frankly immigrants across the board from working class immigrants who work in our agriculture industry which is our second largest industry after manufacturing to powering our research universities and medical complexes and tech firms and automotive design, information technology, are really probably the most powerful economic development strategy we have going for us. and so i lead an initiative that seeks to capitalize on that that has launched between six and ten depending on how you want to count independent initiatives like the first international student retention program and i'll conclude with this. as i mentioned, we are part of a growing movement in the midwest that has come to this reality. so, in just the last four years, st. louis moe say yak initiative was launched, welcome dayton was launched. the chicago office of new americans, vibrant pittsburgh, global cleveland and similar initiatives are being formed in

cincinnati, toledo, buffalo, and all across the midwest. there are literally almost a dozen. it's exciting work and it's important work and it's really focussed on kind of national and regional and local economic policy. >> great. i'm going to follow up with you again, steve, for a minute. director rodriguez said that absent federal action, congressional action, we cannot do it all. so, with employment-based visas, you can't create them or other types of visas. what strategies do you use to overcome those types of challenges? >> sure. make no mistake that the biggest economic boost would be a more sense kal and higher performing federal immigration policy that works for local economies. and maybe even as localized, clearly the challenges that we face in detroit are very different than long beach or new york city. and our skill sets and needs are very different.

and probably one size fit all policy might not work as well, but absent that, we're trying to do everything we can to take advantage of the opportunities that we have. and frankly, a lot of that work would repair us well if some kind of immigration reform policy was passed. so what do we do? one is i mentioned international students, something called we launched the michigan global talent retention initiative. i keep saying at conferences i'm waiting for someone to contradict us we're the first and maybe only international student retention program in the country. we have three full-time staff, we have agreements with 31 colleges and universities in the state of michigan that represent most, if not all, of the 28,000 international students studying in our state, which is by the way an $800 million export product. what we do is inform the students of the opportunities under the law to use their curricular practical training or optional training under their f visa to work both while they're in school and after graduation.

and we highlight to employers the opportunities of using the optional practical training as a gateway to perhaps investing more in-depth via an h1b application or other means. and we can't answer long-term employment needs for this talent pool, but we can certainly create some gateways and opportunities. we do a lot of education. we have 60 what we call go or global opportunity employers who agreed to look at international student talent. when you consider the fact that between 40 and 50% of all the masters and ph.d.s in engineering, life sciences, physical sciences are given to international students, it is insane that we don't have more policies to connect this incredible talent pool, we have the world's most talented people coming to this country -- in fact, i mentioned this statistic act 32.8% of our high-tech firms, followup research suggests that the average high-tech imgrand spre

preneurostarts their company 13 years. the number one reason they come to the country is to get an education. we see this retention program as the pipeline to becoming the silicon valley of the midwest. we also look at how do we better connect skilled immigrants who are underemployed and unemployed, the so-called brain waste syndrome that a lot of national players -- we happen to have the fourth office of upwardly global nonprofit that has offices in san francisco, new york, and chicago. i think now they're opening one in maryland, i believe. we're very happy to have their fourth office in the city of detroit to work with skilled immigrants and refugees. we're getting about 2,000 or 2,500 middle eastern refugees a year. while -- from just anecdotal experience, i don't have the statistics, some of the people who are able to get out of the conflicts in syria, iraq, are the most affluent and educated.

they come to the metro detroit, frankly we have one of the highest middle eastern populations in raw number than anywhere in the country, in fact, more than new york, little less than l.a. highest concentration of middle eastern and they're working restaurant jobs, working menial labor jobs, these are engineers, accountants people with i.t. backgrounds. what we're doing is recredentialing them, looking at our state laws and licensing guides and helping them. those are a couple of the ways that we're trying to connect talent around the existing broken immigration system. >> thank you. nisha, can you tell us about new york's work for its work force system. >> right now new york is going through a big re-think. jobs for new yorkers. this comprises both sort of city leaders as well as advocates in the field and other stake holders. what's notable about it, one of the facts that obviously jumped

out at me in the first meeting of the task force was that one out of the two of the unemployed or underemployed is foreign born. our work force system is not working for immigrants. one of the things that we've been doing with the jobs for new york as task force is really convening groups to understand how the work force system can respond better to immigrant communities in particular. some of it is low-hanging fruit, right? the fact that they're not eligible for some of the title 1 work force services which they weren't before, i don't think our work force system has been trained on that, making sure that people are connected to the services that they are entitled to now. but then also thinking about learning from places like michigan and detroit. thinking about how we can do better by our high-skilled work force. how do we look at the low-wage work force and connect them to the economic system as a whole so that it's functioning better for them. you know, we had a convening

that was co-sponsored by us, the ford foundation and i think the kind of big reality check for the work force folks in the room is that there was a huge informal economy, right, that largely undocumented immigrants are working. if executive action happens and folks get work authorization, suddenly that invisible work force which is huge in new york city is no longer so invisible and is the work force system prepared to work with that population? and i think the answer is no, not yet. and so we're really trying to think about at the system level what we can do about that. it's somewhat daunting but i think we're moving in that direction and we'll learn from others who have done a really great job in this area. >> great. thank you. senator, you've championed initiatives including california's driver's license bill which passed and a measure that would extend health care for all, which did not. what role do you think the state should play in connecting immigrants to social and other services? >> i think it's the state's

complete role to help its residents and all its residents. so, as we talk about, for example, the health care for all bill which will be reintroduced next year, i'm confident we'll get that signed, we look at the fact that our own experiences working with folks as we were signing people up to the aca, we realize that a large group, a large group of folks will live in mix ed households. when would come and try to sign up for aca, they realize, wait, my spouse, my two children can't apply because they're undocumented. so none of the families would register because they didn't want to leave anybody out. and so we realized that we needed to do something about that again. and either whether it's creating a state exchange very similar to what the aca does or expanding our medical so we can cover the folks that can't pay becomes a necessity to us.

if a person is sick or, you know, their child is sick, then they don't go to school and don't go to work. it impacts our economy directly. california spends $1.7 billion annually on emergency-room care. this is we know where our undocumented population is going. and that threatens everybody's health care, especially in a life or death situation, where our emergency rooms are completely booked for issues that can be treated by, you know, just having a doctor or access to doctor. we in the legislature feel this is the next step in terms of immigrant rights, of human rights. we'll continue to work on this issue. we put a task force together of folks. now, the thing is, you guys have heard from our governor, he is like, how are we going to pay for this? this is what we're working on right now. how do we create a funding mechanism to help this critical

population which everybody is trying to work for? so you'll see some creative ways that might not -- that some of our immigrant rights groups nationally might not agree with but they're ideas that we're looking at. if they have access to health care, again it's about incorporate them into our society, ensuring that they have the wherewithal to some sort of upward ability and access to affordable health care is part of that. >> you also recently provided funding for representation for company called children? >> california provided $3 million from our budget to help these children. we met with some of the biggest law firms in southern california with our attorney general and we realized that the nonprofits, the legal aid folks that are working on these cases don't have the resources to be able to attend to all the case loads that's coming up -- that are

growing with these children. and understanding the fact that the united states is responsible for what's happening -- has to take responsibility for what's happened in central america over years. and so when we were debating what we were going to do to help these refugee children, we decided that we needed to do -- and understanding also that the cases of a child is represented by an attorney, the chances of them actually gaining a stay is much greater than having, you know, a 10-year-old or 5-year-old go before a judge on their own. and we know and we've heard anecdotally some of the children have been returned, some of them have actually been murdered already. it just broke our heart. it is just a drop in the bucket of what we could do for the kids in california. so we gave -- we aposhsed $3 million that will go to help these organizations to ensure that when they partner with the

legal team that the cases is actually prepared for so it doesn't take the attorney that much more longer to take the case before a judge. and, again, instead of shunning these children, understanding that these are children that are in need. nobody leaves or flees their country because they want to on a whim. these are children that are in dire need. if this was happening anywhere around the world in europe or anywhere else, we would do the same thing. very proud of the fact that we were able to do that. we'll monitor it and continue to see if we can give more money to this effort. >> that's great. nisha, i'm sure you're proud of what new york city is doing also for unaccompanied children. >> yeah. we both the city council, administration and private philanthropy came together in new york to respond to the child migrant issue. the city administration formed an internal task force of mainly city agencies to figure out how

