google search from the rest of his life from then on after it happened. he couldn't get a job. because anymore somebody googled his name, this story came up. and people thought, i don't want to hire this guy. and it ruined his life. >> helen andrews on online shaming. sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and a. >> we're talking about e-ver fie. what is going on with e verify as the two sides try to avoid a government shutdown and come to a deal over border security. let's big with the history of it. how did e verify come about? >> you need to back up to 1986 to understand where e verify dame from.

in 1986 congress for the first time made it illegal for employers to hire people -- this is important, without documents proving their authorization to work. by 1996, it became clear to everyone that this requirement had had no effect on illegal hiring in the united states mainly because people could easily get a fake i.d. that would prove their authorization to work and employers would hire them at that point with no consequence unless there was an audit and everyone was fired at that point. but they wouldn't be sanctioned because they actually followed the procedures that were in place. congress had a choice, either they could create a national i.d. card that everyone would have to carry and they would have to go to the state department or the federal government in order to acquire, in order to work in the united

states, or they could create what amounts to a national i.d. registry that includes everyone in the united states who is legally present in this country. and that's really the route that congress went with. they created a pilot program that allowed employers to call up the federal government and ask, hey, is this information that was provided to me by my employee matching what you have in your records. and initially it was all done by telephone. now it's all done online. e verify is a web-based portal that employers use to put in the information of their employee and that checks against what the federal government has either at the department of homeland security or the social security administration. these checks are done for all americans whether they be legal residents or u.s. citizens.

and so if there's a mismatch between what's in the federal government database and what's been submitted by the employer, then the system will issue a tentive nonconfirmation and you as an employee are supposed to be notified that you have been not confirmed by the system. your employer is supposed to tell you that. and then you have eight business days, a little less than a week -- or a little less than two weeks, to go in -- check in with the social security administration or the department of homeland security and say, hey, i think i'm a legal resident. here's my identification and at that point they will either confirm you or not and the system will issue a final nonconfirmation if you don't challenge within eight days or you fail to prove that you're here legally. >> we have a line this morning for employers who used the e

verify system. so we would like to hear from you this morning on how it works and what has been your experience with it and democrats and republicans, independents as well. you said an employer can call up. do they have to? >> well, it really depends. so some employers in the united states are required to use e verify. and those are determined by what state you live in. so there are state mandates. arizona was the first state to mandate it for all employers. many states, 20 states now have some type of requirement for e verify use mainly for government contractors and government agencies are required to use e verify. the federal government jump started the process by requiring all federal contractors use e

verify to quality. so that jump started the program. before 2008, virtually no employers in the united states used the system voluntarily. arizona required it, first state to do so and the federal contractor regulation came out and they also required some private employers to use it. >> look at the numbers since 2006, from 2006 to 2018, the number of employers enrolled in e verify true from 5272 to over 800,000. the increase led to nearly 35 million e verify checks in 2017 covering more than half of the all the job hires in the u.s. that year. is this a good number? what should the numbers be? >> well it depends on who you ask, the census bureau has a significantly higher number of hires so it's really only a third according to the census bureau that have been run through. it's hard to know because we

don't record every single hire through the e verify system as it is right now. if you look at the percentage of employers who are enrolled in the system, that's just 13% of all employers in the united states, they're larger employers, so about 60 percent of employers in the united states employ less than ten people. but only about 10% of e verify employers have less than ten employees. so it's very skewed toward the high-end employer, the small businesses are less likely to use e verify than ones that are working across state lines, may have many jobsites, may have jobsites in states that mandate e verify. >> let's here from pete who's in virginia, independent. >> caller: good morning. i'm more of a independent

