after the defeat of isis. they'll hear from the senate foreign relations committee. beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> the c-span bus continues its 50 capitol tour this month. with stops in columbia, atlanta and montgomery. on each visit we'll speak with state officials. follow the tour and join us on wednesday at 9:30 a.m. eastern. for our stop in north carolina. on our washington journal guest is north carolina attorney general josh. >> one law that might see significant change is the temporary protected status program which allows foreign visitors from countries hit by national disasters to remain in the u.s. legally. we talked about the program with the president of the migration policy institute.

>> our first guest of the morning. of the migration policy institute. serves as president here to talk about refugees protected under the temporary protected status program. >> this vs set up in 1990. the idea the president would have discretion to let certain people who are in the country already stay here for a temporary period of time. because of a natural disaster or civil war. something happening in the country that makes it difficult to go back chl this was set up for a number of different countries. often it's been the ebola out break. with civil war in africa. with natural disaster in central america. to give people a chance to stay in the country and have a work permit. >> the program came under scrutiny this week particularly with the issue of the el salvador. >> the program has been going on

since 2001 since an earthquake. that's a long time. 17 years. the white house made the sdis that was not temporary. that had gone on too long and they were going to end it. the reason other presidents let it go on is these are people in the country a long time. and they are very integrated in american society. they had legal work permits since 201. so other administrations haven't wanted to end it. the trump administration decided it should end. >> that pushes back against the idea of temporary. and that's a political issue. >> one side says it's a temporary program. we should keep it temporary. they gave 18 months for people to leave. the other side these are hard working contributing members to the society and sould stay. >> designation was 1990.

haiti and nepal. how many categories exist as far as protection is concerned. >> i don't know how many exist now. they have been being reduced by the trump administration. haitians have 18 months to leave. hon durs and pseudsudan. >> if i'm wurn one of the people that got the announcement. what does that mean for me? >> it's a life changing announcement. they haven't been back in 20 years they don't have deep roots anymore and have been contributing members of american society. raised their kids here. and they don't know what to do. they don't know if they stay in the u.s. and try sdp stay out of the sight. or do they try to move back to a country they don't know anymore. that has real violence going on. >> if they decide to stay what happens to them? >> some may keep working and no one is notices.

others mean taking a big pay cut and moving into the shadows. >> any moment of the day they can be caught. the government probably won't go after them and looking for the folks. but aat any point they get caught they could be sent back. >> our guest with us to talk about the this idea of temporary protected status program. when it comes to the groups of people including el salvador. if you want to ask questions about that you can do so on the phone line. for democrats. and republicans. and independence 2027488002. if you are a recipient or under this program and you want to give talk about your experience, it's 2027488003. the number to call. the white house is reaction to allow people time to get out of the country. how does that compare to other administrations? >> they have been generous on the time. they understand there's a

hardship. one of the thips is u.s. has a major multi-billion dollar effort to help el salvador build rule of law. they have been violent and poor. we're trying to help the countries develop. these countries depend on the folks here. it's a generous amount of time. obviously even with 18 mornts if your life has been here 20 years that's not a lot hof time. >> those under tps are not technically refugees. are they classed for refugees. >> refugees have real direct persecution. they were affected by general conditions in thaer country. frankly el salvador there's been a country that has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. people said these people may not be subject to direct persecution

but do we want to send them back to a country where they could be subject to danger. >> if someone has that status where can they work, benefits. >> if you have tps you can do anything an american can in terms of work. you can't vote. you can do anything in terms of work. you have a work permit. they had real legal lives in the united states. for a long time. other thing you can't do is for most cases it's hard to transition to a green card. it's hard to actually stay in the country and get another status. that was built into the statute. made very hard for people to transition. and that's another question we talk about. it's a big issue. people might qualify for other kinds of relief to stay in the country but can't because of the way it's written. >> as far as benefits. welfare, healthcare. what's available to them? >> allowed to have some benefits after five years in the country. very few seem to have welfare

benefits but they are allowed to access. especially with citizen children. most of the folks have 25 years do have citizen children. >> medicaid? healthcare at least provided by state or federal government. >> i plooef after five years in the country. im not 100% about that. >> more questions will come. calls from you first. jack in arizona. you're calling on our independent line. go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: thanks for taking the the call. i'm a firm believer. we bring up this phrase we're all immigrants. i'm a tenth generation american. i fermly believe from a strong military family, i believe in immigration. but like australia or canada it has to be merit based. these immigrants from all over