to best coordination resources for the children, educational and health resources. our city agencies are located at the immigration court in new york we have really great immigration judges and are excited to have us there connecting them to school enrollment and child health plus and other health benefits they may be eligible for and running aer is vees of community clinics connected to the schools where the children are sort of most concentrated in new york city. then the city council along with two foundations in new york trust and robin hood foundation funded close to $2 million to essentially provide universal representation for the kids coming through the new york docket. so that's really exciting. and i hope more than just a response to the child migrant issue it becomes a steppingstone for us to think about how to use our school system as a way to connect kids, immigrant kids to legal resources and other services like that. it's part of the mayor's platform and i think also something that teachers and guidance counselors we're

hearing from them and saying kids have complicated immigration issues, how do we connect them to the right resources and structure them to a referral system that works for the schools and the kids. we're thinking about that now. >> you mentioned the municipal id, nisha. can you talk more about that? >> sure. the municipal id started the first program was launched in new haven in 2006 or 2007 and i know san francisco and oakland have these programs. i think for new york city and for the mayor, the notion was really simple. we have half a million estimated undocumented people in new york city who cannot get identification because we don't have a driver's license that's available for all. and so the notion was starting with them, you know, we really need to provide a government issued local id so interactions with law enforcement are better. if you're riding the bike on the sidewalk, instead of getting arrested you can show your municipal id and be able to get

a summons like everyone else. to be able to access city buildings. my own building you have to show an id before you get in, things like that. but then also seeing it as a vehicle for equalizing access to a number of different services and amenities in the city. a few weeks ago we announced a partnership with 33 of the city's leading cultural institutions, the metropolitan museum of art, lincoln sender, the bronx zoo, all of whom will provide one-year free membership to municipal card id holders. this is part of the idea of opening the doors of places like the m erkmet and others. really opening the doors to a broader cross section of new york and frankly i think it makes the card very appealing to people who may already have a driver's license but don't get a free membership with their license. we'll make this a card that all new yorkers are carrying and not just the undocumented therefore removing some of the stigma associated with it. so the card launches january 1st. it's a bit of a hair-raising

schedule to get this off the ground. and folks can sign up mainly through the libraries. and you basically have to be able to show some other form of photo id and established residency in new york city and you can get your municipal id. expect to hear lots more about that in the coming months. >> i would love to hear how each of you sees the role of your sector in preparing for federal changes to immigration laws and policies. so the global detroits out there, not just global detroit f you feel like you can speak about the mosaic project and others. >> sure, interesting thing listening to the commissioner and senator, i'm struck by how pragmatic and sort of common sense these policies are. they're asking questions about their own communities and what's in the best interest of their economy, of their quality of life, in terms of delivering government services, in terms of

alleviating poverty and suffering and coming to very common sense answers. and i think some of these issues have been foisted upon them by broken immigration systems and we're stuck in this obsession about the undocumented, instead of what people in michigan are very concerned about, which is their economic future and their quality of life and their education systems. if we would actually just have a common sense, you know, conversation about what are the impacts that immigrants are having in terms of the average quality of life, in terms of our local communities and our economies and our safety, i think we would have very different both state and local policies as well as federal policies and certainly new york city and the state of california are kind of leading probably because of the high presence of immigrants, but too often what we're seeing is this -- the issue of the undocumented being demagogued to prevent common sense approaches. so what we're doing in terms of preparing, you know, we're

trying to build a welcoming, functioning community in southeast michigan and across the state of michigan. we frankly sometimes pains me as the former democratic majority forearm leader and particularly three weeks before an election but we probably have the most or definitely have the most pro-immigration republican governor in the country and one of the most pro-immigration governors in the country. governor rick snyder really understands the economic opportunity and is often quoted as saying immigrants make jobs, they don't take jobs. so when you bring a new lens and just ask the question, what's in it for our economy? what's in it for our public systems? you get to all kinds of new solutions. and the reality is that global detroit was founded upon bringing a lot of parties from the city to universities to health care systems, to work force development agencies, to

businesses together and saying how do we create jobs? how do we foster growth? and so we end up working on issues like trying to create better language access in our city and we just completed a report of our detroit city council immigration first task force and completed a rough planning document and the city announced itself as the 41st welcoming city in the welcoming america's welcoming cities and counties program. in mccomb county, home to the reagan democrats, working class, whites, union, catholic, fairly socially conservative county of little less than 1 million people, they created the one-mccomb initiative that really does look at particularly the county's mental health systems and health services and how those get delivered to a very rapidly growing middle eastern beng le dash and boz knee yan population as well as latino. so we don't have a grand plan

and this is happening on many levels from county government to city government and all of this began out of a private sector, non-profit convening and study of asking the question that was on really taking the issue of immigration or immigrants in our community and asking the question of what was at the core of michigan and metro detroit's concerns in 2009. what's in it for our economy? we end up working on a lot of issues that frankly immigrant right's groups have worked decades on and sometimes with that new energy, those new partners i think we're bringing new solutions or we're championing old solutions frankly and giving them new energy to be successful. and so, i'll just say that there's a lot of things i don't want to talk about that we've avoided on the state level because of governor schneider's support that if some enterpri enterprising far right anti-immigrant legislature knew

was happening behind the scenes they would try to capture and try to introduce into the state legislature and then we would have a hot button issue on our hands. there's a lot of opportunities and it's happening in other places from st. louis to chicago to dayton very small immigrant population has really embraced immigration as a revitalization and quality of life tool. >> do you see yourself jumping into action if and when the president announces administrative reform? >> absolutely. we built a welcome mat network which is an online searchable data base from esl programs and citizenship that is cross tabulated by culture and language. we have one of the most robust welcoming america state affiliates when welcoming michigan, which received a white house champion of change award a couple years ago. we are talking through everything from community colleges to local school systems to health care workers.

i mean, there's a myriad of aspects to integration. again, i think that when we get off this sort of obsession, i think, of undocumented people and who is here legally or fear of refugees and get to what do most communities on a day to bay basis, how do immigrants impact them, words like integration and economic opportunity and solutions that really not only have profound impact in immigrant refugee programs but frankly create opportunities for receiving communities and host communities, there tends to be -- and new players and partners from all sides of the aisle really seem to be embracing these things once we get beyond this hot-button issue. >> thank you. >> i think -- well, for the record, california is ready for california immigration reform and we've been ready for a while. i want to put that for the record. you know, one of the issues that we've been trying to deal with as we prepare for one-day

immigration reform is this issue of fraud prevention. and the idea has been floated around of creating at a state level office of new americans that kind of things that we're all the same page on. again, in california, it's a parkwork of different things that are going on throughout the state. cities have office of immigration relations, office of new immigrants but there's not really one kind of hub where strategizing on how do we do outreach? how do we do education? how do we do proud prevention? application and legal assistance, language courses, civic courses and those things of that nature, but the main focus of that for us is fraud prevention. we've known and seen since the passage in 2001 a bill to allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuitions that we saw businesses pop up saying give us $1,000 and we'll help you pay

in-state tuition when it's completely free. and so, that continues to be a problem for us. and even now i'll tell you we're scheduled to send out our -- start providing our licenses for everyone january 1st, 2015, there's still a lot of hesitation from the immigration community saying is my immigration -- is my information going to be shared? what happens if we have a couple rogue sheriffs that say they're not going to adhere to the law? and what happens if i get stopped by one of those cops in one of those counties and all these different things and rightfully so, right, immigrants are survivalists, they've learned to adapt and modify, but now this kind of shift and, oh, government is embracing. if you look at the immigrants that are coming to the united states and i use my parents as an example, they don't tend to go to the government for help. they flee the government or are

fleeing from their government. so it's this kind of mind shift that we have to education that we have to do with our immigrant population. and even if we ask them for one more document, they're like, why do you need this document? what if we don't have this document to get our license. it's a constant education, constant reaffirming to them that, you know, at least in california, we're not going to share your information with the federal government. and so we need some sort of central hub that does this work 24 hours basis because they need to feel -- our immigrants community needs to feel that there's somebody there, some sort of agency that's looking out for their best interest. as we continue to wait and hopefully one day we get immigration reform, we're thinking that under the governor's office would help not only continue to help immigrate our immigrant populations but give them the assurance that we're not collaborating with the federal government. >> thank you. and, yeah, in new york we

