we will ask you to come up and identify yourself. we will try to keep the questions and answers short so we can handle a lot of the questions. we are in a unique position in washington. this is the first time in modern history that in washington, d.c., we have had a situation where we are operating without a budget. the speaker has deemed that the budget will not be brought up this year. as a consequence, our appropriations process is moving at a very rapid pace. . .

>> we could lose the triple a rating of our agencies. the agencies may decide that we are going the way of greece. the sovereign debt issue might lead to a kind of catastrophic outcome. it is very important that the public begin to speak out, in my opinion, about level of spending in washington and began to take action to bring down that

deficit. i would also make another observation, and that is the actions taken in washington over the past few years, i do not think they have had the desired effect, and i am talking about the stimulus bill. most of the benefits of the stimulus bill increased government informant. we have close to 500,000 more employees in the government than we did have. if you look to what has happened in the private sector, where economists say the real jobs are headed, we have lost close to 3 million jobs in the private sector. rather than the government spending that has gone into the public sector, rather than that jump starting the economy, the unemployment numbers are becoming worse. now it is 9.5%.

i think that those of us that have a background in business, that is small business before i got involved. i will just give you my opinion of this. we will hear from you on your perspective. it seems to me that with all the uncertainty out there, with small businesses, they face a new assessment and a new task. we will not have a secret ballot in the future. we will have a process where if you are a small business owner, will you be concerned?

will you be worried about hiring new employees if it looks like that bill will come out of the senate and as a consequence of that legislation, if somebody comes in and your hiring new people other than people that you already know to come in to your work force, it is no longer the national labor relations board. instead, you will have an election based on the card check. you will be resistant to that. the least the small businesses that create 70% of the jobs that indicate that is a problem. another situation that you see for the first time is that small to medium-size businesses hold the cash on their balance sheet. the economists call this morning. i believe when i hear from business leaders that they face

a situation where they're concerned about energy taxes that might raise their energy tax bill by 30%, that level of uncertainty, that concern over those issues, i think that level of uncertainty is freezing up. it is helping, and the problem that we are already in. we do not have business is making the decision to go forward and to expand. that is an overall concern that i have. with that said, why don't we get to your questions. i will ask to come up to the microphone if anyone would like to come forward, here is the

microphone. >> i am concerned about the budget, but i have a slightly different take on it. the mess started in the last administration. one of the biggest problems for the wars that are going on. >> in terms of iraq, we are on a glide path to bring our military out of iraq. >> we're trying to do is to it in a way that we stand up the iraqi military. we are on a program that is so far: our troops out. with respect to afghanistan, that is also the plan.

drain the afghan military so that they handle the problem with al qaeda so that we can get out of the country. in terms of the budgetary process, it is important to remember that every spending bill under our constitution originates in the house. since the current speaker became speaker, since the election in 2006, for the last four years, she has been speaker of the house. the argument that i made earlier is that five years ago, i was concerned with a budget deficit that was $162 billion. since that time, -- the other concern that i have is with the sheer growth and the size of

government during this time. i think it needs to be addressed. we will not go to the next question. >> as a small businessman, the issues that we deal with, the question is very simple. the liberal politicians and the liberal media have done an excellent job of not paying enough in taxes. this is virtually every conference and president. when will the conservative representatives stand up and set the record straight? what we need is less government, and lower taxes to help the economy.

[applause] >> what i have tried to do in order to get the message out, despite being on c-span and fox news and on cnn, and other programs, is to be on the radio stations to hold these forums out in the community. i am not alone in doing this. this is the second forum that i have held today. . every chance that i get, i try to dialogue with my constituency and i think that what is necessary is that we get people more involved in this issue because the only way things are going to change, if people feel the heat, they will see the light. it is only by getting our citizens involved in a way that thomas jefferson the rigidly envisioned, where they began to

not only go to the polls, but go to the town hall meetings and have their voices heard that we are going to get the perspective outside of washington d.c.. i think that what is really needed right now -- we have plenty of people in government that all of us can talk to, but we need to get beyond that beltway around d.c. and out here across america and hear from our constituents. >> i am a small businessman. employees in making about price of what they are counterpart are making. we are in trouble. that has been a growing concern through several administrations and the economic plan bush on

that phenomena when is somebody going to step up to the plate and say we are going to take a straight concern across the board cut in everybody's salary? [applause] >> for those of us here have supported a salary freeze, and i had never voted for an increase in salary in congress, we have lost that vote. i am also a small businessman. my wife said i should have been on the ballot as a sure businessman the. i share your concern. besides the inequity, the attitude toward small business