the world come, they absolutely put us in a position of whether it's medically, education or just a strain on the economy. horrible. they already shown it. i watched the news every night. 80% of the news is crime by a different culture that are problems. and let's face the facts here, if we don't stop this, there's we're going to go broke or there's a civil war. >> yeah thanks for your comment. immigrants are much less likely to commit crime than native born americans. there maybe stories on the news. there have been studies on this. unauthorized immigrants are much lez likely to commit crimes. maybe one fifth as much. what we don't know is economic benefit. there's some dispute. it seems over all immigration helped the u.s. economy.

it helped entrepreneur ship. immigrants are twice as likely to start a business. there's competition in the economy. the other thing with know is right now almost half of immigrants come into the country have a college degree. which is more than native born americans. a third. immigrants about half. 40%. we were actually surprised when we found this. >> from maryland. republican line. >> caller: hi, am i on the air? i wanted to ask your guest to comment a bit about temporary protective status which is what he's supposed to talk about. and advance parole. i know personally that a lot of people from el salvador that come to the country that are on

tps mean they haven't been inspected. they just show up crossing the border. as we know. and then they will get an advance parole. which means we will allow them to go back to their home native country for many reasons. and then allow them to come back into the country. and continue to stay in the country illegally. now i would like him to explain to everybody else out there that what advance parole and tps together do for us. that are here. and that was my first comment. the second comment a lot of those people on tps are also have their children here. that are members of daca. which means their children here are also legally they all came here illegally and all go back on the advance parole and all come back. and continue to be here illegally. >> thank you. >> yeah, good question. advance parole allows people who are here legally who have legal

status like tps or any of the refugee status. any number of categories where they have been legally inspected already and admitted into a legal program. but they are not in category like a green card. it allows you to go back. you have to a specific reason. there has to be a child getting married or passing away. there's some reason that's compelling. a number of people apply for that. it's worth saying people who have tps sdp been here since 201. it's hard for them to leave the country. you have to apply specifically to the u.s. government and have a compelling reason. they are often granted and often denied. so most people don't apply for advance parole. it's a small percentage. some do because they have things going on in their country of origin they want to go back for.

>> what's the ratio of those looking for tps and those who get it. >> anyone who is el salvador in 2001. as long as they didn't have a criminal background. if you didn't have a major criminal conviction you could get it. it was high. no one knew at the time they were going to get tps. you had to be here in 2001. you couldn't walk in 2003 and say let me do it retro actively. it was luck of the draw that year. >> if you apply for it and don't have a criminal conviction. they do a background inspection. there are criteria. there are ways you can exclude if you're a threat to american society. but most people get it. >> she mentioned children if a person receives tps can they bring tengextended members of t family. >> it doesn't give you benefits

that other kind of legal status do. it was set up to be temporary. if you came in with a child who was eligible for daca. that's probably a small number. there's a number of people that fit in the category. >> our guest. if you want to see the person's findings or research he's talking about. go to migration policy.org. all the research available to you. a little bit about your organization. >> we're a think tank that looks at migration policy. a research organization. non-partisan. we don't take positions we're not for or against tps or daca. we try and understand trends in the u.s. immigration policy. how people are integrating in american society. how people become parts of american society. and we work a lot on the rest of the world. and we have an office in europe. >> were you surprised by the administrations decision? >> not at all. they have been clear. the trump administration sees

temporary programs and this includes data and tps as temporary that shouldn't be sustained over time. partially it's a change in philosophy. they believe as one of the callers indicated earlier that immigration is harmful for the economy. this is a shift in how the government sees immigration. that's a piece of it. the other piece is they have taken the position that temporary programs should be temporary. and should be done by legislation. we have seen this on daca. we'll end this but president trump said if you give me a legislative fix i'm sympathetic to this group. i'll sign it. it's the sense they want fewer immigrants but everybody the immigrants they want through regular order. that congress approved. >> ruth in california. independent line. >> caller: good morning.