started thinking we're not quite as ready as california but we're getting there. and i guess sort of we see the city as having four different levers. we're a big funder of the different services that will have to kick in to connect people to whatever executive action happens. and so we're starting to think about from the very simple level of making sure that whatever legal services and other providers have contracts with the city they're actually able to pivot and then serve the need that will emerge with executive action to really thinking about how do we create a system, right, rather than just kind of doling out millions of dollars of fund to think about whether we're creating legal service providers help the hardest cases and the outreach and the real connections to share information about what is and is not happening with executive action. that's one lever. we're a good convener, so this goes to the point of needing a central hub. i think we're neutral among the different non-profit providers that might be in the field and

are organizing around this and also convene our agent sis. our department of education, our different agencies will at some point provide documents to people to establish their presence, to establish just like any number of different things and we can help prepare them to do that job so it's easier for those who are applying for what different action comes down the pike. we have a lot of assets at our disposal. one of the things that we did was actually launch a large-scale campaign around the renewal but just about doca itself, using our transit system top have ads, to use media contacts. we saw a several number% increase as a result of that outreach. thinking about that experience and using it for executive action will be one strategy. of course we can be an advocate. there will be lots of negative voices that emerge when the president announces something. there has been. as a city, we can stand up and

say, this is not only a good idea for the country but this is how it concretely helps new york city and it's not a bad thing. last thing i'll say is, you know, i agree completely with what steve said about most of these policies are really common sense. some of them we probably shouldn't have to do and it's not really revolutionary work, but i do think that one of the other things that's made possible at least in new york city what is happening very rapidly right now is an amazing community organizing infrastructure that got my boss elected, that got an incredible city council elected and that's been savvy about moving the politics in a way that we can move things a lot more quickly than we have in the past. something like executive wrax you have community organizations with memberships that will be interacting with people about this, it's an opportunity to capitalize on that for membership growth and building that political power and move for a larger scale immigration

reform and strengthening that. that's unfortunately not my job anymore, but i do think it's a critical part of this whole equation is how we take the service delivery and move it into organizing and power building. >> steve? >> i want to build on that. i hope we move administrative reform or congressional action that the country has gotten more sophisticated about integration. i know that certainly as bad as things are today, they're probably better than they were when my grandfather came from eastern europe and that we don't just look at the legal changes that need to be effectuated and talk about the integration that needs to happen. the distrust of government and even sometimes distrust in the non-profit sector. we're delivering our largest initiative is micro enterprise initiative fnd ard for immigrant and african owned organizations

and we had to partner with churches and parents group at charter schools we have to get more sophisticated rather than a one size fits all. we have to look at what really has impact and what does integration really look like. that's in the interest of not only from a social justice imperative in terms of helping new immigrants and refugees it's frankly in the quality of life and economic interest of the receiving communities and the majority pop lags. when that integration is sped up and when it's delivered more effectively, we all benefit. >> and can i just say also that whatever reform happens, it has to lead to citizenship. it can't be a permanent resident, at least that's what we're pushing for in california that whatever immigration reform happens, that it has to have a clear nonexpensive path towards citizenship. >> go ahead. >> and when you look at a common sense approach and ask what's in

the interest of our local economies it's statistically proven when people become citizens, their earnings go up, they invest more in our communities. just makes no sense to me with people who want to be here and are economic contributors why we would not do something in our own self interest to grow our economy and great better communities. >> so, senator lara, when you're pushing this notion there has to be a path to citizenship and all of you are filling these gaps of lack of federal immigration action, are you getting feedback from i.c.e., the president's office, congress? >> well, the conversations we've had last year with our congressional folks was there was a push to have some sort of permanent resident status that wouldn't include necessarily a pathway to citizenship. that isn't an option for us. for us, we need to ensure that folks if they're going to invest time and energy that they see a

clear pathway. and that, you know, every immigrant has access to be able to become a citizen. we're seeing, yes, we have the model immigrants that everybody talks about, but in california, i mean, we have people from all gam mats of society. we have to ensure that all of them have equal access to become citizens. as steve was saying, you know, it helps with upward mobility. i'll tell you it's proven time and time again in california and in the legislature, immigration tends not to be a hot topic anymore. the conservatives have lost that battle time and time again in california and so what you're seeing is now a republican party that's much more moderate when it comes to this issue. quite frankly, work with us in the bipartisan fashion to create policy that really makes sense on immigration. and so, we just want to make sure that whatever gets agreed to that we have a clear path to

citizenship and that we take into consideration the cost and time that it will take. we don't want to desuede people from becoming citizens. one of those big factors is obviously an economic factor. not everybody who is an immigrant is an engineer. you have januaitorjanitors, you nannies, they will work three, four, five jobs to become citizens just like my parents had to do. >> in some respects we have good partnerships with agencies. in other cases if i had to express sort of a frustration with one area where we don't get as much information it's not that we're hearing from the federal government but we're not getting enough is really on data. so when the child migrant issue was initially breaking we were really interested in knowing new york city's specific numbers if we could. we did get county level data which were enormously helpful.

it felt like we were in the dark just in understanding how to respond even at the local level. so i think being able to get some information along those lines more quickly is really something that we're really eager to do. and then otherwise, i think we often reach out to the federal government to kind of engage them in some of our initiatives that implicate their work and have totally, largely open conversations about that. but the main area i think that i've been frustrated around has been data. >> steve? >> i think it's a real mixed bag. lot of individuals that i think are really open to having a conversation about how immigration, how services can be delivered in a more proactive manner. at the same time, where i live literally about 100 yards from the most valuable international border crossing in this country in terms of the value of trade and goods going across the ambassador bridge between detroit and windsor. we've had a lot of issues with

i.c.e. and border patrols. they've violated national policy and the followup and the relations with the community have been completely botched. and so we -- i would say it's a medium grade at best. it really depends on the agency, the day, the issue. but there's certainly no coordinated i would say proactive long-term thinking focus on what and how the federal government can work with our immigrant and refugee communities in a way that will tackle what's most important to michigan and detroit, which is how do we grow our economy? >> we forget that we have that northern border, you're representing the midwest as well as the northern border for us here today. you're all phenomenal the work that you're doing and leaders in your sectors. i'm just wondering, do you interact with other-like entityings around the country? nisha, are you working with other cities and senator lara,

other legislatures must be so envious. i would love to hear little bit about that. >> yeah. so we work with our sister moyas around the country quite a bit. most recently we launched with chicago and l.a. in an initiative called cities for citizenship. the idea is to lift up the work that we've been doing in each of our cities to invest in naturalization programs and collaboration with our local community partners, but also to encourage other cities to do the same thing. and i hope that very soon you'll be hearing from a number of other cities around the country that have signed on their mayors really wanting to invest in citizenship. and i think we could probably do better even in having more frequent conversations among the different cities because many of us are dealing with the exact same issues coming up with slightly different strategies in each of our jurisdictions. and could really learn a lot from having more frequent conversations around that. but i think the sort of up serge

in local activity around immigration in the last few years has meant that there is that much more infrastructure for us to work with one another and hopefully be coordinated and be able to push up the narrative to the national level. >> absolutely. i think coordination is key. especially with other states. but, you know, for us in california we're also coordinating with other countries and look at what other models they have. we've gone to israel several times and australia. given how vast our population is and how diverse it s there's not really apples to apples comparison. but rest assured california is coming to a neighborhood near you. and so, it behooves you to look at what we're trying to accomplish in california. but we also like to partner with other countries to see what other models are happening. again, you can never collaborate enough, i think, it's imperative for us to continue to do so. >> i think that's a great

question and the answer is i think we're at a critical point where this infrastructure is just being built. the kind of legislation that is proactive, mayor's office looking at immigrants as an economic development opportunity is really focus on integration. we understandably those who work with immigrants have been very focussed on the immigrant rights and comprehensive immigration reform without really the opportunity to look beyond that at these other questions of integration. so, i think that the infrastructure is rapidly developing. if i didn't mention that we spearhead a global detroit, we staff in conjunction with welcoming america a ten-state regional global great lakes network that has about 20 metros who have either launched an economic development focussing on immigrants or in the process of launching it. many of those programs that were four years old, we have two or three organizations that are older than that like the

welcoming center for new pennsylvanians in philadelphia and mayor michael coleman in columbus who has an new americans initiative that's ten years old. the global great lakes initiative just recently convening. next year in june we're writing a state and local policy play book around economic development issues in our region. we're doing city to city visits where these programs are visiting each other and trying to learn from each other. we're using social media and research to learn from each other. almost all of us i can't tell you how many times i've passed out the new york city blueprint for cities. unfortunately for cities like detroit and dayton, there's a lot in there that doesn't translate real well but nonetheless, it is one of the first tools out there that we have. we need to see more of those types of tools. i remember in -- i served in the state legislature from 2003 to 2008, we had in-state tuition issues. we had dreamer's act issues. we had driver's license issues.

