maybe those they come to a catholic decisions get made on november charities service location, 4, who knows. lutheran service location. these are safe places in the what's going to happen if community, pillars of support and strength for latinos in the communities. and i just am really curious. democrats retain the senate? this is the first time i've i think it's going to be more of actually heard that deportations the same. i think it's going to be a interior are not happening because i talked to families who difficult situation for immigration. i don't think it's going to get have family members who are worse.

i don't think it's going to get deported in the interior. i'm just really -- it's really great to hear, but my experience better. i don't think john boehner and harry reid like each other or anecdotally with my partners and my colleagues can same the same work well together. thing. we're just really -- >> listen, this is a really oh, i'm telling you such a important conversation. secret, i know. and, you know, i think that in frankly, i'm not even sure harry reid and president obama like addition to the reports that my each other that much. organization has done, several reports that mpi has produced, i'm not sure harry reid likes anybody. but anyway, if the republicans reports that pew have put out, get the senate there's certainly the policy center have put out. a much better working here is what is true and relationship, we hope, between undeniably true, last year only john boehner and mitch 10,000 nonborder, recent border mcconnell. crosser, noncriminals who were will that lead -- you don't deported from the united states. think there's a better working that's a fact, right? now, you could argue that level relationship between mitch mcconnell and harry reid and three and a single misdemeanor, john bainer? >> i'm not sure. as mark pointed out in his >> okay, well then i'm not the report, is an illegitimate only one smoking mushrooms on this panel. criteria for deportation. i agree with that. [ laughter ] i agree we should eliminate the could they be capable of working lower end of it. but to deny as many members in out a comprehensive solution the media and frankly

immigration groups have done of that it could be? it could not be? the substantial and significant i don't know. and undeniable changes that have i've been making immigration predictions for so long and i'm gone on, i am not telling you yet to be right because i tend that 10,000 is an acceptable to be optimistic. number. that's too many. still too many. right? so i'm not -- i'm out of that we got to do better than this. right? but what is clear -- and it's on game. i think a lot is going to depend my website, their website, five also on if the republicans take the senate what signals other organization's websites -- president obama and the is that the government -- it's administration send to the policy of the united states government today to not deport republican people from the interior of the republicans. is it going to be like when clinton lost the midterms and country that does not have criminal records. is every i.c.e. office acting was able to work with republicans? or are we going to be in an even more antagonized political uni uniformly? 200 people per state so anecdotally you'll get cases atmosphere than we are now, as where people were not, you know, hard as that might be to were not criminals, right, who imagine. so i think a lot of those things are yet to be seen. came through the system. that's all true. but what is also true and i think it's incumbent upon if there is executive action, everyone in this room is that it will republicans like it? hell no. the government of the united i don't know any legislative states no longer wants to deport people from the interior without body that likes it when the executive takes unilateral criminal records.

executive action, i don't care what that means in practicality what party is in control. is that the threat of deport do i think they're going to sue? eight over the vast majority of i don't know. but i would suspect not because there is one pending lawsuit on undocumented immigrants in the united states doesn't mean that another issue and they have taken a look at some of the they won't get caught up in immigration issues that there have been executive action on system and old court cases will and judge that that was not one wend their way through, but of the better legal challenges. there's a sea change. three years ago two-thirds deport from the interior of the so unless they deem differently, i would say probably no lawsuit. u.s. and last year it was half of that. mark showed you some of the data in their report. i think this happens in a part of what i want to challenge all of you is the fact that you vacuum. so i think it will be a very haven't heard it is because antagonistic time and i don't there are people in spanish know if there's not ways of language media and organizations saying, look, we're going to do in this city that have been executive action for x amount of misleading the public about what is actually going on in terms of time and in that time we're going to work out a the government data. it doesn't mean there isn't contra veiling anecdotal data on comprehensive permanent solution but, again, i'm -- forgive me, this but both things can be true. both can be true that the i'm delving into optimism again. government is trying really, really hard to stop deporting people from the interior of the country that don't have criminal >> all right, norm, look at this through a bigger lens if you records and that there's still too many people that you're would. coming across in your social as mark laid out, we've had service work that are getting

caught up in a system that's executive action historically going through change. down the line in immigration, both of those things can be true at the same time. >> i would just caution the way that the government is portraying that, because i think that the level of fear that's in these communities is very real whether or not government data is correct. and that's great. >> i think some of that fear has been generated by media figures trying to get ratings and other people who are trying to raise money in organizations that are not actually telling the actual truth about what the government of the united states has done to change the immigration policies in the united states. and so part of this is, you guys can -- if i come here a year from now and we're all in the same room, you can call out to me, mr. rosenberg, you are so full of it. i looked at all the data. >> if i had a look at the data, i promise you i would. >> your a propagandist of the obama administration and none of this is true because we're hearing that in the community, that may well be the case. all i'm asking you is to accept what i'm saying might possibly be true. you know who agrees with me on this, mark. >> we think that's great.