-- in the health care bill, there is a new mandate that every time you have an expenditure of more than $600, you have to put out a 1099 on that expenditure. if you are turning over into the tories, can imagine the cost to small business, the difficulty, in terms of handling these kind of mandates that. irs agents are also fun it through the bill. maybe they can help you. at the end of the day, there is such a lack of balance -- there is such a growth in the public sector, 15% increase in public employees. this has got to reach back to balance. we have got to understand that

the way out of the economic recession is to create and encourage small business that hire 70%. you are absolutely right in this but if i think that part of the answer here is to recognize that there should be the equity between the pay rates. other questions? >> i really silly you for being here and listen to us ordinary americans. my concern is i work in a small business, a private college. i am a chemistry of biomedical science teacher. i know that in the last election need some money from six banks as your private donors.

then he voted to deregulate and remove those reasonable regulations on the banking industry. >> your ted wrong in this. i was one of the voices to regulate the system. >> i am talking about the legislation that does happen this summer. i believe he voted against it. i think the previous deregulation that happened under the last administration is what led to our current economic crash as well as the meltdown. >> let me give you my perception on that from the okay? >> ok'd. >> in terms of the legislation that is just supported by the investment banks, i do not think it is a good idea to pass legislation that guarantees a permanent backstops, a permanent bailout with the large investment banks. >> i totally agree with that. it is against the tarp money.

>> i voted against every single bailout. >> when i was talking about was devoted to the regulate the banks. like i did not vote to deregulate the banks. i had an amendment to try to regulate fannie mae. >> i am not talking about fannie mae and freddie mac. >> let me continue. >> do i have a free speech? >>, yes, but if you say things that aren't true, i will correct. >> i corrected a it is my perception -- that the deregulation is what led to the financial, up from the i think this is what led to the deficit.

think about it. i had to minute here. if you remove that much of the tax base and take away that money from our country's treasury, they may go into a deficit. >> i'm going to respond. i appreciate your raising these points. first of all, in terms of the question of deregulation, there is phenomenal regulation. there is the question of whether or not you are going to treat systemic risk. congress created systemic risk appeared i would like to explain how this happened. in 2004, the federal reserve came to congress and said, we face a systemic risk to our financial system.

that risk is because of something that congress has done. but congress did is a and allow them to go into arbitrage. they can invested and risky rate and in a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities for their they were now doing more than just advertising loans. they were involved in arbitrage. what they asked for was the ability to regulate.

this was an area in which congress had tied their hands congress have piled on by muscling fannie mae and freddie mac to do 0 loans. and they had muzzled them to make program for affordable housing in which they bought subprime and alt a the loans. that 50% of the portfolio was directly responsible for 85% of the losses when fannie mae and freddie mac collapse. when you realize what happened next, if aig had insured the mortgage backed securities in the portfolio. when fannie mae and freddie mac went down, aig went down.

the reality is that for the banks, gse were considered capital. now the banks are undercapitalized. the argument becomes one of whether or not to pass legislation to bail out those banks. i was in favor of them going through a process of bankruptcy. expediting bankruptcy just like airlines and railroads go there. i am not a fan of the big banks, all right? the consequence of the not going to the process is that now a new bill comes forward. i think you and i agree and not voting for this legislation that

just went out. what that bill does is it provides permanent bailout authority from the federal government for these large institutions. you have to be significant. here is the problem. if you are a small community bank competing with a big one, your cost of capital is now 100 basis points lower. it is a four point lower in interest. you can borrow because the perception that you will be built out upon the -- bailed out. fannie mae and freddie mac of out a staple -- borrowed at a full 100 basis points. the big banks are going to get bigger. the small banks are going to be crowded out by the big banks. that is why i voted against that.