libertarian. i lived in san diego for a while, and you could get false documents at a middle school, a high school fair at the end of the year. this is like the closing the door after the horse's all got out of the barn. there's so many fake documents out there these days that i think the federal government and the employers, they could care less. and, again, back to this situation that we have now, you have to look at -- i hope you talk about the yale finding about how there's three to four times as many illegal immigrants working in this country. back to working in the -- the earlier topic, finding jobs. jobs are out there, but they're all taken by the people from the rest of the world that have all snuck into this country or overstayed their visas. something has got to be done on it. immigration is number two on my

list for things that this country needs to take care of. >> okay. david? >> certainly most people in the economy right now are employed. unemployment is really near record lows, so you're talking about more than 96% of everyone who looked for a job last month found a job. that includes u.s. citizens, that includes legal immigrants and that includes illegal immigrants. so the economy is growing. job growth is growing and many of the jobs that americans are employed in right now actually depend on jobs done at the lower end by immigrant workers whether they be in the country legally or illegally. the question for e verify, though, is whether e verify actually has done much in terms of deterring illegal hiring. and if you look at the rate at which you have final nonconfirmations, that's -- you're determined ineligible to

work, the employer must fire you, the share of total e verify inquiries that resulted in a final nonconfirmation 5% to now 1%. now, the work force that, the share of the work force that is here illegally is about 5%. so when e-verify first came out, it was about matching what we would expect. but now, it's declined by 80%. and so that's a sign that e-verify is not catching much of the problem in terms of illegal hiring. >> why wouldn't it catch it? >> the reason is the same as what went on before we had e-verify, and that is people borrow their friend or their relative's identity, and they, the information checks out, according to the federal government that matches the information provided to the

employer. so the system is really not checking you. it's checking your information. and if the information matches, ur you'll be approved and that's what we've seen in states that have mandated it, in state, employers that have used it, they thought, okay, i used this, i'm going to get a legal work force, but in fact, then the federal government will come in and audit their records and actually physically check, okay, is this person, you know, matching what we have, and it turns out it is very easy to evade the e-verify system. >> these are the states that mandate e-verify for private employers. they have to use the system in these states. all employers. and then the lighter shaded color are some private employers in these states. we're getting your questions and comments this morning.

and if you've used e-verify as an employer, your line is 202-748-8003. rob is next. in new york. a democrat. good morning. >> caller: >> good morning. thank you, c-span. i think your guest's previous comments, all that would mean in area where e-verify can be fooled, it should be tweaked. if there's multiple uses of the same identification. but i hate to disappoint your previous caller, i'm a democrat, i'm not a communist, you know, i'm a capitalist, but i don't want disappoint any of the republicans out there thinking that democrats are somehow communists. but here's an idea for you also, for your institute. congress should pass a law that requires all business liability

insurers operating in the united states to provide an exclusion of coverage, when it comes to worker's compensation, and general business liability, and an exclusion of coverage for any nondocumented employee. if an incident or accident occurs, involving a nondocumented, and there's an exclusion, employers are not going to take the chance to hire someone who could wind up suing them when there's, when they're excluded from coverage from their business liability. >> got it, rob. got the idea. what do you think? >> you have to understand that these workers are documented. the employer is checking documents. they may not be the documents of the employee. but they are documented. so the employer is going through the process that the federal government has established to

demonstrate whether or not someone is authorized to work or not. really, you know, if the question is, we want to cure the problem of illegal employment, is e-verify the answer? and we really now have more than a decade of experience in arizona with a full machindate it hasn't solved the issue of illegal employment. they have tweaked it. they have done some of the things that have suggested, in terms of looking at multiple use of the same social security number. they have even included driver's licenses information from the state, including the photo that's provided, as part of the driver's license application. so there is extensive amount of information on all americans in this database, it really concerns a lot of privacy advocates actually how much information is now part of this national registry, but the issue

really is has this cured the problem of illegal hiring? it hasn't. is there a better way? i would argue there is a better way, and that better way is providing people an opportunity to get legal status in the united states, go through a process of getting right with the law, and once they get right with the law, they'll be paying taxes on the books, going through the proper procedures, and that's really a way to deal with the illegal problem, that's good for americans, but also, you know, restores respect for the rule of law. >> in your report, you put together this graphic that says wage, that looks at wage gain as it results to immigration before and after the mandate in arizona. what are you saying here? >> this is looking at a perspective of someone in mexico who is deciding whether or not to immigrate illegally to the