and again i'm not questioning the validity of your data, i'm questioning the fact that that's not getting into communities. what we do with lutheran immigration refugee service and clinic and usccb -- >> i'm aware of this. >> -- we work directly with families. >> help us. >> i have to go face-to-face with clients and it's my job to help them navigate this confusing system. and data like that that haven't seen because i just -- sorry, i just don't have time. >> you're here. >> but i would appreciate those resources if you could make sure that they're shared. >> can i just say two things. one is we just did this report last week and all the data is in here, all the tables are in here. you should look at it. but just -- i mean, 95% agree with simon or 99%. there's a couple o reasons that there's fear in the community are three reasons. one is that the way enforcement priorities are now defined, people with long, you know, long previous criminal convictions or

long ago removals are also seen this priority. so it's not just people who are convicted of a current crime. it can be somebody who has a long ago record and especially those reinstatements of removal. people have been previously removed, that's a large category. because we've removed so many people in the last decade or so including a lot of border crossers who were re-entering the united states. a lot of unauthorized i grants who have previous removals, previous criminal convictions but especially previous removals that they don't seem like priorities to the community and the third reason that i think there's still so much fear is that a lot of the changes that simon's talking about, which i agree you really see them in the data, it's really just the last two or three years that they've become so, you know, that the administration has really shifted on the interior enforcement. so i think that it probably takes some time for, you know, those changes to filter into peoples a consciousness especially because in the

previous three or five years, there was this, you know, close collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement that provoked a lot of fear. so i think there's been a couple of shifts. an increase in interior enforcement in the late years of the bush administration that carried over to the late years of the obama administration and then a real pivot since 2011. we're just starting to see that these changes -- you know, i think that it is a very different model that is now going on. >> here. >> my name's ellen street. i come to you today as just a recent graduate. i know that education in the usa is lacking in comparison to other countries and that a lot of people from other countries are coming in and get iting american degrees, which i think is great. but if we open the borders, yeah, everybody come in, special those with advanced degrees, especially someone who has gone

through the economic crisis, graduated at that time, excuse me, how can i -- i haven't yet decided if immigration reform is a good or bad thing. i'm still trying to decide all of that, but how can i not vote against myself and vote for the betterment of man? >> i think one answer is that i think most economists would say that if high skilled immigrants come and compete with you for a job, they also great jobs. so i don't think -- i think most economists would say that highly skilled americans benefit more from high skilled imfwrags than they are harmed by it. but you know, there certainly are some americans who compete with immigrants for jobs, and i think that, you know, that this view you're articulating is a real concern for people. it's probably -- i mean, i think most economists would say that

more people are -- far more people are helped than harmed and there are people who thing that they're harmed who actually arndt harmed. you know, because of positive spillover effects because immigrants come and they create a business and hire people and they come and spend money, you know, and that generates jobs, so i think from an economic perspective, you more benefit from other, you know, from even people with similar backgrounds to yours coming here than you're harmed by it. >> you have raised something we have have brought up before. the business community may very well push a republican house and senate to pass a narrower bill that would expand h 1 b visas and deal with high skilled and they'll get some democratic support for that and would send it to the president who would have some real issues there about whether you want to take that narrow view, but that may

very well happen. >> and a number of democrats fight that saying it's too easy to put together a coalition. >> we have the problem of an aging population. we're not having as many children. we need to refurbish the workforce in america. there's way too many people like me who would rather spend all my money on me than to have children and spend it on them. [ laughter ] >> the aging issue is a critical part of it, that's true. yes? >> thank you all for being here and sharing your thoughts. and i wanted to return to this question of the perception of the enforcement operations that we're seeing in the u.s. today. my name is heidi altman. i'm the legal director of the capital area rights coalition. so what we're all about is providing access to legal services, due process and counsel for the folks who were a part of those interior immigration enforcement rates. and so i think that the point that marc has made is a significant one, that the

priorities are crafted in such a way that that 10,000 statistic, while significant, is under inclusive. and we're seeing over the past year, couple of years enormous increase in the numbers of folks who never had the change to see an immigration judge because they had an in absentia order, because they had an old removal something that our immigration laws preclude them from even being able to see a judge. those folks are not captured in that 10,000 number but they may have been here for 15, 20 years and their families. to move on that, i would like to ask a question of the panel for anyone who is interested in commenting because the other piece of this puzzle is even if we accept the assumption that interior enforcement has changed, there's also the enforcement in the border. and this summer we saw family detention again, and that hasn't come up today. i'm surprised by that. i know i'd love to hear your thoughts.