let me wrap up this road quick. it is my belief that if you keep taxes too high you not maximize revenue to the federal government. i think john kennedy was right about this. i think there is a level of taxation in which has a good to hire and best use. economies grow at a faster rate. it might seem counter intuitive. if you get into high, it is a love on the economic engine. i did not support taxes as high as some of light tuesday. i support taxing business. i think those rates can become an piscatory when you add them together. >> i totally agree that this legislation that was passed the voted against is not ideal. it does have a lot of giveaways to the biggest banks and big business. i did everything that is a bad idea. i think the spirit of it is

good. we are not talking about the economic crash happening by fannie mae and freddie mac. that is what you are trying to turn it into. the fundamental issue is that goldman sachs is responsible. >> we agree on goldman sachs. lester is leave it at that. -- let's just leave it at that. they are regulated. there is small regulations on banks. the problem is getting the regulation enforced. >> i want to give the example letter i wrote to mayor blinker. i would hope that more americans would write to mayor bloomberg. it is regarding the cultural center mosque. >> thank you. i would just comment on that for a minute. abdul, the head of the cultural

center, it is my understanding for what i have seen that he has $18,000 in the account. i understand neutrality in this. the state department has decided to send him on a tour to cutter the united arab emirates. my concern about that is this. if you or i want to put up an institution a ground zero, we would have to start with more than $18,000 in the bank. if we did not have the money, we would not have the state department probably coming forward and saying, let's into on a trip and seeking come back with the $100 million that is going to cost to build a 14 story mega-mosque.

i do not think we have been exactly even-handed in terms of how we have approached this. the other thing i have concerns about is his comments that he believes we were accessories to the 9/11 attacks. that concerns me. i think that his failure several months ago when he was asked about a mosque was a terrorist organization, his refusal to answer that question is a problem. i know some friends in the muslim community you have a great deal of concern about some of his other comments that have appeared in newspapers in jordan in the past and in egypt.

i'm going down as some of their concerns on this. just on the face upon why does the government they will not get involved in zoning issues and impose on the website for the state department the comment by the mayor of new york in defense of this action. that is getting involved in the zoning issue. why is a state department then underwrite a trip? there have been these chips historic two. part of the consequence is fund- raising. they say he is not going just for that purpose. my question is, what is he going to be doing in a gulf state countries whose objective is to fund mosques in the united states? >> i am concerned about the

worker visa program that allows our country to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers that companies like the cannot claim americans. my sense is of a computer science degree cannot get a job. they raise the quota to allow more workers. this congress require of these companies to separate that they cannot find americans to take these jobs. i've heard that nobody tracks and to make a go home once they are here. >> one of the observations i would make is that in the past

there has been a great deal of pride in these programs. there have been stories on that. he has absolutely, this needs to be audited. second, this is a time we have unemployment of 14.5 million americans. i think your asaph their right to be concerned. there is a concern that i have in terms of the issue of how we are going to handle an illegal immigration. from what i have seen, the enforcement mechanisms that have been suggested by the border control and by deputy sheriffs are not being deployed

even though they have been enacted into law. they argued that if they completed the fence across india go they can gain effective control over the border. this allowed them to handle the crime here. the cartels have gotten in control. when the border fence was completed, the crime fell by half on both sides of the border. that meant it was very affected. separately, the border control testified that this was a very effective use of resources. it allowed them -- it was a force multiplier. the second filly ran was a bill

that would continue and fund the border, the double border, fence. that is how they like it design. it is easiest to enforce. it could run of to the mountains. wherever there is capability by road, to run it all the way across the southwest border. that action was enacted into law. bet is really appalling. for while we have the national guard working on this. while they ran down there, they assisted in hundred of apprehensions. the reason this issue is a consequence of not having an effective control, the cartels

to have effective control, especially in parts of texas. the situation in phoenix has reached a point where that is the kidnapping capital of the united states. yet several hundred people a year kidnapped in phoenix. part of the problem on enforcement is that the people in arizona have a different position than the city council. theve got a lawsuit by police officers in the city of phoenix against their government where they say their hands are being tied and they cannot enforce the law. as a consequence, the first thing the bill did in the

sanctuary city situation. the second thing it did was an act a provision where in arizona if you drive a car he had to be a resident alien. as a consequence of that, they felt it would be good that if a law enforcement officers stop to what you were driving your car and to do not have a license, then there is reasonable suspicion that it might be time to call immigration authorities to check out to say who this individual was.