i passed some legislation cracking on immigration fraud. we didn't at that point have a single state-wide advocacy voice to talk with the immigrant community. and while there was some great work that happened nationally, very little of it focussed on the states and the kind of issues we were dealing with. there's all kinds of new infrasfrukture. they've done a lot of great research as has the immigration policy center to help the pew center and the work that adam is doing we're hoping will fill the void. and we're seeing a little more of funders look at these kinds of issues, but frankly there's a lot more that needs to be done. it's not just a question of sort of coordinating and energizing the immigrant community to advocate for immigration reform, but a lot has to be invested in these kind of quality of life issu issues. i consider this to be an

important part of our national interest. what will make this country great for the coming century is our great universities, good education system and frankly being able to attract the world's talent. i use that term broadly to include the hard-working people who may not have had an opportunity to get the kind of higher education that we strive for this this country, but those three things i think are the corner stones of our economic success, our quality of life. and it's amazing to me that we've allowed our understandable obsession with immigration reform to get in the way of the other elements that we need to make this country make our communities great. >> thank you. so before we go to questions from the audience, is there anything that any of you would like to add that you hoped to mention and didn't get a chance yet? >> i would like to talk about the educational obstacles that exist for immigrants. steve was talking about the great equalizer is education and it's a reason that i'm sitting

before you today as the son of two undocumented immigrants from mexico. and so also as we talk about immigration reform, we have to look at what educational obstacles remain not only in our state legislature but are in our federal policies to also incorporate our immigrants. one of the big things that we're working on in california we remember prop 227 which limited the education to english only. what it did, it decimated language immersion programs in california but we see this resurgence now from all californians regardless of ethnicity or social income of wanting their children to learn multiple languages. it was talked about it used to be said if you teach a child multiple languages at an early age, you're going to confuse a child. we know that's completely the opposite. but this was common sense and common knowledge in the '90s in

california. and that's why the past is kind of aintd bilingual education, language immersion initiative. so what we did this year in the legislature was to repeal sections of that proposition and actually included a lot of the language dealing with the fact that if we want to continue to be a global economy, we're going to have to ensure that our global work force understands and communicates with each other. that means that californians have to speak more than just english. and, you know, in a couple hours if not already, you know, thousands of children in california woke up speaking another language other than english. we have this natural reserve already that makes us competitive globally. not why not exploit that? why not allow them to learn two, three languages like what they're doing in asia and scandinavia, leading economies? so we're changing the dynamic, and changing the rhetoric and

this proposition will now go before the voters in 2016 to eliminate sections of prop 227 and include more language that allows for the creation and establishment of not only dual lange programs but immersions programs. hopefully we'll get that passed. that we once again tell our young immigrant kmirn that it's okay to learn multiple languages. it's okay to learn spanish. and the world's languages because that's what's going to make you competitive and in turn make california competitive as well. >> thank you. >> i mean, i just echo all of that and i think that the was really created in california now adopted in new york and six other states and about 150 local communities is some of that common sense approach that just to recognize students who either grew up speaking english in their household and went on to learn another language or those

who are fluent in a native tongue and have a graduated from an english-speaking high school and to acknowledge their skill level no-cost implementation but very forward looking and it adds absolute strength to our global economy for those students and recognizes what they've achieved. we need more policies like that. thank california for coming up with that brilliant idea. hopefully someday the state of michigan adopts that. it's something that really should be in all 50 states and all of our local communities. >> nisha, anything? >> the only thing that i would add building on what steve said earlier, some of these integration issues. it's interesting to look at the politics of id one hand voter and municipal id. english only on the one hand and language rights on the other. we're sort of in this conversation to put it i guess sort of euphemistically around the country about integration

issues in addition to the kind of larger question of who comes in and who goes out. and i think new york sees itself as a player in that dialogue. and it's going to be on going. it will get worse before it gets better, but that's really sort of where the states and the cities are really playing is being able to kind of put their stake in the ground in terms of what makes sense for our country moving forward. >> thank you. we have time for questions. we do have staff who would be happy to move the microphones down the rows if you're in the middle, we don't want you excluded from asking questions. go ahead. >> i have a question for the commissioner. did i hear you correctly when you said that in order to get the new york city identification card, you needed another id card? you need a photo id to get the id? there in lies the problem with

immigrants. most of the time they don't have a photo id. i mean, lot of them -- most of the time, lot of them don't have a photo id. you have to start someplace. how do you get a new york city id card if you don't have a photo id? >> yeah. the number of ids you can show is broad. foreign passports, foreign driver's licenses, employer id cards, school id cards, a rang of different things also going to have special rules where different community-based organizations or social service organizations can help establish identity and residency for individuals as well. this is sort of something that's part of our current rule making process and lots of groups have been engaged making exactly those claims saying that it's important to ensure that this is as inclusive as possible. we also have to be able to establish that the person is who they say they are. being able to find that balance has been one of the trickier operational issues for the id program. >> we'll go back and forth. >> hi. good morning.

my question is for you, senator lara. i'm a native los angelesen, i'm very proud of what our state has done. but i'm also an immigration officer with uscis. i would like to ask a question regarding how california is taking into consideration in vetting these individuals as it pertains to national security and public safety concerns. i'm just -- if you could expand a little bit -- >> under which program? >> we'll say, for example, the california driver's license laws, so you had said that you're not collaborating with the federal government, however, there are national security concerns in this country and california is not exempt from that, so if you could expand a little bit on some of the measures that the state is taking for screening and vetting individuals with national security concerns. >> that's a good question.

just as the city id, we went through this rule-making process in terms of how do we identify the person and how do we know that that's the actual person that's applying for the license? and so we went through a long rule-making process and -- but we are operating under, you know, the -- i think rightful assumption that not every immigrant is a terrorist. and so, we -- >> they're not all innocent either, though. >> correct. correct. but the majority of the folks here are not, you know -- nothing what i think would have stopped what happened in september 11th. but understanding that is that i think we in our departments are doing everything they can to ensure that we identify the person, we know that who this person is, and it is kind of a challenge of that balancing act, right, how do we encourage folks to actually -- also understanding that if a person is coming, seeking a driver's

license, they want to be part of the system, they want to identify themselves. they want to be an active member of society and be able to take their kids to school without the fear of getting their card impounded. they want to able to go to work. they want to be able to continue to contribute to our economy without that constant fear of just driving. so we're very cognizant of the that fact and obviously we're not our own country. if the federal government needs to, you know, do what they have to do to be able to identify a person, we have we have to be able to provide that. so for the safety of all of us i think it's important we get registered and get people a license so we know who's driving in our streets and living in our community. and so the beauty about living in such a diverse state is that we -- we're comfortable with being different. we're comfortable with seeing

people from different parts of the country but national security is an issue we need to address but our frame of mind is the more folks that are obtaining these driver's licenses, we know who these folks are. >> i worked on these issues in the michigan legislature when we had real i.d. that came into effect post-9/11 and the reality is that driving 11 million people underground and operating without identification and insurance 1 the strong strategy to be able to find the people who might harm us and terrorize us. that the rheeality is that havi policies with police and identifications are viewable by even those who are undocumented creates a better system for law enforcement, for national security to find the bad operators to reach. on the local level i recommend

going to the police foundation. it's a national organization that's done a lot research on undocumented communities in a proactive manner that helps create safer communities and is more respectful of undocumented communities. >> good morning, michael cooper of the plow share group. i'm a member of the new york city bar association. this has been a great panel. we've heard a lot this morning about what cities and states have done, are doing and may do in the future. i wanted to probe a little bit more the issue of what we can refuse to do and i'll point this question to you if i may, commissioner. i'm specifically interested in the state of play -- our committee in new york has testified before the city council regarding non-compliance with ice detainers. so there's one good example about what can be done. so i'd be interested to hear you talk about the state of play in new york and if other panelists have thoughts about further things that states and cities can refuse to do?