i have a comment and a question. the comment is that i'm sympathetic to gat ma l.a. because i lived there in 1980 and saw the massive genocide. of innocent indigenous people. and thought they should have protected status. and the same thing with el salvador and nicaragua. so i'm sympathetic to that plight. the other question the question i have is about the ar men yan. i live in the los angeles area. we have this huge screen of armenian that came into the country are protected status. that were no matter what their financial situation was, they

were eligible for medical. and all kind of benefits because they were refugees. and i don't know how long if that is that forever? when people get that -- i know you say now there's certain time limits but it seemed like they had no time limit at all. >> thanks, ruth. >> thank you. i don't know the specifics on the case. there are two different ways. one is if you come in with temporary sta us you have fewer rights. and it is temporary. which is why we're seeing it end. temporary can fwo on for a long time. there's no assurance. the others refugee or asylum process. you have a real fear of persecution. that's permanent. we accept a certain number. it's a different process.

we accept people we check their cases. we figure out if first of all they're someone we want in the country and do they have a real fear of persecution. once we say why e we do a series of things to help them integrate. a place to go. there's a set of services around that. and they can become a permanent resident and a citizen of the united states. my guess is the people you're referring to probably came in from ar men ya or turkey. through refugee status. that's a permanent process. >> democrat line from california. nick, hi. >> caller: hi. one comment and question. there's always the argument that the foreigners taking everyone's jobs. when clearly that's not the case. they take the jobs that americans wouldn't take anyway. my question is not with everyone of course, but do you think with some people there's an under lying, unconscious racism?

>> there could be. that's an issue that we have trouble researching. we have not gotten into the cultural factors and whether people are uncomfortable with that. what i can tell you there is what we know over all is that almost all studies show immigrants are net benefit to the economy. that they are hugely entrepreneurial. it's a big part of the engine of silicon valley and small and medium size businesses. small stores and restaurants. there can be effects. and here's there's reasonable people agree. on whether immigrants compete for certain jobs. there's debates about this in silicon valley. whether certain jobs low level jobs. high professional jobs and lower down in silicon valley. are being competed for unfairly by people coming in and people abusing the rules to do that. there are questions in for

people with less than high school degrees if there's competition. there are competing studies. it's hard to tell. there's something reasonable people can disagree. there maybe a net benefit for us. there could be tension further down in specific job categories where it does make a difference. you knows, people disagree. >> this morning new york times they have an editorial of the plight of el salvador here under tps. 2016 about 4.6 billion in remittances counted for 17% of el salvador economy. how much of the effort when it comes to tax. how much put in by american. >> it's large. you have to figure all immigrants pay taxes. we all pay taxes. even if we manage to feed uncle sam beat uncle sam on the income taxes. we're paying sales tax and property tax.

mostly the people who are legal occupations. unauthorized immigrants some pay income tax. some don't. with tps they're all in the formal and pay tax. they quite a bit in the u.s. and send quite a bit home to families. they're helping people back home. >> for those who are americans they have a social security number tied, how does that work sfwl they have social security numbers as well. they have the trappings of an american life in many ways. there are few things they can't access. at least economically they had an american life. >> voting was a right or no. >> voting is not a right. they can't vote. and can't transition to other legal categories. going to work having a legal job. paying taxes. >> as far as voting aspect how do you make sure they don't

vote? >> you are supposed to have proof of citizen ship when you show up. so far as we can tell there have been isolated abuses of that. very isolated. and it's actually something there rb surveys. central american immigrants. they find actually voting is not something very high on peoples radar screen. they want to be in the country to earn money and raise children. there's the education system. they're not terribly interested in the voting side. they might love it if they become citizens some day. it's not a principle view. >> greg is next. he's in virginia. independent line. >> caller: where do i start? this guy seems like he's playing it up the middle. until the last comment. about the remittances. so what they graduate from college half of them whatever. art or some useless thing that's not helping the country. when they get to the age of

voting the guy said he's a lawyer. i'm sure he's here to help his immigrant friends and 90% vote democrat. which will lead the country down the communist road. >> question or comment please. >> i work in construction. i watched c-span over the years. i have heard painters and dry wallers call in and say they have taken jobs from them. they under cut them. they under cut the american. they live three families to a home. i can go on and on. you have to enforce 287. my wages have not gone up in years because i go up on job sites this is heavy construction. iron work. concrete work. raising multi-story buildings. and i can't there's no one that speaks english. everyone is headed to the roads coach speaking spanish or some other foreign dialect. >> does he have some type of point? >> this is the question. is there economic competition. some people look at