united states. how much of a wage gain would they expect to get in arizona, both before and after the e-verify mandate. and if you look at wages after the e-verify mandate, they did decline, very slightly, mainly for male workers, but they did not reduce nearly enough to make it any difference for the would-be illegal immigrants' decision about whether or not to immigrate to the united states illegally. and that's the point, is if this is supposed to turn off the jobs magnet, which is attracting people to come illegally to the country, it hasn't done that. it hasn't reduced the value of immigrating illegally, nearly to a point that it would make any impact on someone's evaluation about whether or not to do that. the interesting thing about the arizona case study on this, is

not, while it did reduce the wages of illegal immigrants on average, actually the number, the share of illegal workers who were looking for work, and employed in that state, actually increased, because what you had was wages for the primary worker declined, and then you had the wife enter the labor force in order to make up the difference, and so you actually had more people being employed as a result of the e-verify mandate illegally than before it. and so it actually backfired in a way, that many proponents of the idea didn't expect. >> let's hear from samuel, he's in ellenwood, georgia, a democrat. >> caller: yes, i'm concerned about the forestry industry, the construction industry, and the

livestock, because in the construction, they issue 1099s, so they use subcontractors, and nearly 40 years in social services, no one, unless they came in could verify they're a citizen of the united states, are you then, to the immigration authority, they could not get food stamps, cash assistance, unless it was an emergency. so people are saying they are coming over the border, gathering up the funds, but nearly 40 years working in the agency, i can vouch that there's an effort and nearly 99% of us who dedicate our lives to social services, ensure that everybody qualifies for the benefits that they receive. >> okay. >> yes, that's a great point. so e-verify doesn't apply for federal benefits or welfare benefits. there's a different system that verifies the legal status for

people in that arena. this is really only for employment. but the caller is absolutely correct, that people who are applying for welfare benefits do need to go through that process. what he was saying with respect to contractors is a very important point though, is that contract relationships, contractor relationships, are not an employee relationship, and so they would not be subject to the e-verify mandate. so you don't have to run your plumber through e-verify in order to hire him. that's a contract relationship, not an employee relationship. and so there are many people who are self-employed or otherwise engaged in contract employment, that are in the country illegally, and you would not know that by checking the e-verify records. >> russell in tawton, massachusetts, independent. >> caller: how are you? >> we're good, russell. go ahead.

>> caller: the reason why my comment would be this on immigration, even on that status, i firmly believe that the e-verify is a very small part of it, but yet it is in the right direction. i guess if we're going to start something somewhere, it's got to be small, you know, in the same aspect of it, i can tell you that immigration on the highest level has always been part of the political campaign, because it's highly used to be running a presidential campaign. just like as well as health care. motto go off subject. but there will be two issues that will always be around that you realize they are making their majority of their presidential elections, or however, as an independent, i will tell you, this as a native american, i don't see any form of immigration working, if you look at the reality of how we allow people in this country, and as i said, and it doesn't make me better than anybody else, but as native american statuses, of indigenous people have seen this immigration level

change at the highest level, and i don't think it is so much of a problem with people covering this employment part of this country is why they are coming here, because england, france, and a lost these other country, germany, have the same freedom we do. i think what is booming this economy for immigration to come here is the open door welfare policy. here in massachusetts, one of them. because i can assure you we have a lot of immigrants in this state alone. we have a republican governor, charles baker and we have a democratic mayor of boston, but not to get the political part of it, it just shows you republicans and democrats can work together should they still choose to work for the people and they forget like i said, they were sent there, forget that they actually work for us. so the immigration status is broken on every level. but it has to be maintained, they're not coming here just for the jobs. it is coming hebecause of the welfare system. it is very well great for those people and i don't deny them but