because after years and years and years of struggle by the immigrant advocacy community to end the detention of families and children, we again have all of a sudden over the past few months thousands of beds and pro bono attorneys coming back and reporting on children who are sick and hungry, and that is an important perception piece that is not playing out as much in the media and i would have expected. i'd be interested to hear your thoughts. >> we can go into that, but that's the topic -- that's part of the topic of our after-lunch panel. >> would the panel at least on the program about unaccompanied immigrant children, which is actually a very different question from family detention, which is actually in the care and custody of i.c.e., mothers and children in the care and custody of i.c.e. as opposed to unaccompanied children in the care and custody -- >> no, that's true. that's certainly the case. if anybody wants to answer to it, they can, but i don't know that we have the expertise to answer to it fully. does anybody want to say anything about family detention? >> i mean, i don't think this is

information that you don't know, but i think that one of the things that the administration has argued is that it's important to create a deterrent for families that are coming, you know, who don't have a legitimate asylum claim who aren't going to eventually be able to stay here because if they're eventually going to get deported then it's better for people not to come at all. so i think that's the argument in favor of detaining certain families, but obviously that argument only holds if you have a fair and fast adjudication process that, you know, distinguishes between people who will get relief and people who won't get relief. i think that a lot of the conversation on the afternoon panel we'ill talk about how you get an adjudication process and that we need more -- a better adjudication process to -- both

for children and for families and, you know, i've seen the same stories that you have and you're probably working directly with people. we've certainly seen a lot of stories that families and those detention facilities are not getting access to counsel and not getting due process and i don't think there's any good argument about why we would like that. >> there's also the deterrent factor, you know, that the administration wanted to push and some in congress wanted to push. because these kids, these families, they break our hearts people from central america, i'm from nicaragua. i know very well what's going on in those countries. i know all about the gangs, the violence, not in nicaragua but the other three countries. these kids and these families are being exploited by drug dealers. they are -- you know, it's the same path that drugs are smuggled through that it's now icing on the cake and a few more thousand dollars per head.

they've got a new source of business, smuggling kids. and exploiting kids and it's something that we must address. i think the united states needs to do more to help those countries in country because part of that stuff that's happening there is there were people deported that had been members of gangs here and those countries were not prepare and didn't have the institutions, were corrupt and could not deal with that and it's mushroomed to the point where it's out of control and it's coming back to haunt us yet again. so this has got to be seen. and for me this has got to be seen in a very comprehensive way. and there's no easy answer to it. and it could be a very difficult situation right across our border. it already is. >> simon? >> a couple quick points about i think we should stipulate that part of the new challenges we're all going to have is that everyone who has been working in

the arena always believed that comprehensive immigration reform would pass and the number of undocumented in the country would decrease. that both has not happened. let's be clear. the republicans can control the house of representatives for another decade. the likelihood of us actually passing cir in the next ten years is incredibly remote. we had our shot, we didn't get it done. we now have to start, i think, as professionals and people who care about this, start contemplating what it will be like to start to have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 million people undocumented living in the country and the court systems being clogged to the fairly well which is creating a whole set of other ridiculous problems, right, that we can't manage. the system was never really built to behave the way it's behaving now. because we all wanted to fix it. and so the question is does there need to be work by mpi and by others here about thinking about, okay, if we don't have cir, how do we mitigate some of

the serious problems we're having with due process and all the other things that are both on the border and also in the current court system? because the court system has become -- it doesn't work any more, right? and i just want to be clear. i'm not defending the immigration system of the united states. i've spent nine years trying to fix it. what i'm trying to do is i think that the administration has tried to make things better given that they've also never believed that they have to deal with the current system, they thought they were going to change it and reform it. and there wasn't intellectual thinking about how to mitigate and manage the current system because we didn't think we'd still have it. we thought we'd have this better system. so the final point i just want to make because we're running out of time and it's related to this and there's been some fun stuff on twitter based on my comments today, is that, is that i just want to make this basic point. this is the thought exercise that i want to leave with all of you. particularly those of you who work daily with real people, right? is that if the message coming from the media and the story

that we're hearing earlier is that basically both parties are out to get you, right? and that, you know, that you've come to this country to find a better life and your family and that even this guy, barack obama, and the democrats who you thought we were friends are turning on you and that everyone is out to get you, you know, that's one set of narratives and stories about and about acclimation and assimilation and willingness to do things like sign up for some of these programs that may come up for relief in the next six months, nine months, but what happens if there's another story, a story that's true? which is that well there's one political party in fact that's actually gone way out of their way to try to path -- they've listened to you and they've passed -- i'm going to say this, pass come prehence reform. >> while he goes back to a political ad, i'm going to self-deport from the panel because i've got to go talk fans and charlie crist on cnn. >> i'm still staying here.