thanks. >> so the current state of play in new york city is that the city council speaker has introduced legislation that would dramatically expand and therefore dramatically decrease the extent to which new york city complies with ice detainers. specifically the law would require judicial warrant for any honoring the detainers initial matter and then even then would require a serious or violent felony conviction within the last five years. this is very different from what was possible in the prior administration where even some m.d. charges -- misdemeanor charges were causing people to have their detainers be honored. ice has been operating a trailer on rikers island, our local jail for many years now somewhat mysteriously, nobody even at the department of corrections knows how that happened so that's troubling. the local law would also remove isis facility at reichers island and at that same hearing i also testified saying that the mayor

and the administration are in support of the legislation as it currently stands we still have to go through some final negotiations but i believe it's on the margins and we will have a bill passed by the city council a that would e eliminate new york city's compliance with ice detainers. >> so what we did -- one of the big things we decided not to comply with was with the federal law that would require our local law enforcement to collaborate with federal agents and that was a bill that we did called secure communities, ensuring that what was happening -- the discussion nationally of trying to detain these bad guys wasn't translating in california. what was happening is you would get somebody who was selling you sandwiches on the corner then now now get arrested for not

having a permit to be able to sell on the street, next thing you know they're being deported, tearing families apart. and we saw that time and time again. we saw people that were intimidating home care workers saying that we're not going to pay you and we're going to tell the law enforcement that you're here illegally. so what we decided was to protect our own immigrant community in california and say we're not going to follow federal law and we're not going to adhere to that. this was a big tremendous victory and, again, changing the paradigm shift and discussion from a kind of a gotcha mentality to, like, we need to do everything we can to incorporate our immigrant community where the vast majority of good, hard-working people that want an opportunity to the american dream. why did our parents come here? why did your ancestors come here? because this is the most amazing country in the world. only in the united states of

america can the son of a seamstress and factory worker from east l.a. now serve in the eighth largest economy in the world, which is the state of california. so let's not lose that fact. people will continue to come here because this is a great place to be. it's the most amazing country but we have to ensure that we change the dialogue and that we're being pro active in saying that you're here, let's make sure we incorporate you and we lessen your fear of being a productive member of our soci y society. >> good morning, my name is martha sardines, i'm a former visa officer and i just moved to california if maryland and fortunately did not need a visa to move there. [ laughter ] so i went to a conference last week in san diego and they were talking about specifically the mexican immigration. they were overjoyed by the new law about the driver's licenses. but what i found so interesting was they referred to los angeles

as a sanctuary city and as certain suburbs of san diego as not sanctuary cities but tim grants can't leave those cities because they are less expensive and easier to live in but the local city councils, we could have a totally different panel here of local city councils that are doing everything they can to make sure immigration laws are enforced and they're kind of the reflection of what you're doing. so what my concern would be, and of course i hope that someday the federal government takes the action it needs to take would be that we start to have pockets of sanctuaries in cities that are working with law enforcement to -- like along maybe the texas border, they're going to go and enforce the law if the federal government can't do it. so i wondered if you would comment on that and how we can

bridge this divide. my interest this in conflict resolution of these issues and not to divide our country even further on this issue. >> you're absolutely right. we have a group of folks who visit my office quite often who are at the california border with mexico and you're absolutely right. it's not a -- i'm painting a picture here that california, we're progressive and we're leading immigration issues, but that has taken time and we still have pockets of -- if you see the miretta issue where these children were turned away so so

the dynamic is very vitriol nick california. we're west coast to the inland empire in california but again i think as immigrants continue to incorporate themselves in society as i gay man and you meet somebody there's lgbt it changes the rhetoric, it changes the tone and i think in 2001 when i was working on 8540 and when we were talking about how do we get students to out themselves as undocumented, it was difficult. people were scared, especially you lived your entire life thinking urn ate zen until it was time to fill out your physician-assisted suicide a to go to college. so we see these dream act students taking their lives and taking charge of their own lives

with. >> they're active open members of our society and as we introduce mortar policies, you sigh them coming out of the shadows so i think that helps. seeing immigrants as our neighbors, as our co-workers. it helps and i any that's kind of what has helped every kind of social movement is the incorporation of these communities in our mainstream society. >> i want to let those struggling south californians know that detroit is a very low-cost option. [ laughter ] very low cost. incredible value for your dollar. we are a so-called sanctuary city, something we passed about ten years ago. i actually really don't like that terminology, i don't know who created it because frankly as i just -- going back to the policing remarks, the reality is we want to create a safe environment in which people are forth coming to our local police for law enforcement. we have a lot of violent crime in the city of detroit and we need people willing to work with

the police and that requires us to focus on -- not on immigration issues when we're solving crimes and burglaries and those kinds of things but focus on policing issues and it's documented. the police foundation again shows having a policing policy that only asking about immigration status when it's critical to solving the policing issue at hand is it better policing policy for safety and what we want our police to do. so to me it's a smart policing policy. it's not about being a sanctuary city and getting involved in the federal immigration debates, it's about having good policing in our immigrant communities in the city of detroit. you can get a house for about $35,000. you can open a business for less than $100,000. we're a welcoming city. we have microenterprise training, welcome mat, whatever you need, we welcome you. >> we're about a time but i know you've been standing there waiting to ask your questions so we'll try to be brief and get you out of here. >> thank you so much.

i'm with the national latina institute for reproductive health and i wanted to thank you senator laura for your visionary leadership on health for all. it's something here in washington we've been very, very excited about. as an organization that works in places like texas and florida and on a national level we hear devastating stories of immigrant women dying from preventable diseases because of not only the restrictions on the federal and state level but the decimation of the safety net in many states. and so we know this is a long term fight but i was wondering -- and also i wanted to add the u.n. has recognized in this summer that these restrictions on immigrant access to health care violate international obligations. so we're very interested in moving the needle in these states and on the federal level where the political climate isn't as friendly. so i'd be interested in hearing some lessons learned in california that maybe could be applicable to other states or maybe some more shorter term strategies in states and on the federal level where, again, the

political climate isn't as responsive or what could apply to these more hostile situations. >> lessons learned. every immigrant group and every immigrant rights organization has their own opinion on how to fund health care for all. so of them want it completely paid by the government through our general fund and those of us are more pragmatic are trying to come up with ways of how to fund this program. we've already increased i think it was like three million people are health care rules with medical given the aca. so the work is how do we further expand it to include this vulnerable population and how will we pay for it? so the variety of opinions on how that gets done i underestimated. i thought it would be easier to get people together and figure out so now we know and we have a more clear strategy moving forward next year.

>> i'm a third year law student here at georgetown, thanks for coming today. my question is for commission t commissioner as i hope to move to new york after this and being an immigrant advocate. so we've heard a lot in the media about the new york family unit project as well as the immigrant justice core and i'm wondering what other programs are there that the city has supported and what major challenges and progress have you seen? >> sure. so quick, the new york immigrant family unity program is universal deportation defense funded by the city council, dollars, and then the immigrant justice corps is private privately funded expansion of immigration legal assistance through fellowships. that was spearheaded by judge katzman in the court of appeals. in addition to those programs, the city has funded the immigrant opportunities initiative, or ioi that sorted as discretionary city council funding and it's been baselined which means it will be part of the administration's budget time and again and that's exactly the piece of the funding we're looking at to figure out how can

we further bolster immigration legal services but do in the a way where we're engaging community-based partners who are doing lots of important work connected to that legal services so that's the process that we're in right now. i think there will be a question of the family unity program and other things, will they continue year after year, is that also something baselined? i think all of those questions are up for grabs and i think being able to establish that these legal services programs save the system money in the long term is very important and i know some research has been done on that. but also the argument we're trying to make and we'll be doing a study on is that it's important from a poverty fighting standpoint. mayor de blasio has emphasized the importance of sort of challenging inequality in our city and lack of immigration status but even not being a u.s. citizen keeps people back in many ways economically and keeps them shut out of programs that can lift them out of poverty so making that connection is central to what we want to the do.