come the legal way. >> a lot to unpack there. the first point was that e verify, even if it is not working very well, we might as well do it because it is something. and the issue that i would take with that is that it is really harmful to legal workers in a way that, you know, is really not been reported on, the number of workers who are wrongfully arosenly targeted by the system for these tentative nonconfirmations which they then have to sort out with the federal government over weeks or months, even years, to figure out exactly what the problem was, why did they not get authorized? was there some database issue? you have to prove there was an error when your information was put in, and that can be a very costly process for the employer, and the employee. they're losing wages, they're losing productivity. there were 58,000 of those last year alone, so you're talking about a half a million or more

over a decade, where americans, legal residents, are being hit with these erroneous tentative nonconfirmations, and then you have erroneous final nonconfirmations where you're actually losing the opportunity for a job, and the main reason for that is many employers will run you through the system and they'll be like oh, i don't want to zeal with this tent tive nonconfirmation, i will just drop this application in the trash. so you have another 10,000 or so of those every year, in addition to these tentative nonconfirmations. so there are problems with the system that harm legal residents, without any of these benefits that you hear about in terms of preventing illegal employment. you know, with respect to other countries, if you look at germany, france, canada, these countries all allow a rate of legal immigration far greater than what we allow as a share of our population in the united states. of course, the united states

allows more legal residents in the absolute number than other countries, bought but our population and the size of our country is so much greater, so for example, the united states allowed about a third of a percentage increase in its population due to legal immigration last year. compare that with canada, which was 2.5 times greater, as a percentage of their population. so there are other countries, are actually allowing a lot more legal immigration, as a share of their population in the united states is, so we could allow more legal immigration, and that would reduce the incentive for people to come illegally. >> respond to mark stone then on twitter. we have over 200,000 illegals entering our country each year at a cost of about $15,000 per person. that is about $3 billion additional every year, and pelosi does not want to stop it with smart fencing walls. are his numbers right? >> i don't think his numbers are right. you have to look at not just

the, maybe the benefits, you know, i'm not sure how that number, what that number came from, of course, there is always going to be some cost, any time you have a person in the country, they're going to impose some costs in the infrastructure of the country, some of them are going to end up using some benefits, somewhere along the line. certainly, their children are going to end up in public schools and that's a real expense. but you have to factor in the benefit, that child is going to grow up, they're going to work over the course of their entire life, in the united states, most likely, and they're going to be paying taxes throughout that time. and according to the national academy of sciences study on this issue, the second generation, you know, the children of immigrants are the most fiscally positive of any group of people in the united states, so there are a lot of fiscal benefits to allowing people to immigrate to the united states, with respect to illegal immigrants in particular

they're not eligible for any of these federal means tested public benefits programs. they're not eligible for social security. even though they're paying social security taxes through their employment. so their employers are paying these social security taxes, into an account, maybe it's u.s. citizens, a social security number they're using, they're paying into that account, so the benefits that are being refer d referred by americans through their payments into the social security account should really be taken into consideration when we're talking about just getting rid of immigrants or not letting them come in the future. >> let's talk to mary next who is in louisiana, a republican. >> caller: hello. hi, david. good morning. okay, david, i want to make two truths to you. first of all, the business that has illegal aliens, they don't

care, because they know that they are not going to get punished for doing it. and it is also greed. greed has to do with it. they don't have to worry about paid vacations. they don't have to sick leave. they don't have to worry about paying unemployment insurance. they don't have to play insurance at, pay insurance at all. second of all, they don't give no consequences, and it is going to continue. okay, next, now the politician, that's on republican and democrate democrat, they don't care for the simple reason when they run for office, either they one to get re-elected, those businesses have found out all they got to do is put enough in the campaign and that means they can get away with it, because our elected officials, they're not doing a thing about it, because thank you, all they're looking for is