>> you know, that's -- so and then one political party has actually removed the threat of deportation for people from the interior, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff we've already covered. to me, if that's possible to be true and telling stories to an immigrant community and in fact not everybody is out to get you -- i. >> need you to wrap up. >> are trying to make it better, right? i just want to challenge you whether those are important narratives to tell to an aspiring community who would like to believe that america was perhaps more favorable to their presence than is currently being perceived in the media. thank you. >> well, okay, i'm sorry, i'm going to ask you to come up and just ask your question individually because i need to close this panel in order for lunch and other people to meet other commitments. but i do think that the new reality point is a real important and sobering takeaway because this has certainly not been an optimistic picture that we see but it may very well be the one that we will be living

with. thank you very much. see you at 2:00. tonight on c-span-3, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the university of illinois at urbana champaign on education issues. then a discussion on war and civilians. after that, a look at the legacy of former afghan president hamid karzai. and finally, a panel talks about ways to find jobs for veterans. all these events start tonight at 8:00 eastern. with the 2014 midterm election next week our campaign debate coverage continues. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span, live coverage of the

louisiana senate debate between three candidates, senator mary landrieu, representative bill cassidy and rob maness. at 9:00, the main senate debate with senator susan collins and shenna bell oes. then at 10:00, senator john cornyn and david alameel. on thursday night the illinois governors debate between governor pat quinn and bruce rauner. andrew cuomo, rob astor eno, howie hawkins and michael mcdermott. then at 10:00, the new hampshire senate debate between senator jeanne shaheen and scott brown. at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2, governor maggie hassan and walt havenstein. and governor john kitzhaber and dennis richardson. and at 10:00, the south dakota senate debate between former governor mike rounds, rick

weiland, larry pressler and gordon hower. c-span campaign 2014, more than 100 debates for the control of congress. earlier today at the aspen institute, defense secretary chuck hagel announced the signing of a policy that requires a 21-day quarantine for military personnel coming back from west africa in light of the ebola outbreak there. here's more on that. >> let's start off with one bit of news. there's some ebola order you signed today. tell us about what that is and what the significance is. >> what i signed this morning was a memorandum to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in response to the mem rand um of recommendation i received from the chairman and the chiefs yesterday to go forward with a policy of essentially 21-day incubation for our men and women who would be returning from west

africa. that policy was put into place by the chief staff of the army a couple of days ago for general williams and ten of his associates who are now back at the base in italy. and what i said in response this morning was give me within 15 days the operational specifics of how that would work and then i believe we should review that policy within 45 days. the fact is the military will have more americans in liberia than any other department, that's number one. number two, our people are younger, the cohorts are different. they are not volunteers. and this is also a policy that

was discussed in great detail by the communities, by the families of our military men and women, and they very much wanted a safety valve on this. so that's certainly what the directive says. those were part of defense secretary hagel's comments from earlier today at the aspen institute. you can see his entire remarks later in our schedule or any time online at cspan.org. next, remarks from the salvadoran ambassador to the u.s. on the vent migration of unaccompanied minors from central america. his comments came during an all-day conference on immigration policy held by the georgetown university law center. it's an hour and a half.

>> okay, i think we're going to get started. welcome back from lunch. i know it was a little shorter perhaps than you like. but he had fascinating panels this morning. in addition to director rodriguez speaking, we started out really well, so the challenge for my panel will be to continue that. i know that they're very capable of doing that. to this panel we're going to focus in particular with the treatment of unaccompanied minors in the united states as well as the situation for them and their sending country both before they leave and if they are returned what sort of plans exist at least in one of the major sending countries. i just want to make -- say a couple words before i introduce our panelist, each of whom will talk for about 10, 15 minutes then we'll open it up to a full q&a. once again when we get to q&a,

please km down to the microphones and introduce yourselves. this, we know that the unaccompanied minors from three central american country, salvador, guatemala and honduras, have been coming to the united states for quite some time and that in recent years the numbers started to increase, and they increased first gradualed and then somewhat significantly one could say. but this year they were called a crisis. i just want to remind us in the global context of crises, the arrival of this number of unaccompanied children, whether it was 60,000 people we're talking about, 90,000 or whatever, that is not the definition of a crisis in the global community. a crisis is what is happening in syria and a crisis is what happens every time there's huge movements of forced migrants who have to flee for safety reasons.