>> stick around this afternoon for the last session on models. >> i'll make it quick or try. i work with the national community reinvestment coalition and we're interested in immigrant banking and you talk about access to health care and education, what about access to financial services? especially when immigration costs, legal costs, will be thousands of dollars over someone's lifetime. daca renewal being over $500, et cetera, how do we help -- how are you guys working with financial institutions or better yet nonprofit lenders and you talked about financial fraud and helping out against that inotarios are dubious as best. so how are you helping people finance shifting their immigration status amongst other things? >> i think you're right. financial empowerment is essential. under the framework we're working with in terms of the office of new american there is

has to be a financial empowerment component because we can talk here until we're there the face about poverty and financial equity and so forth but what what we do see, especially california, that our immigrants come with a very strong entrepreneurial spirit. i think it's a matter of survival as well. my mom when she lived here, she was here undocumented, she would sell you anything. she was selling you avon, jewelry, shoes, so i thought about the fact, how do we capture that entrepreneurial spirit? and how do we give people like my mom at that time some sort of pathway to allow herself to build her own business? or if you're selling tamma inin the corner, how do you turn it into the best tamale maker in california and become world renown for your tamales. so we're wokking with a lot of the financial institutions, the big banks in california and

nationally because it behoos them as well. they see this as a new market, especially california. so they're part of the discussion. when we look at the smaller banks, the community banks, they're all in the table with us having these discussions of how do we encourage them even just to bank on. we talk about the bank on san francisco, bank on california, there's been bank on movements all over incorporating our immigrants to the financial institutions. not only that by allowing them and helping them to build wealth and saying it's okay to build wealth. you want to leave something for the next generation and you shouldn't feel bad about that. we're changing that discussion as well in california. it's a big component of our office of new americans and it's a great point you brought up. >> we could have give youn a loan through our prosperous microloan program. [ laughter ] and second of all i hope detroit loerk tee low and these rest

belt cities have land bank property that we're having problems because undocumented people who have a history of buying vacant property, moving in and creating homeownership? urban neighborhoods post-9/11 some of the security things that we've put into place can no longer get home mortgages. so we have a huge problem of financing that and we have to figure out what the solutions are and we're trying to do that everyday on the ground right now. >> so for the last question, my name is ellen street and i work for dsf consulting and we do professional development for teachers that work with esl students so often times when we're try empathize with esl families and try to get them involved and connected they're afraid when we send anything home, especially when it's in edge english or just in general, why am i being called in? parent teacher conferences how much do you suggest we begain conversation to bridge to esl

families? >> as somebody who lived that firsthand i think we need to have a conversation with our immigrant communities the level of respect that immigrants have toward education authority figures like a teacher, very, very well respected so whatever the teacher says is kind of law in our family. and so -- but what w that said, there is this issue of immigrants and my own experience i can speak of you get dropped off at school and they go to work. parents go to work two, three jobs and they assume that you're educating their child. so there's an organization i belonged to that that integrates a lot of the immigrant communities even-to-even let them understand what a school board is, what a principal what

your rights are as a parent. how to read your child's report card. we need more investment in these organizations that help integrate the parents more into the educational system because they're very different depending on what part of the world you come from so we need more of the resources to help transition the parents to understand our own educational system which varies from state to state, city to city. so it's a very complex issue but very important for us to continue dialoguing. >> let's give a round of applause to our fabulous speakers. [ applause ] our next panel begins at 11:30, that's in about ten minutes. thank you, everybody.

>> okay, i think we're going to get started, welcome back from lench. i know it was shorter than you like bud we had fascinating panels this morning in addition to director rodriguez speaking. we started out well so the challenge for my panel will be to continue that. i know they're very capable of doing that. in 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 in 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 count rise. i want to say a couple words before i introduce our panelists, each of whom will talk for about 10, 125 minutes then we'll open it up to a full q&a. once again, when we get to q and

tar , a, please come down to the microphones and introduce yourselves. we know the unaccompanied minors from three central american countries -- 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 gradually then somewhat significant significantly one could say. 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, 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 is one of the major factors in their flights, that's not something that's been debated. many, we've learned, are also coming to join families. so we'll have a full discussion, though, of what's happened since they came here. we also learned very recently in this 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 edge sure that kids don't have to flee violence and in terms of their returns, if and when that takes place, we

have ambassador altschul, the ambassador of el salvador to the united states, he's directly to my right. and next to him to be able to talk about the way that the justice department, immigration courts in particular are handing the increased numbers of children in a variety of ways we have barbara lean, the council to the director of the executive office from immigration review directly to the ambassador's right. and to barbara's right we have maria welchen who is not only a professor at the university of chicago where she is a -- teaches a variety of courses on immigration-related issues but she is director of the young center for immigrant children's rights who has been working to develop a significant core of child add cats. 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've asked maria to talk about what her organization, the young center, does. how the most recent increases in numbers have affected the organization and particularly about the concept of best interest of the child and knew is being deployed and some of the challenges with that. so we're going to begin with ambassador altschul. you'll see some panelists will sit, some will stand, i've invited them to do whatever's most comfortable. so we'll begin with you, ambassador. thank you. >> thank you very much. first of all, let me thank the organizers of this event for giving me the opportunity of sharing this panel with such distinguished persons and you all. as it was said by andrew my inauguration is not new. and even the migration of

unaccompanied children is not necessarily new in -- just in the case of el salvador, in 2009 there's records of 1, 00 unaccompanied children coming here to the united states. in fiscal year 2012 this increased to 3,300. in fiscal year 2004, which is referred to as the "crisis" we had 16,000. so silt 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 only -- 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's always mentioned that economic reasons are a fundamental cause and it is true. i mean, people migrate because they can not find the opportunities in their 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 isn't s not in itself an explanation of why the 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 situati situation. the crime rate, et cetera, the gang violence and so forth

clearly are push factors. actually, right now honduras is consider to be the most violent country in the world and 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 so this is going on, it's true. there are push factors. but in the case of el salvador, at least, things haven't gotten worse, they have improved. so therefore that by itself doesn't explain either this surge another important factor mentioned very family reunification. again talking about el salvador, we have thousands of

salvadorians so we're 200,000 salvadorians 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. they haven't seen them ten, 12 years, so now they have the means, they have the stability they say this is the most 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 itself does not explain situation. what is it that has changed in my perception which explain this is? it's basically i think an issue of the smugglers, the coyotes. the coyotes have discovered that if they send a message that if the kids came to the states and they came in they were not going to be deported, they even -- we know that they were telling

people, you know, they will get the green card, they might be given citizenship so this is something that was a marketing strategy. a very successful marketing strategy and i think that explains why. because what we are seeing -- i had the opportunity to visit the border three or four weeks ago. we were at a detention center in carnes and had an opportunity to talk with a lot of mothers there and the kids and we asked how long did the trip take? they say well, 10 days, 12 days, 15 days. well, we know traditionally this journey took two months, three months. 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 and it is

referred to as the vip treatment or the express treatment. we know people pay between $8,000, $10,000, or $12,000 to bring one person in. so this is a big, big business and i think this is what expl n explains without taking any relevance or importance to the other push factors but this is what i think explains the surge. now i think it's important to also see that in these three issues, the economic situation that we are facing, the security situation we are facing and the issue of family reunification, it is true that those are more the responsibility of our countries. but it is also a shared responsibility with the united states because if we are now seeing the effects of economic policies that that have been coming for many, many years that

create it had marginalized population and excluded the great numbers of of our people, this was in part also the responsibility of the u.s. police at those times supporting many military dictatorships in central america and authoritarian regimes and supporting basically the ruling elites that created in this economic situation. in the case of security there is also some sort of shared responsibility because the majority of the violence that we are receiving, that we're having in our countries has to do with drug trafficking. and we are unfortunately in a very important geographical 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 based by geographical

reasons that we are suffering a lot of this. and in terms of the family reunification, i would say as well there is some shared responsibility because many of the 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, of course, to this yes j.c. we have reinforced our consular offices in the border states. we have opened a new conditions lats general in mcallen, texas. we have increased our corporation with ice and u.s. authorities. we have improved the reception