construction. and found there isn't. but i haven't. your view is as good as mine. you're seeing what you're seeing. what we do know is this has been the history of the united states. this is 100 years ago people from italy and ireland were coming in. go back further people from germany. people work long hours they live much more sparsely than people are willing to do. and they try and be very entrepreneurial. does that under cut people here, probably not. people have other assets. which is why the competition isn't as clear. people speak english and have cultural skills. yes people maybe willing to do things americans aren't. native born americans have a whole set of assets to their benefit. >> a couple largers issues. are we seeing any trends

emerging from the trump administration on how they approach refugees. >> we have seen a cut in the refugee cap. more than half. the obama administration raised the cap. and the trump administration decided to cut it to 45,000. it was 110,000. we were allowed to go up to that many. we're taking fewer refugees than canada and other countries around the world at the moment. their position on this would be that we need to get our security situation straight. woer taking people from countries like syria. where people are good legitimate folks fleeing a dangerous regime. you might get a terrorist in there. we need to beef up security. the other side would say look these are people overwhelmingly with a real fear of persecution. we do a good job of vetting people and should be a leader in the world. the u.s. has been a leader on

receiving refugees. it's a big reputation around the world. we take in those fleeing persecution. >> for those the trump administration accepts. what are we seeing as trends. certain countries certain dat goirs. >> much hasrder for certain countries to come in. there's extra vetting and narrow windows you have to go through to come here. it's shifting the balance away from a number of muslim majority countries. it's not -- i think we're stressing it's not a muslim ban. that one point trump talked about they become subtle in this. and so but they are looking at countries where there's a fear a reasonable fear there could be terrorist infiltration. people in the refugee side tell us we have some of the best vetting in the world. it takes a year and a half to get into the u.s. we do lots of background checking. it's a question of how much more we can do. >> what was your take away from

the discussions at the white house yesterday over daca? >> it's interesting. in many ways when you get down to a people are not as far apart on the ideas as we sometimes think. in this country we have a template we know we're an immigrant society. people are sympathetic to immigrants and immigrants who have come in as children. on the other hand we're also a country of law. and people know that we have to be able to enforce the laws that we have. and includes immigration. when you hear them talk around the table you can see the glimmer of how we can have a civilized conversation and work out daca in return for enforcement measures. and everyone president trump put this on the table. talk about a larger immigration reform. how do we police this and make sure we have enforcement. when you get to the details it becomes messier. big ideas like yesterday to the we get lost along the way. >> ohio next.

we'll hear from david on the loin for democrats. >> caller: okay, hi. my question is considered in the temporary status of the people why are they paying social security? they'll never get the social security money back. so why are they paying into that? and my second question what happened to the debt that these people have accrued when they deport from the country? that's considering the daca and everybody else. >> good questions. the paying social security because if you stay long enough or adjust. there are narrow ways like if you get married to an american citizen. in certain cases depending how you came in the country it gets comp collated. american citizen children can apply for you to stay. there are some ways some people can stay. and this is actually in the court right now to figure out

who can stay. even as the categories who have been married or citizen children. there's ways people can stay. we have people pay in. this is anyone that comes to work in the u.s. you pay into social security. there's always the chance you might stay. debt is an interesting one. in theory if you suddenly get deported and owe a mortgage. you default. unless you pay from your country of origin. same of credit card debt. there are people who hope to come back and want to keep the credit worthy and keep trying to pay that. it's obviously a risk. from the credit side. you can lose some of the people. >> from maryland. mary on the line for democrats. >> caller: good morning. this morning i was listening to the early morning calls. i felt like i was in a cesspool of hate. i'm glad you are doing something about it to help people. i want daca people to stay here. i want everybody that wants to

be here to stay here. because everybody that called up today are immigrants. like i said the native americans are the people that were here first. the rest of us came whatever way we came. we know how black people came. we had all kind of people. when the europeans come over here illegally no one says anything. why is that not brought up? almost as if all the laws are fuelled by hate and racism. it's not necessary. this country belongs to god. this world belongs to god. and that's the person that makes lt decision who comes and goes. >> thanks. >> the only thing i can say i think my position is that these are issues that we should be able to have a civilized conversation about. recognize we do need immigration. we always have. the country is built on it. people can disagree on how much. and how they come in. we should have a civilized conversation. a conversation that's respectful