now, what the children have in common with many of those is that there's no question that the violence in their communities was one of the major factors in their flight. that's not something that's really been debated. many, we've learned, who are also coming to join families. we're going to have a full discussion, though, of what's happened since they came here. we've also learned very recently in these past year or two that more of them were younger and were more female, so larger percentages of younger children and more girls, ask yourselves why. so to talk about what's going on in the sending country in terms of trying to ensure that kids don't have to flee violence and in terms of their returns if and when that takes place, we have

the ambassador of el salvador the united states, he's next to my right, and to talk about the just department immigration courts in particular are handling the increased numbers of children in a variety of ways we have barbara lean who is the counsel to the director of the executive office of immigration review directly to the ambassador's right and to barbara's right we have maria woltshin who is not only a professor at the university of chicago where she's a -- teaches a variety of courses on immigration-related issues but she's the director of the young center for immigration children's rights who has been working to develop a significant core of child advocates. so for lawyers in the room, here's a different role that lawyers can play in the process

when children arrive from abroad in a country. so i would ask maria to talk about what her, her organization, the young center does, how the most recent increases in numbers have affected the organization and particularly about the concept of best interests of the child and how that is being deployed and some of the challenges with that. so we're going to begin with ambassador altshoal. you'll see some will sit, some will stand. i've invited them to do whatever is most comfortable. we'll begin with you, ambassador. >> thank you very much. first, let me thang the organizers of this event for giving me the opportunity of sharing this panel with such distinguished persons and with you all as was said pi andrew,

immigration is not true, even the immigration of unaccompanied children is not necessarily new. just in the case of el salvador in 2009 there's records of 1200 unaccompanied children coming here to the united states. in fiscal year 2012, this increased to 3300. and fiscal year 2004, which is referred to as the crisis, we had 16,000. unaccompanied kids. so it is new, but it has increased and has increased considerably. so one question is why. as i'm sure you all know, the issue of migration, there's not one single cause. there are multiple causes or push factors that have to do with migration. and all of them exist right now. in the case of el salvador, in the case of the northern triangle countries.

it is always mention that economic reasons are a fundamental cause, and it is true. i mean, people migrate because they cannot find the opportunities in our own countries to satisfy their most basic human needs, lack of jobs, lack of opportunities, health opportunities, education opportunities and so forth. so that's always been a push factor. and a cause for migration. but things haven't gotten worse in el salvador, so that is not in itself an explanation of why this surge in unaccompanied children. the same could be said about the security issues. it is true. i mean, there is -- we are all living in a very violent situation. the crime rate, et cetera, the gang violence and so forth

clearly are push factors. actually, right now honduras is considered to be the most violent country in the world and in san pedro it's considered the most violent capital in the world. this is a questionable membership that san salvador and el salvador had three years ago. but -- so this is going on. it's true. they are push factors. but in the case of el salvador, at least, things haven't gotten worse. they even have improved. so that by itself doesn't explain either this surge. another important factor was mentioned already is the family reunification. again, talking about el salvador, we have thousands of

salvadorans, just a pps ben fisheries. we have those who have been living here, working here for at least 12 years, probably more. they left the country. they probably left their young children there. you haven't seen them in tens of years. so now they have the means, they have the stability. they say this is the moment for me and i can pay for somebody to bring my kids back. so that is also a factor in all this. but again that does not explain the situation. what is it that has changed in my perception, which explains this, it's basically i think, an issue of the smugglers, the c coyotes. the coyotes had discovered if they send a message that if the kids come to the states and they came in, they were not going to be deported. we know they were telling people

a green card, they might be given citizenship. so this is something that was a marketing strategy, a very successful marketing strategy. i think that explains why. because what we see -- i had the opportunity to visit the border three or four weeks ago. we were in a detention center and i had the opportunity to talk to mothers there and the kids. and we asked how long did the trip take? well, 10 days, 12 days, 15 days. we know traditionally this journey took two months, three months. and how did you travel? well, we took a bus. so clearly this is not the normal process of immigration that we have been used to for all this time. this is a new way. actually, it is referred to as the vip treatment or the express