before 9/11, on their way to the airport, they were speeding comet to the hijackers were stopped and they did not have valid identification. there was a list -- a watch list. they were on it. if the phone call had been made to the 1800 number five and number, they would have been apprehended. minnows law would have been discovered. the reality is that because of the action by the city council there is no emphasis on doing that. as a consequence, it is national security. the first thing you should do is delivered by these. arizona takes these actions. now they are being pursued by the department of justice on a very interesting theory. the theory being that it is

illegal for arizona to enforce federal law when the executive branch decide not to enforce what congress has passed them. >> they give them american jobs. >> these are all dependent upon laws in congress. changing these laws are a real lift them -- at the woman had a signing ceremony that job was going to get done. it is an education. >> i live in anaheim. my grandfather is 81 years old. he is enjoyed 16 years of

retirement. john boehner recently said that he was interested in exploring the possibility of raising the retirement age to 70 burda i wonder where you stand as far as raising the retirement age and how high you it onto lasik? >> are you for lowering the retirement age? but i would rather see an increase in the fica. >> you have a lot of public employees retiring at 50 and 55. how you feel about that? >> it is their privilege that they can take a reduced amount.

>> i'm is looking at these systems rebuilt. i want to see seniors get their retirement. to do that, we will probably is a commission that will study this issue and tried to figure out a solution that is adjustable. i will wait to see what the commission develops. i happen to believe that it would give the economy growing, there were the submission security. if you are in the workforce and you are working and our productive, i think we could

sustain social security. if we adopt policies that lead to economic growth, and then you are going to run into a dynamic here. it to be very hard to sell. >> is there a specific aid healing to the? >> i thought the process there

would be one where we would get a commission and see what their recommendations across the board were. right there was a social security commission. there is a commission looking f the thing. we can get a consensus but everybody considers behof -- confers on. >> i am from fullerton. mine is a combination of web pages said parenthood i. in 59 years old. i lost my job four years ago that i worked out for 10 years. the move out of state. all my life and everything that you are supposed to do. i educated myself. i got a professional job. the estate my money. i cannot touch without penalty until i do retire. i am 59 years old.

no one is giving me a job parenthood i am out there all the time looking for them it is not that i was sitting on my butt. i want to know how old you think people should be before they retire.

[start file] >> they control so much.

>> when the great problems right now will mean a 14.5 million people unemployed, there is a real concern about the fact that we are not moving forward with legislation. i'm a co-sponsor of the bill. what the bill says is that you will have a match up of the social security numbers of the employee becomes and to get the job. reno that there are 12 million people working on phony documents right now. people come here. they commit document fraud. they buy a phony social security number. it is in the system. if we matched that of, if the employer would call in and we could lift the prohibition on this, they could be mandated to check to see if these are valid workers. the problem you face is that according to the organization, and i extrapolate these numbers there are a billion people who like to come to the united states we have a legal process for people to come here. on top of that, we have a lot of people who are circumventing the process. if you have 12 million phony

social security numbers out there that people are using to work, it is planted affect unemployment especially during times of recession. this bill should be passed immediately. we are working to get it passed. it is my hope that we can do that. >> i hope you can. it is hard when you are my age to compete with it coming out of college pain their student loans. if bill gates needs people to work with all computers, i work across platforms. of the more than glad to take that job. [laughter] [applause] >> how good afternoon. thank you. i am from west fullerton. a couple weeks ago when your meeting was on, of austin to ask you a question i was cut off in the middle of it.

you enter something out and not even asking. can you hear me? >> we can hear you. continue. >> this goes to what you are already talking about. i am sure you have heard of the push to ask congress -- and this started to you personally. congress should be as not to pass any laws that apply to us that not apply to you guys. similarly, by sen perceived and divisive versa. there is a big push going around to get rid of incumbents. is not because you are not doing a good job. we are getting nowhere.

we are going backward. finally, apathy in this country is being tromped buying the situation that we are living in. let's stick with the economics. federal workers are getting -- day and 22% more than private- sector workers. that is a salary. the average federal civil and play our minds -- vs. 9800.

wide view in your colleague said in example, a freezer wages until such time as they come down to the average of the civilian population. everyone would maybe now you guys. [applause] right now it is unfortunate that people that might be doing a good job of the lump everybody else that is not doing their job properly. you guys give yourself pay raises. i do not get is a security ray's

best year -- so security raise this year. i will gladly trade with yours any day proposed. the only other thing that annoys me is the fact that you guys get a pension after four or eight years. it is 90% or 100%. it is a helluva lot but i got working 33 years. you need to wake up. [applause] >> other than your numbers, i agree it with your argument . the house voted not to have a pay raise last year and this year in the senate as apollo burda i know you feel you have something there that says it does. >> that is not true for other workers. last year and this year, there is no increase in salary to the

house. the pensions are still large. the days of house members getting '90s term, if they get around on enough, if they still can. we changed that loss of the average pension of of has been reduced by half. the average pension now for someone who retires is still too high. it is $34,000. for the old-timers, what you are talking about is true some years ago we reform to that. -- we reformed that. there is no such thing as requiring retiring over that percentage.