of people and american and american communities. and respectful of the immigrants themselves and we can disagree. in way that looks at the facts and figure what's the best immigration policy for american society. >> when we hear of daca or dream erts we tend to think young people. in reality what's the average age -- are they more adult than young people. break that down. >> dreamers are increaseingly older. because this is something tlafs done a few years ago. you have a majority 20s and 30s. and they're still young. in the sense this is still a young adult pom population. it's not a youth population. >> so we have had callers all throughout the morning says for those especially those who they can go and adapt to a country and made it sound easy. how easy is it? >> i talk to dreamers. these are folks that have never been in the living memory in the country they were born in.

a few came when they were ten or eleven. others came when they were one or two. they don't know country. they don't have the basic skills cultural skills to adapt quickly. if they ended up moving back i think some would do well. some because they know english and well educated, this tends to be a group that has done well in american society. they might do well in the country of origin. it's like any of us suddenly sent to a country redon't know. we have a vague memory. they don't have a connection there. >> we tend to think of dreamers as those from the southern border particularly mexico. is that the case? >> they're from all over. kenya and germany. and all over. they're the mexicans are the largest number. about 79%. four fifths. but there are dreamers that come from every country and from every social economic level. folks with professional parents and parents were farm workers. >> this is from maryland also.

republican line. >> caller: yes, hi. i'm calling because i'm listening to and i'm fuming here. this is a un program. a refugee program. and i ran into a woman who sits in on the meetings, of the vetlement program and a will the of what he's saying is not the truth. we're having tens of thousands of these people from these folks from the middle east from syria, iraq, afghanistan. they come in in the middle of the night. they don't speak english. the majority of them. they claim they don't know their names. this is a woman who sits in on the un program. i'm not just talking about this anybody i ran into on the street. the first of all they gave them food stamps and section 8. medicaid. whatever you call it. clothes and cash.

and then there's no help vetting. she says they just pull them right off the plane and they pick them up and take them all over america. anywhere they want to go. >> thank you. actually if yur a refugee coming in through the program you have been vetted for 18 months before you get here. they will check them again in the u.s. you have gone through an extensive process. through the state department. while you are in a refugee camp. or in holding somewhere else. before you're coming to the united states. once you get to the u.s. we dwif heavy benefits to people. who are refugees. these are folks we go out of our way to take care of. in a way we don't with most immigrant groups. this is a group we take special care of to get on their feet. we saw health and human services did a study of this. they find refugees over time give back much more in terms of taxes than they take out in terms of benefits. it takes a few years. and you have a few extraordinary

cases. montana the may your elected in december is a refugee from africa. some people actually and ended up growing roots there. some of the people go under extraordinary careers. others don't prosper in american society. this is something we were the leaders on refugee issues back after world war ii. a lot of the refugee regimes we have around the world were thinkings the u.s. helped build. we were concerned about people displaced after world war ii. sdp people persecuted. and these are things we believed as a country were important to take care of people fleeing persecution. it's a legitimate argument about where we want to position ourselves. it is something historically american stood for. >> is that cost of reis tsettle is that born by the taxpayer? >> yes. unlike canada and australia.

we on most immigrants on 99% we let people go to their own devices and people do well over time. we let people go on their own devices. with refugees we do what canada does. we give them classes and food stamps and housing. early on it's much more high intensity. the in your opinions show us most of the folks do well over time. and are actually net benefits. >> for those who lose status and don't want to stay. is canada an option? >> generally not. you can apply for work visa. and something else. we have an understanding that you have to apply canada will not take people that got rejected in the united states. or don't want to stay here. >> from florida. independent line. >> caller: good morning. i'm in florida, and we have brought in several people here in to south florida because of the weather conditions. my specific question to you, if

you can help explain. i have traveled all over an outside of the country. one of the components here in this program that you're talking about the daca, is banking. how the exchange who can send money western union. like for example in europe. i to send my cash, they send it to a broker. i got cash before i traveled over seas. when these people are here for extended peas of time and paying mortgage in el salvador for example, and they want to exchange do they get a better exchange rate? how does this work in terms of us here paying such high taxes for these people? and my question to you is can you please with the washington post read all of the people who are in the writing and by lines when you start off on mornings on who is writing the articles about trump. >> people basically have the same options we do.