their next election. >> mary, let me jump in. did you see the news reports that president trump's organization, gulf clubs, did not use the e-verify system when it was hiring workers for its various golf resorts? >> let me tell you about that. donald trump is the ceo. donald trump didn't personally hire those people. it is people that work, that saw him, i've been working for years, i'm 73 years old, it was the people who said, the people who are hiring that did that, i'm pretty sure, all of the big corporate stuff that he owns, he doesn't go around and just hire those people that do the cleaning and stuff like that. it's people that's working for him that did those hiring. >> i hear your point, mary. >> what about businesses just don't care about this? >> well, i think businesses want

more workers. i think that's, you know, a fact of the economy, and you know, her point about the world running on self interest, i agree with that wholeheartedly. and i look at the system, and i look at the reality of the world, which is people run on self interest, whether they're politicians, or private businesses, we're all in this to make the best life we can. and given that reality, the question is, how do we best deal with the problem of illegal immigration? people crossing the border illegally? which we don't want to see happening. and there's two different approaches. one that goes totally contrary to everyone's self interest, in the system, from the politician, down to the employer. or, you try to align self interest with the law. and that's where you cure the illegal immigration problem, by allowing legal immigration and allowing that legal pathway, and

that is really the answer to the problem, not these types of proposals that the caller correctly identifies are totally contrary to the self interest of everyone in the system. >> shawn is an independent in lakeland, florida. hi, shawn. >> caller: good morning, greta. how are you doing? could you please explain this. this is history. america historically has benefitted from unscrupulous labor, let's use that term. and that's what it does. we have laws on the books, every time i hear e-verify it makes me want to throw up. we have laws on the books now that if they enforce, if we had like what i will call a job zar, like we had a drug czar and we are had a war on drug, we need a war on jobs, and we need to have somebody go in, and enforce the law. the law say lass s that if you

someone illegal, you get fired, the illegal person and if you get caught again, you lose your business license. so i'm trying to figure out, we got over 30 billion, or whatever the billion number of illegals that are here, and they keep coming, in record numbers, how come i have seen not one business person lose their license? how come i have not seen not one person in the headlines being fined? you know, if you got rats coming into your house and all of the holes that you got and they eat the cheese you got sitting on the floor, and your response is, oh, no, let me plug up this hole with a little patch, let me plug up this hole with a little patch, common sense tells you get the cheese off the floor. >> all right, shawn. >> so a couple of things there. arizona does have, what they call the business death penalty. if you're caught twice hiring someone without going through the e-verify process, they will shut you down completely.

if you want to know the reason why that very rare, that has almost not happened at all, in that state, the reason is what the last caller said, is self interest. mo one wants to shut down american businesses, because that will result in not just the firing of illegal workers, but then all of the american workers who are employed there as well. and how is that good for the economy or for the state? if you look at, at fines and enforcement, i mean south carolina issues a lot of fines for missed e-verify checks. it doesn't mean that the employer hired someone illegally. it just means that they missed the check. and so you're imposing new costs on employers for hiring as part of the hiring process, that's a regulation on business, and a regulation on hiring, and the more you increase the risk to hiring, the more, the less hiring that is going to go on.

so really, if you want the best answer to this problem, you want to go in the free market direction, which is let employers and employees match up on their own. decrease the cost of hiring overall. and that will result in more hiring. >> who runs the e-verify system? >> the agency within the department of homeland security called u.s. sipzshcitizenship a immigration services. other agencies, immigration and customs enforcement, actually enforced the system, they audit employers, not only the ones who use the system but also the ones who don't. really, the trump administration has done the most audits of any administration so far. we've yet to see whether that will result in no more illegal hiring. but the obama administration set records before the trump administration now broke them, we haven't seen really any change in the number of