treatment. we know that people pay 8,000, 12,000 to bring people in. this has become a big, big business. this is what explains without taking any relevance or importance to the other push factors but this is what explain the surge. now, i think it's important to also see that in these three issues, the economic situation we are facing the security situation we're facing and the issue of family reunion fiyun r but that's a shared responsibility with the united states because if we are now seeing the effects of economic policies that have been coming

for many years that create the marginalized population and excluded great numbers of our people, this was in part also the ponresponsibility of the u. police ya at those times supporting military dictators in central america and authoritarian regimes and supporting the ruling parties that created this situation. in the case of security, there is also some sort of shared responsibility because the majority of the violence that we're having in our countries has to do with drug trafficking. and we are, unfortunately, in a very important geodwraskal situation because the drugs are produced in the south, they're consumed in the north and they have to come through our countries. so it's basically by geographical reasons that we are

suffering a lot of this. and in terms of the family reunifications, i would say as well there's some shared responsibility because many of the policies, migration policies that you very well know have prevented and at least has not facilitated this family reunification process. so i say this not because i want to blame anybody, but to say the solution to the problems are still a matter of mutual cooperation and shared responsibility. and what is the solution? there are short-term responses to this crisis. we have reinforced our consular offices in the border states, we have opened a new consulate general in texas, we've increased our cooperation with i.c.e. and with the u.s. authorities. we have improved our

capabilities in el salvador. we're organizing networks of support at the local level throughout our consulates to provide support for the kids that are going to eventually stay here or while they are still here, legal assistance in education, in medical health, mental health is very important. and so forth. but we are very cloer thear tha long-term and the solution has to be in providing economic development and better conditions of life for the people. that is our main responsibility but again it's an opportunity for joint and shared cooperation. at this moment, you might remember that a couple of weeks ago the three central american presidents from gguatemala, san salvador and honduras were here in washington and had a meeting with president obama to analyze the situation of the kids.

and one of the things that came out there was that countries would prepare with the help of the american interdevelopment bank a plan to address the situation. this plan has already been -- it's already been in the works. it's still a road map, but i think it has very important innovations. one, it is prepared by the countries. it is not, as other plans, economic development plans that were basically elaborated here or through the multilateral institutions. this is something that's been the work of our thee governments working together, which is very important. it's not very easy that three countries come together and come with a plan. second, the idea is not to do a big development plan, but to focus on the specific territories which produce the

largest number of migrants. so it's to implement concrete projects in those territories to provide better security, better job opportunities, better education, better health care in order to create the conditions that would, if not prevent, at least mitigate the migration. that is what we are -- we know very well that we believe that that is the way to go. we can do short-term solutions but unless we address the root cause of migration, which is providing better conditions, security, economic and opportunities of life, we will not be able to stop that phenomenon. so i would like to leave it here and gladly answer questions. >> thank you very much, ambassador. i'll ask each of our panelists to speak first, then we'll be opening it up to questions.

so, barbara. >> thank you. thank you very much for having me here this afternoon. as many of you know the immigration court system and the immigration court of appeals, after the kids came through this summer, you know, there was a lot of focus on their immediate care, immediate feeding and shelter our agency focused a little bit more on what the long-term way to process these children are because after they go through the border and where they're temporarily and reunified, they come to us for their legal proceedings. and so the children are typically with us for quite a bit of time with respect to their legal proceedings and how they're processed through the system. so i'm going to talk a little bit about some of the changes that happened at our agency with respect to processing some of the kids, then i'll speak to representation and a bit about some of our next steps.

so many of you know one of the things we did in response to the influx this summer was that we added additional groups to our pre-existing party for detained cases. so what that meant was that we were prioritizing the cases of recent border crossers, which was loosely defined sort of as people who came on or after may 1st. dhs identifies who those people are, and typically it's four different categories. it's unaccompanied children, adults with children who are detained, adults with children at least into the alternatives for detention program and all other detained aliens. and so those are sort of used -- the recent border crosser priority caseload. i'm going to focus today on the kids because that's the topic of this discussion. so we started processing priority cases july 18th. and so what that means is that

when we get a party case as identified by dhs as an unaccompanied child, that child receives their first master calendar hearing no less than ten days and no more than 21 days of the filing with the immigration court. so that goal is just for their first hear. we just need to make sure they get in and start their case. within that 21-day period. so you know, one thing that's on everyone's mind and we get asked a lot of questions about is representation and access to legal services for their children. we work really closely with other government agencies as well as nonprofit organizations to explore ways in which we, as the court system, can assist in trying to help these kids get access to legal services. this summer we issued some guidance with respect to how to utilize friend of the court services. in the past we've issued guidance to immigration judges