which is you can send money western union or another wire service. a lot of people today actually use bank accounts and international bank accounts. which is all of ours. you can pull money out in the atm somewhere else. for family in urban areas and other countries they do that. they would go to an atm. for people in rural areas they send wires back and forth. it's the same rates that we deal with. to taxes is one of the questions that's it it's debatable. immigrants pay taxes. they also access tax funded programs. there's some debate about which is more. clearly as we have more and more educated immigrants. as immigrants turn out to be more educated than the rest of us on average. the debate will go away. right now we had a legitimate debate about whether people are paying more in or taking more out. and the best wisdom we have seen so far is in the short term the

first few years they probably access more tax funded programs. their net beneficiary of government programs. the lodger they stay the more they pay in. >> in texas independent line. >> caller: yes, back when reagan and bush were in office shs i remember we had a shortage of doctors. and they would tell the foreigners if you come over here and we will pay for your medical practice. and everything else. and then if you stay in your practice we'll pay for your education. we probably had a shortage for the fact that people couldn't afford to pay for the schooling to be a doctor. but let go to deporting and all this. back there was a bill passed that if you committed a crime and you were a foreigner, you were to be sent back. but never activated that bill. but obama did.

and turn around and say obama did not do anything about foreigners being over here is a lie. >> thanks. >> one of the shifts we have had is obama was very targeted. the last years of administration. the government was targeted on deporting people who had criminal convictions. almost all of the people they deported living in the u.s. had criminal convictions. trump administration expanded that. there's focussed on people with criminal convictions. they widen the criteria. a minor violation or traffic stop. that is the shift. obama was focussed on people with serious criminal records. also says if we catch you for other things we'll include it. not just criminal records. we're seeing a lot of people come to american universities from aboard. they pay for it themselves. few people get scholarships. most pay for themss.

and some are a able to transition and stay on work visa and become residents and citizens of the united states. that's part of why we're seeing such a large number of professionals. it's one of the many reasons. increaseingly about half of the people in the immigrant visa in the country it turns out have college educations and some have college educations in the country before they got the visa. >> migration policy institute joining us to talk about the various aspects of refugee programs. thaurng for your time this morning. >> thank you great to be here. >> c-span washington journal. live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, kansas republican congressman rog roger marshall will discuss the future of government funding debate. colorado democratic congresswoman talks about immigration policy and possible government shut down. watch the washington journal live at 7 eastern thursday morning.

join the discussion. on thursday the house is back at 9:00 a.m. to debate the reauthorizization of section 702. of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. live house coverage on c-span. on c-span 2 in the morning texas congressman joins the conversation on border security at the brookings institution. the senate meets at 10:00 a.m. to continue work on a number of judicial nominations. also at 10 the senate foreign relations committee meets to look at u.s. strategy in syria. now that isis has been ousted. live on c-span 3. in the afternoon former engineer secretary talks nuclear proliferation. live at 4:00 p.m. on c-span. sunday night. on after words. georgetown university law professor looks at way the courts penalize the poor through excessive fines and fees.

in his book not a crime to be poor. the criminalization of poverty in american. he's interviewed by georgia congressman hank johnson. >> was poverty an issue in terps of the war on drugs. or the victims of the war on drugs? >> sure. >> how did poverty play into that? >> no men around. what happens to families. what happens to the men who have been locked up and all the collateral consequences. so they can't get jobs. they're not allowed to lif live in public housing. 45,000 laws across the country collateral consequences of one kind or another. it's destroys somebody life. if they weren't poor when they went in to prison they're poverty stricken for the rest of their lives. it's totally connected to poverty. >> watch after words sunday night. at 9:00 p.m. eastern on book tv. on c-span 2.

in his annual state of the commonwealth address virginia governor discussed voting rights. gun background checks. state criminal justice system. and medicaid expansion. this is the last speech for the term limited governor. governor elect will be sworn in on saturday. from the state capitol in richmond this is 15 minutes. >>. [ applause ]