immigrant workers in the labor force, very slight declines, but not nothing really substantial in terms of turning off that job magnet. >> yanu in oak bridge, tennessee, a democrat. >> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: it seems to me we are putting a lot of obstacles in our own way. this is america. and why is it that e-verify would not work as well as a passport? is there special recognition, a biological factor put into the e-verify documents? and isn't it just lack of political format that precludes this kind of arrangement in america, where we can do everything else? >> david bier? >> well, we are incorporating photo i.d.s from the state level. really, the problem with bio metric identification, fingerprints and this sort of thing, is it really creates a

backlash among the american people. i don't want to go to the federal government and register my fingerprints. i'm not a criminal. stop treating me as such. and at that point, when you're really asking people to go through sort of bio metric identification, people, it freaks people out to be honest. they're a little concerned about what's next for this program. if it's using, if it's right now being used to monitor hiring in the united states, could it be used to monitor gun purchases next? some people on the right, many gun groups are very concerned about that actually happening. because gun control is always on the table. and using biometric identification process would allow for the creation of a record of every single gun purchase in the united states, with identification of that individual. that's really what happens now, through the e-verify program. you can actually have a record of every employer who has done a

check on you, where it was, and who did the check. so this is the concern from a privacy standpoint of having a national i.d., biometric system that can be used by really anyone to check out who you are and look at your history. >> what is the flow of migration into the united states, illegal immigration into the united states every year? and if we were to do what cato is zwoekting he is, advocating here and have a pathway to citizenship for people entering the united states, would that number increase? >> well, if you look at the net number of people, so the number of illegal immigrants who entered, as well as the number who left, minus the number who died, we've actually seen a net decline of about a million people since 2007. and that million people largely were mexican illegal immigrants who went back to mexico, when the housing bubble burst and the

economy crashed. but even in the last couple of years, we've seen a decline of about 300,000 from 2014 to 2016, a decline in the population. so it's really between 11 and 12 million. we've seen other estimates. but the trends are largely the same -- >> total living -- >> toting living in the united states illegally. >> not coming here a year. >> so the number who are entering minus the number who are leaving. the number who are entering is not known precisely, but you're talking about a couple hun thousand who enter, and then a couple hundred thousand, a little bit more who leave every year. >> we'll go to mike in new york, independent. >> caller: hi. >> good morning. you're on the air. we're listening. >> caller: thanks. i have a question regarding the tax consequences, if the illegals are coming in, are they not using names and information of current employees? how would a w-2 work, with w-2

filings for w-2s. >> there would. there is no ban on having multiple jobs though. so there's no, nothing preventing you from, you know, being employed at multiple locations or, but obviously, if it is the same employer, that would look a bit odd, to have the same employee employed multiple times by the same employer. so you would have to use the identification of someone who is probably not employed at that work site, or at that business, which is generally the case. so the employer is actually paying taxes, they are paying into the social security system, they are doing withholding, and all of the rest, that they're required to do. they just either don't realize, or don't care that the person is not exactly who they say they are. >> lynette, clear lake, california, good morning to you.

>> caller: good morning. i'm very nervous. please excuse me. >> don't be nervous. >> caller: i do this every time i call. e-verify is no longer useful. it is obsolete. this is what the illegals are doing in california. they come here, they have their babies, that's their little american citizen, and then that little baby gets a social security card. so that baby is entitled to welfare. they get food. housing. clothing. school. then the parents can use that social security number to get a job. so that's just screwing us here right and left. >> lynette, you know that is happening? >>. >> caller: oh, yes. everybody in california knows it is happening. >> you know that is happening? >> i completely agree with the caller on the point about using the child's social security number. there's absolutely nothing preventing that from happening.