on how to employ child friendly court practices and sort of reiterated that with our judges as we knew that they were going to see a lot more cases. and what the procedures that they can take in order to improve pro bono participation in the court system. we created specialized children's dockets in all courts that see children so that we can ensure that children are not coming to court the same time as adults and so those child friendly procedures can be implemented in that special time when the kids are there. we, in addition, we expanded immigration judge training and we expanded the legal orientation program for the custodians of unaccompanied alien children. so it's important to note that that program is something that the office of energy resettlement does run rights presentation for the children but our program focusing on their custodians so when the kids are with their custodians

we provide services to the custodians to let the custodians know what's going on, let them understand what's happening to the child, help them understand what, you know, their responsibilities are with respect to making sure the child comes to court, making sure they know what resources are available to them for legal access. the other thing that we did this summer because that program, the lopc program is what we call it, doesn't operate everywhere. we expanded a national call center that allows custodians that are in areas where this program, the in-person program is not currently operational, to be able to call in to a center and ask questions, try to understand what's going on with the kids. you know, get an understanding of what, you know, what they have to do, what the kids have to do when they get to court and to help them understand what resources might be available in their communities to help them. in addition, some of you probably saw we announced this

summer a partnership with the corporation for national community service. a lot of you know that as the americorps or vista program where they put $2 million of its funds to start what's called the justice americorps program, where we'll be funding about 100 attorneys and parallels to provide direct representation to qualifying children. these are typically children that are under -- that are 15 years of age and under who are going to immigration court. so we expect that to be operating at about 15 cities and, you know, it's basically what you can imagine we're ute lidzing the americorps program to get lawyers into the courtrooms with the kids. and so it's a new partnership and it's really exciting. we expect the attorneys and the parallels to be on the ground to report in about january, the beginning of the year.

for us, we're anxiously participating that program getting on the ground and operating in a lot of our courts. we're happy -- we work very closely with the office of refugee settlement because they work to provide services to the children, so we work in tandem to make sure that we're trying to get adequate coverage in the country. and also to set up programs that will allow us to study what the impact of direct legal representation is for the kids. we understand that it's important that when we have government programs to look at them, see what they do, both sort of on a more anecdotal level in terms of social science gathering with respect to conversations about how the kids feel when they go through, but then also just the hard statistics about what impact this could have on the court system. so we're working on that with the justice americorps program. we also launched a small representation pilot in

baltimore where we're going to have some direct legal services there as well. and so in addition to that, a lot of outreach. i see a couple of faces in the room that i know i've met with a few times this summer and probably will continue to meet with this year. right now our director and deputy director is in texas. they're going to the six cities that have the most unaccompanied alien children in them in order to meet with legal service providersand adjudicators and people on the ground in these cities to see what it is that the agency can do to help process these kids through the immigration court. in a way that, you know, assists the legal services groups in the area in being able to have access to provide the kids greater levels of legal services. and so we're really trying to go out, understand what's happening on the ground in the courts and

work with the communities in order to make sure that we are working together to try and make sure that these kids get through the legal process the first time in a way that makes everybody very comfortable. in addition, we're also having model hearing programs to try and train the naup profit attorneys. i think a lot of you are immigration attorneys so you know what you're doing when you get to court. sometimes you get a real estate attorney in there who's doing a good pro bono effort, but you want to make sure they're well trained before they get in there. our judges are volunteering their time to go in and try and teach some of those real estate attorneys how immigration court goes. so those are a few things we're doing to try to work together with groups, you know, with the national groups, with the local groups to try and increase access to legal services. a lot of people are asking us, well, great, you know, you have this caseload. we get it. what about everyone else? what about my asylum client who

i've been working with for several years and, you know, not to put too fine a point on it. as those cases of those kids and some of the recent border crosses, there are other cases that simply are not priorities. and so what ends up happening is that some of the cases for nondetained individuals who are not considered priority caseload do get bumped back. and they get bumped out further. you know, you don't have to tell me that those cases are waiting a long time in our court system. we know. and so we're evaluating options for what to do with some of those cases that are either going off the calendars or going way far out into the future for their individual hearings. we've made our resource needs very clear. i think the administration has done a very good job of making our resource needs very clear. we're continuing a hiring effort. you know, we should get about 25 new judges on this year. we're looking -- we recently