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

one of the things that came out there was that the countries would prepare with the help of the inter-american development bank a plan to address this situation. this plan is already 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 has been the work of our three governments working together, which is very important. it's not very easy 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 territory

which is produce the largest number of migrants so it's to implement concrete projects in those territories to provide better security, better job opportunity, better education, better health care in order to create the conditions that would if not prevent at least mitigation the migration. that is what we are -- we know very well that will that is -- 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 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. >> thank you very much ambassador. i'll ask each of our panelists to speak first and then we'll be

opening it up to questions. so, barbara? >> thank you very much for having me here this afternoon. as many of you know, we're the board of immigration appeals. after the kids came through this summer 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 going to be temporarily and they're reunified they come to us for their legal proceedings 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 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 and then i'll speak a little bit to representation and a bit about our next steps.

many of you know one of the things that we did in response to the influx this summer was this we added additional priority groups to pre-existing party for detained cases. what that meant was that we were prioritizing the cases of recent border crossers which was loosely defined as people came who came on or after may 1. 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 released into the alternative detention program and all other detained aliens. so they're the recent border crosser priority caseload. i'll focus on the kids because that's the topic of this discussion. so we started processing priority cases july 18. 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 from the dhs's filing of the nta with the immigration court. so we just need to make sure they get in and start their case within that 21-day period. so one thing that's on everyone's mind is representation and access to legal services for the 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 reiterated that with our judges as we knew they were going to see more case s and the procedures they can take in order to improve pro bono participation in the court system. with we created specialized children's dockets so we can ensure children are not coming to court the same time as adults so those child-friendly procedures can be implemented in that special time when the kids are there. we in addition expanded immigration judge training and we expanded the legal orientations program for the custodians of unaccompanied alien children. so it's important to know that program is something that the office of resettlement runs know your rights presentations for the children but our program focuses 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 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 we did this summer because that program, the lopc program as we cowl it, doesn't operate everywhere. we expanded a national call center that allows custodians that are in area where this program -- the in-person program is not operational to call into a center and ask questions, try to understand what's going on with the kids. get an understanding of 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 a partnership for the corporation for national community service. a lot of you know that as the americorps or vista program where they put about $2 million of its funds to start what's called the justice americorps program ma where we'll be funding about 100 attorney and paralegals to provide direct representation to qualifying children. these typically children that are under -- that are 15 and under who are going to immigration court so we expect that to be operating in about 15 cities and it's basically what you can imagine we're utilizing the acare comericorps program t lawyers into the courtrooms with the kids. so it's a new partnership and it's really exciting. we expect the attorneys and the paralegals to be on the ground in about january, the beginning of the year. so i think for us we're

anxiously anticipating that program getting on the ground and operating in our courts. we work very closely with the office of refugee resettlement because they also fund some programs to provide legal services to the children and so we work in tandem to make sure 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 a s about how thes feel when they go through but also 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. so in addition to that we are undergoing a lot of outreach. i see a couple faces in the room that i know i met with a few times this summer and will probably continue to meet with this year right now our director and deputy director are in texas going to the six sty cities that have the most unaccompanied alien children in them in order to meet with legal service providers and adjudicators and people on the ground in these cities to see what it is the agency can do to help process these kids through the immigration court in a way that assists the legal services groups in the area in being able to have access to provide the kids greater levels of legal services 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 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 having model hearing programs to try and train the nonprofit attorneys, i think a lot of you in here are immigration attorneys so you know what you're doing when you get to court but 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 when they get in there. so our judges are volunteering their time to try to teach those real estate attorneys how immigration court goes so those are a few things we're doing to try and work together with groups. with the national groups and local groups to increase the access to legal services a lot of people are asking us, great, enough priority caseload, we get it. what about everyone else? what about my asylum client who

i've been working with for several years and not to put too fine a point on it, but as those cases of those kids and some of the recent border crossers and our detained caseload are priorities, there are other cases that simply are not. so what ens up happening is some of the cases for non-detained individuals who are not considered priority caseload get bumped back and they get bumped out further, you don't have to tell me those cases are waiting a long time in our court system, we know. so we are 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 in making our resource needs very clear. we're continue ago hiring effort, we should get about 25

new judges on this year. 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 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. 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 resourcis with need handle the full caseload that we have. and the other thing we're looking at is finding ways to increase the efficiencies in immigration court. seeing what we can do about trying to encourage pre-hearing conferences. doing proffers, that sort of thing, 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 -- to utilize those resources and institutionalize those practices in a way that allows us to efficiently process those cases while making sure everybody is heard. i look forward to taking any of your questions. >> okay, thank you very much, barbara. >> okay, i'm going to stand up. >> excellent, maria. >> i just want to start by thanking andy and don and mpi for inviting me here today. it's great to get to talk to all of you and see so many faces that i nknow i have a to say after this morning's last panel a lot of this is going to seem pie in the sky. or at least it did to me after the last panel because we're advocating there be a best-interest standard for unaccompanied children and that all decisions be made in accordance with the child's best

interest. but we need to keep our eye on what may happen next and 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 significant numbers. so i want to start with 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 an 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,

criminal background check, child abuse check, lots of checks before we move that child and it's the same with or, or doesn't release a child without going through a 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 no system in place for even making a minimum inquiry about that. so i want to add to what andy said at the beginning about what's happening right now. the number of children arriving at the border has decreased. 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 other reasons, for example bolstered borders by guatemala, mexico deporting many more children, beefing up enforcement. what we do know is children are being deported from the mexico border, the mexico/guatemala border and the violence has not abated in the three central american countries. so 68,000 children arrived last year and they are here and 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. andy said i would tell you what we do. so we're based at the university

of chicago and we serve as child advocates for unaccompanied children. this is very system in child protection systems to a best interest guardian ad litem. to so our job is advocating for the best interests of unaccompanied children. i will also tell you we have no best interest statute in our immigration law. krg said that, that's our job so we advocate for their interest even in the absence of the law. a child advocate was provided by for the tvpra of 2008. hhs has the ability to appoint independent child advocates and in a slightly backwards way 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 child added a vats be inspect. we are not the attorneys who represent the children even though some of us are attorneys. 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. why is this important? because often times we have to advocate with all of these different services providers and sometimes even with attorney wes 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 ear arguing 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 vulnerable so tender age kids where there's a custody issue. a child who has a mental health issue. a child whose who has been abused, a girl who's pregnant as a result of rain, 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 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 unbelievably busy, we have an office in texas where most of the kids are coming in. those cases are the most difficult and complicated. very young children, situations of abuse, situations where we don't know who the parents are 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 happened until now.