on average, it is 34,000. the averages about 20 years. >> what about a one-term congressman? >> they do not get a pension. >> is that of to you? >> that is part of the reforms. >> here is next? >> i am really concerned about the biggest corporations in the united states. they control so much. my bigger concern is citizens united where five republicans said that a corporation is like a person. they condemn unlimited amount

of money even into a local school board election if it will get into a contract. and a lot of ways, i feel a congress serves the upper echelon of the upper elite. they have the money. they can do of the talking. we recently tried to pass disclosure. nothing passes the senate they are so out of touch. it did not pass. it wasn't fast because of the union still where the union was not considered a big corporation. i think it should be across the

board. a corporation, and they make the money. they can spend a billion dollars. >> i will share my position with this. i am only for voluntary contributions from individuals. that means that if you are going to legislate and say the corporations of one to make the corporation, then have to allow the individual members to decide whether or not to make contributions. the take corporations of the table. if we are going to do that, what has to happen is the union members get to decide where their plan to make a contribution and its berglund to make a contribution. that would require implementation. that would require a situation where you move from the union leadership deciding that they

are going to take and make a contribution on behalf of the members. they can advise the members. it had to be voluntary. . but the kid would be the way to go. >> so far, we are not even getting close to that. they talk about pension plans and things like that. if they get away from a combined benefit program to where you can be a chief of police for your and your income jumps of $100,000 in your retirement, but none of that money is funded. we are spending current 20 billions in tax dollars in reserves that were never put there in the first place. >> it is not sustainable. there has to be some adjustment on this. on the state level and on the federal level.

>> lastly, wall street has admitted to $600 trillion in derivatives. they are probably only worth $300 trillion three i do not care how much we do here on main street, we cannot get any money here on main street because we are not an emerging market. it is all overseas. we have a big elephant in the room that is called the military. it is not a $600 billion organization, it is a $1 trillion organization if you take the money that is hidden in the department of energy and

home when security and the patriot act. we are living under a fascist state right now. >> with respect to the question on the derivatives, one of the things we're trying to do is to create transparency by creating these exchanges where the government will be looking at both sides of the transaction and all of that will surface. it was lack of trends that -- transparency in derivatives that helped create this crisis. hopefully, that step where everything is out in front will be helpful. yes sir, your question 3 >> my subject is something that we all hear about and that is high school kids quitting high school before they graduate. there is a solution to that i have written to you about twice. the solution is to pass a law that says that you cannot get a driver's license without a high- school diploma. as much as kids like to drive, they would go to school. [laughter] [applause]

>> that is an issue for the state government here in california. it your state senator and state assemblyman will have to -- >> you can push it, can she? >> actually, i respect the balance between the state in the federal government. i will give you the phone number to the state assemblyman. >> it sure would work. >> good afternoon. you recently voted against the bill to help the states that are broke due to the financial breakdown to keep thousands of teachers and firefighters on the job and educating our students instead of on the unemployment line.

>> what makes you think that if we go out and borrow all of this new money which is threatening to downgrade our status for treasuries from aaa status, right now the fed says that this level borrowing is unsustainable. we are going to have a crisis in terms of what happens. it will compound the problem. at what point do some members of the house have to stand up and say that we cannot borrow any more? [applause] if you cannot pay for it all, if you can't pay for it by cutting other parts of the budget, what logic is there for us to go out and borrow more and then give those moneys to state governments? i do not see how it is

sustainable. >> there are two answers to this. >> my background is in finance and economics. i am just telling you what logic tells me. >> logically, if they are on the unemployment line, they are not paying taxes and they are taking unemployment which is going to cost the government even more money. i guess it would be the state government in this case. the other thing is that if we just let these tax cuts to the rich paid into the past -- >> boo! >> go ahead. >> there are too damn ways to balance the budget. you can get more income or you can spend less. if the people that are not on the trauma -- on the job or losing, they are taking