advertised 48 immigration judge positions in anticipation of a budget that i hope someday will come from congress. that will tell us exactly what we can do. and how many judges we can hire. but, you know, hearing time is our most precious asset a lot of times in the immigration court. and we simply need more judges, and we need more court staff to support those judges. and so we are trying to hire what we can, and we're making our case. and the administration is making its case to congress with respect to the resources that we need to handle the full caseload that we have that's increasing. and the other thing we're looking at is we're trying to find ways sort of on the margins to increase some of the efficiencies in immigration court. you know, seeing what we can do about trying to encourage pre-hearing conferences. you know, doing proffers, that sort of thing. just in the normal course of what you might expect in a court proceeding that aren't typically

institutionalized practices in immigration court to see how we can more, you know, to utilize some of those resources and institutionalize some of those practices in a way that allows us to, you know, efficiently process those cases while making sure everybody is heard. and i look forward to taking any of your questions. >> okay. thank you very much, barbara. >> i'm going to stand up. i just want to start by thanking andy and don and npi for inviting me here today. it's really great to get to talk to all of you and see so many faces that i know. i have to say after this morning's panel, the last panel, a lot of this is just going to seem pie in the sky or at least it did to me after the last panel because we're advocating that there be a best interest standard for unaccompanied children and that all decisions be made in accordance with the child's best interests.

but i also think that we need to keep our eye on what may happen next and also going back to this morning's panel, if they're right and they all seem to agree, if the democrats lose the senate, if the house moves farther to the right, we may all start seeing children being deported in insignificant numbers. so i want to start with really what's going to be my last point, which is that in all of our other systems in the u.s., when we move a child, there's a process. we have what's called interstate compact. so in all 50 states, if we're going to move a child from illinois to california, california is involved, illinois is involved, and there's an assessment of whether that child will be safe if he's moved. child protective services, if a child is removed from the home because of abuse, five relatives come forward to take care of that child, they're all vetted.

and it's the same with o.r. they don't release a child without going through the process of looking at that sponsor. but in our current system, we have nothing in place for ensuring that child will be safe, and we have really no system in place for even making a minimum inquiry about that. so i want to add what andy said in the beginning about what's happening right now. the number of children arriving at the border has decreased, or our beds are at about 65% capacity. so the numbers today are each day approximately 55 children are arriving at the border. in june, it was 300 children a day. so it's a significant drop. the causes are uncertain. we don't yet know. we don't yet know if it's going to be as a result of the hot weather at the end of the summer. or if there are other reasons,

for example, bolstered borders by guatemala, mexico deporting many more children beefing up enforceme enforcement. what we do know is the children are being deported from the mexico border. the mexico/guatemala border. and the violence has not abated in the three central american countries. 68,000 children arrived last year, and they are here. as barbara pointed out, the initial impact was on office of refugee resettlement, but -- and they modified their systems for releasing children, but now this is all going to hit the immigration courts and all of the other systems. it's really going to start impacting how these agencies work. so we're based at the university of chicago, and we serve as

child advocate for unaccompanied children. and this is very similar in child protection systems to a best-interest guardian ad litem. i will also tell you we have no best-interest statute in our immigration law. but having said that, that's our job, and so we advocate for their best interests, even in the absence of the law. child advocate was provided for in the tdpra of 2008. it provides that hhs has the authority to appoint independent child advocates. and in a slightly backwards way says the role is to advocate for the best interests of the child. i think one of the things that's really important about that law is it requires the child advocates be independent. we are not the attorneys who represent the children, even though some of us are attorneys who work on these cases. we don't work for the attorneys representing the children. we also don't work for any agencies that provide any other

services. home studies, post-release services, or care and custody. and why is this important? because oftentimes we have to advocate with all of these different services providers. and sometimes even with attorneys, we do see situations in which kids are represented by attorneys who are hired by traffickers in the case of chinese kids. so we get involved in those cases. and sometimes we're arguing that a child has a case when she may have been screened initially and we may have a lot more information. so we're going back and advocating on behalf of that child. we don't get assigned to all of the children, only the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. so tender-age kids where there's a custody issue, a child who has a mental health issue, a child who has been abused, a girl who's pregnant as a result of rape, a child who's recognized by everybody in the system as

being at risk if he's returned, but he won't give enough information. he won't talk about what happened to him. and yet everybody in the shelter, the lawyers, lots of people think this kid is going to be at risk if he is sent back to his home country. so what's been the impact of the influx on our organization? well, first of all, we're just unbelievably busy. we have an office in harlingen, texas, where most of the kids are coming in. those cases are the most difficult and complicated. very young children. you know, situations of abuse. situations where we don't know who the parents are. and then we have an office in chicago. and i think the influx has affected a lot of what the government is doing right now. so although there was a provision in the law providing for expansion of child advocate programs, it hasn't en