so the government has asked us to open offices in three new locations, houston, new york, and washington, d.c. so that's just one of the side things that have happened as a result of the influx. so our philosophy, though, is that best interests should be driven by children's rights so this means what the child wants is very, very important and in most cases we will not go against that unless the child's safety is at issue. we can't just say that honduras is dangerous and he shouldn't go back, we have to have very fact-specific information about that child. we have to be subject to cross-examination by the child's attorney, by the judge, by the trial attorney we have to prove what we're saying. best interests, i want to talk a little bit about that. first of all, it's the law of all 50 states. it's also the law, obviously, on the convention of the rights of

the child and the crc, that language came from our laws yet when it comes to immigrant children there is no best interest standards. what does best interest mean? well, there's not a precise definition. it varies case by case depending on the child's situation. in kate court it means that a judge when they're placing a child or making a decision about that child has to consider is the child going to be safe, is the child going to be separated from family against the child's will or against the parents' will? is this what the child wants? so i would say this is also really important for immigrant children in that we need to have a system in place where we make an assessment of whether a child will be safe whatever the decision is, whether the child is going to stay or return that

the child should be able to express their own opinion and that we will only oppose that child's expressed wishes if he or she is going to be in danger. so we don't have federal law to look to so we have to look to international law, convention on the rights of the child. we look at comparative law, cases from other countries then we look at the law of the state where the child is custody and analyze the child's case according to those factors. then we take that information, put it into a report and put in the the hands of the decision maker be it immigration judge, the ice officer, orr, whoever is making a decision about that child. so i said earlier there's no -- we don't have best interest standards but i would like to say there has been progress. so over the last year agencies have been involved in getting together as a group with ngos to

develop a best interest framework for unaccompanied children and they're doing in this the absence of an actual statute. this is being done through the inner agency working group on unaccompanied children fund bid the macarthur founding day and the idea is to come out with a framework so that people in these agencies can take the child's best interest into consideration when making decisions. it's not going to be required. nobody is going to sign this document, certainly, but it will when it's finished by a document that everyone participated in drafting. and i just want to be clear about best interests. this does not mean the decision maker, the immigration judge, or ice, these make a decision that is in the child's best interest. that judge can also consider safe toy the community, national security, there may be a myriad of other factors that that judge can consider but what it means

is that judge has to look at what's in the child's best interest, that child's safety and that it should be a very important factor, especially we're going to be removing a child, separating phlegm family, from all they know, it should be a so, okay. back to what's happening right now. as barbara said, it's prioritizing cases involving children. they're getting speedier times when they have to appear in court. some judges are still granting lengthy continuances, but some judges are granting much shorter continuances. and as you all know, kids have to find their own attorneys. i also think it's fantastic that all of the government agencies, eoar and o.r.r. are working to provide attorneys for kids. and i think that's also another side benefit to the influx is that agencies are much more concerned with having attorneys for the kids. i also think -- and this is my

own personal belief -- that neither judges nor immigration officers like having to make a decision about a child in front of them without an attorney representing them. and so i think that there's an impetus in the agencies to have representation for kids. the other fantastic thing that's happened is that there are now dockets for released children. so it used to be, for example, in chicago, a child who is released in or around chicago came to court, any given day of the week, any given time to any different judge, and so there was absolutely no way for anybody to serve these kids. no way for a lawyer to be present and represent all the kids. and that's changed. eoar is now having all of its courts set up dockets for released children. i think this is really important and a big step towards getting representation for these kids.

so here's the other reality about right now. we're really not deporting kids right now. the kids who came in recently during this recent influx, they are not being removed. but -- and this goes back to that earlier panel today, which was pretty much doom and gloom, if things change, we may start seeing lots of kids deported in very significant numbers. so i think we're really faced with two problems when it comes to kids. has that child been able to access protection? and that just goes back to did they get a lawyer? and then even if they have a lawyer, are they going to qualify for any of the forms of relief that are available? because our system for the most part was built for adults. i also think that there's a misconception among some, although probably nobody in this room, but among others that if the child is determined not to be eligible for any form of relief, he'll be safe if he goes back. and i think that's really untrue.

first of all, many kids still don't have attorneys. i think it is nigh impossible for children to get emigration relief without an attorney. nobody is going to disagree with that. i think pro bono programs are fantastic and really critical, but there needs to be money for the agencies that have to mentor those attorneys. as barbara said, that real estate attorney really doesn't know what he's doing when he goes into immigration court without an organization backing him up. i think asylum is very difficult to establish. it's difficult for an adult. it's difficult for a child that on-account-of language and these five factors. these kids have to make that same case, and it's really difficult. we do have special immigrant juvenile visas for kids who have

been abused, abandoned and neglected. it's wonderful. it's a good law. i think, you know, countries in europe are very envious that we have this law. very imperfect. in chicago, in cook county, children cannot get into our juvenile court if they are detained, for the most part. in lots of parts of the country, it's impossible to get into juvenile -- excuse me, juvenile court for a variety of reasons. and so we really do need a best-interest standard because a lot of these kids, even if they go through the system, even if they get a lawyer sometime, there may not be any form of relief available to them. so i just want to talk a little bit, too, go the gap cases. and that's what i mean by kids who don't qualify. and that was a term coined by andy. so, you know, what it means is the child's case doesn't fit neatly within a form of protection. but it's not in the child's best interests, safety or well-being for him to return. so a couple of examples. child's parents are in the united states. 12-year-old boy in home country, let's say honduras, is living with grandparents. one of the grandparents dies. the grandmother gets really ill

and can no longer take care of the child. so she sends the child to the united states. his parents are here. his parents are undocumented. so what's in this child's best interests? he wants to do the right thing. he wants to go to court. he wants to do all that's expected of him. but he's not going to qualify for these forms of relief. and yes, there is prosecutorial discretion. and in some places, that is available. the trial attorney will exercise discretion. but that child still has no avenue for permanency, and really, it's another person added to the 11 million in this country. it's also very difficult in some jurisdictions to get prosecutorial discretion. another example, a girl from china, she comes, everybody knows she's got all these kids

come, they get smuggled over here. the parents typically make the arrangement. and the kid has an $80,000 debt. she's still in custody. she hasn't begun working. and so she's destined for trafficking. but the trafficking hasn't yet happened. and the second problem is how does she prove coercion? it was her parents who sent her. now, i would argue that you do what your parents say. in not my kids, but lots of other people's. but she's got -- that's a burden of proof for her in establishing trafficking for labor case. so then there are the cases that i think are really complicated for judges. where the child -- and we've seen this a lot -- and we call it detention fatigue. a child has been in custody for a very long period of time. and they've given up. it's a child who's probably eligible for some form of relief.

you know, my example is, says two of my friends were killed. i know i'll be killed if i go back, and i want to go home. so we recently had a case involving a 17-year-old boy from central america. he fled. his mother was a drug trafficker. he was deeply distressed by that and wanted to get away from her. his dad died when he was very young. and he was being threatened by the gangs. so not an uncommon situation. in the u.s., he was hoping to reunify with a man. he was an american tourist he had met. and it was determined that this guy had -- he was a registered sex offender. so there was an investigation. office of refugee resettlement obviously determined this boy cannot be released to this man, but the boy had no other sponsors in the united states. he's been detained for five months. and he just can't take it anymore. and i want to say, you know, shelter, people who work there are absolutely wonderful. the kids are cared for very well. but you're locked up. you cannot leave. many places.

you have to be escorted from one room to another. it's really tough on kids to be in custody. but the child tells his attorney, i want to go. i want you to ask for voluntary departure. and if you can't get that, i want removal. so this child has a child advocate, and the child advocate goes to the judge and tells the judge all the reasons this child won't be safe. he's got nobody to go back to. he's been threatened by the gangs. he has said and even said in the court that he wants a quick death. it's better for him than sitting in custody. so what should happen? the judge listens in this case but doesn't know what to do because there's no guidance on a case like this. what our judge in chicago does is punt. she will continue the case for a month, and she'll tell the child

i'm going to continue and ask the child, is that okay? and most kids are going to say yes, judge, that's fine. and then she'll admonish everybody to work really hard to get this child out of this restrictive placement. and in most cases, the child will change his or her mind. not in every case, but in many cases. but that doesn't solve the larger issue, which is that this judge is being called on to make a decision about a child when knowing or having factual information that this child might not be safe if that order of removal is issued. so i think we need a plan, a process. i also think, you know, we're all in this together. this is a regional problem. we have to work with el salvador, honduras, guatemala to figure out what's going to happen next if kids are going to be deported. as you heard this morning, families are being deported. it's not yet happening to children, but we don't know what's going to happen in the next few months. we certainly thought it was going to happen at the beginning of the summer. and from what we've been told, nothing is really taken off the table at this point. so it could still happen.

and so one of the questions is what are the sending countries doing? are they going to be capable of receiving thousands of kids back in their countries? so i just want to go back to my original point, which was in our country, in every system, we have a system in place before we send a child, we check to make sure they're going to be safe. we check to make sure there aren't red flags. at the very least, there are no red flags to say this child is going to be in danger if he goes back. and really at essence, when it comes to determining best interests, that's what it is about. it is about safety. so thank you very much for your attention. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, maria. so why is immigration law different from every other aspect of american law? we'll pick that up after you have a chance to start asking questions. so for those who would like to pose any questions to our