you know, you can use that social security number, that will check out with the government databases. >> the database doesn't know how old the person is? >> yeah, i mean, well, i mean that's really the issue, you would have to do a more extensive upgrade of the system, in order to make sure that, you know, the person is actually of working age. sometimes they are of working age. i mean you could have a child who is 16 or 17, you could be using their authorization. in terms of the welfare costs, like i said before, the poverty level among these illegal immigrants in the united states is quite high. so their children do end up using welfare benefits at a higher rate than other u.s.-born americans. but then if you look at when they enter adulthood, they're actually high achievers. so the rate at which their poverty goes down actually, to a level below that of the entire u.s.-born population, and like i

said before, the national academy of sciences study on the fiscal impact of immigration, shows that the second generation of immigrants is actually the most fiscally positive of any generation. >> we'll go to tom in new york. tom, you're our last, independent caller. >> caller: thank you very much. thank you to c-span. i really appreciate it. thanks for the time. i would like to just tell your guest how uninformed he really is, man. i'm shocked. >> oh, thank you. >> caller: i'm shocked at the way you're talking and the grins and the way you're treating people that are calling in. i would just like to let you know that illegal immigration, not legal immigration, illegal immigration destroyed my company. i have 25 tax paying citizens working for me. of all nationalities. but american citizens. they were paying their taxes and doing their job. and in one night, my entire company was relieved of their jobs, and told that the people that are going to take their jobs are cheaper, and they're

going to doing their jobs the next day. and so it was. my company was put out of business. my guys didn't have a job anymore. they weren't paying taxes. they weren't able to feed their kids. whose running this show? this is america. i thought this was america. this is nonsense. that's what this is. >> tom, were these jobs, were these jobs, was your company, were the jobs lost to people who were in this country illegally or were they lost to jobs people. >> caller: they were not allowed to be in this country. now, 25 american citizens lost their jobs. >> okay. let's take the point. >> i would ask the caller how he knows whether these people were american citizens, or not. i mean did he go through the e-verify process? that's, you know, did he check their identification himself? if so, why did he hire them? i mean this is, this is really a question that i wish the caller

could answer. because, you know, just profiling people based on the fact that they speak spanish, or they, you know, they look of a nonwhite, that doesn't mean they're in the country illegally. so at the end of the day, the bottom line is this. that unemployment rate in the united states is a near all time low. 96% of everyone who wanted a job last month found a job. and that means that you have illegal worker, they're finding jobs, and american workers are finding jobs, and really, if you look at the market overall, there's always going to be exceptions. there's always going to be instances where things don't, you know, work out exactly right. but overall, you have illegal workers, these low skill immigrants, doing jobs, that most americans don't want to do. they do them in agriculture. they do them in construction.

and that is providing job opportunities at higher wage levels for oversight and management for american workers. >> let me add to this conversation, because the unemployment rate just came out for january. and it's at, it was at 4% for january, and jobs added were 304,000. what do you make of those numbers? >> yes, so like i said, 96% of everyone looking for a job found one. the economy is growing. we need workers in this country. and more workers really adds to economic growth. if you limit the number of workers in your economy, you put a hard cap on that, you're putting a hard cap on economic growth. economic growth is really the thing that we need, if we want to reduce that deficit, we want to reduce the debt, you immediate to have a growing economy, and the faster we can grow that economy, the more we can reduce that debt, and deficit. >> david bier, the immigration policy analyst with cato institute.

go to cato.org or follow them on twitter at cato institute. thank you for the conversation. >> thank you. it is going to be a big weekend for democratic presidential hopefuls. and c-span gives you a front row seat to what is happening. today, at 5:00 p.m. eastern, senator sherrod brown is in hampton fall, new hampshire. and at 7:15 p.m. eastern, south bend indiana mayor pede budjudge holds a meet and greet in iowa. and on saturday, massachusetts senator elizabeth warren is in lawrence, massachusetts, to formally announce her presidential candidacy. >> and later, saturday, at 4:00 p.m., eastern, new jersey senator cory booker, is in des moines, iowa, at a community forum. >> and on sunday, at 2:30 p.m. eastern, minnesota senator amy klobuchar takes the stage in minneapolis to make what is billed as a major campaign announcement. following the candidates on the road to the white house. on c-span, and c-span.org. or listen