unemployment. that is costing the government even more money. >> we are losing. that is what it is important that state governments develop sustainable plans where they are not setting up pension schemes, those that work against the interest of being able to govern the state, if you set up pension schemes where people retire at close to 100% of their salary at age 50 and age 55, and then you cannot fund the ongoing operations of the state, it is time for the stake to step up -- for the state to step up and say that we better look at the new plants coming forward and adjust to this. instead, what we're doing what we have done. we send more money to the states and they take some of these steps. i do not see how we can continue and methodology where

we expand the public sector at every level and it becomes -- you can expect the private sector to be able to create an of economic activity because the taxes come out of the private sector. i shared with your earlier my concern. -- you earlier my concern. i guarantee you that if you do, you will see less economic activity. fewer people will decide to keep working and they will retire and close it down. this is why you have to look of

the total picture of what you are doing. if you look at just one half of the picture, which is the public sector, and i share with you what happened at the federal level, without considering the impact on the private sector, it won't get to where you want to be long term. >> thank you for your question. [applause] >> i acknowledge that we have financial difficulties and economic stresses in our society and that is sobering and real. my concern is that those dynamics are causing people to overlook or diminish another area that is critically

important and that is defense. when i hear people like barney frank propose a 25% reduction in the defense budget and i hear people in the navy say that we need to reduce the size of the fleet from what it is now to 230. i think that taking our economic stresses out on the military is not any good. if we are going to fight this fight to win, which i hope that we do, we cannot afford to cut the military and save money on the front end and lose on the back end. [applause] >> i want to make sure that our men and women have the best equipment in the world. there are deficiencies begin

finding any bureaucracy. there is a balance in that. thank you very much. >> >> the question that i have to ask is if there is anything on the books at all for a bill that would suggest that only one item be put on the agenda rather than having four or five or six items that might not go along with the original bill.

. ?

>> thanks to all of you who are here. since we have organized a roundtable, i thought i would, as chairman of the commission, i thought i would come back and give an opportunity to visit with all of you and with the witnesses. i thank the witnesses very much for those who have come to the discussion today on a subject that's very, very important. it's a subject that i've written about in a book and a subject that our commission thinks is very, very important, and that's the issue of human

trafficking. and the issue of human trafficking, especially dealing with china, coming from the standpoint of the congressional executive commission on china, we have had a number of hearings and roundtable discussions about what's happening in china. i'm pleased to say the subject on which we have a discussion today is one in which i think there has been some progress in china, and i think it is important to recognize that the chinese government, particularly the national government, recognize this is the problem, has taken some recent actions on the issue of human trafficking, and i'm pleased with that result. it has been, however, more aggressive, i think, at the national level to describe this as a problem and to begin talking about national efforts to address it than it has with respect to the local government's effective capability to enforce and to really address it at the local

level this issue of human trafficking. human trafficking has long been a problem, and as i indicated, i wrote about it. in fact, what i wrote about was the issue of forced labor. let me just respond by citing a portion of the book i wrote. and i wrote about a young woman named lee, who was a woman who died. she died working. apparently not terribly unusual in china in some areas. they actually have a word for it. it means to overwork death. it applies to young workers who collapse and die after working exceedingly long hours day after day after day. lee it worked over 60 days without so much as a sunday off, working 16 hours a day in factories that had terrible air

quality, 90 degrees, and she died. i described the circumstances of this death, but this young woman was making stuffed animals that would sent to our country, among others. and she is not an atypical person in china. she left school in the third grade, was sent to go feed livestock. and then at age 15, september to work at toy factories in the city, and working for 30 cents an hour, 16 hours a day, with no days off, in bad working conditions, and then she died. just one person. the reason i cite that case, i wrote about that, is to point out that we use statistics and aggregate data, but behind all of these statistics are individual people. too often children.

the issue of human trafficking relates to the subject of human trafficking of women and children. there's also human trafficking and forced labor, and i wrote about both of them, forced labor and children. we're very interested in encouraging china to continue the progress that they have made, to improve and increase the enforcement of the things that the national government has described as a problem. we think that the issue of human trafficking, which has long existed, in which we know there's been a significant problem in the country of china, needs to be a problem that all of us work to try to get china to address very, very aggressively. so we have put together an opportunity today to hear from some very informed and interesting people who will discuss with us their evaluation of what is happening

and where we are with respect to forced labor in the country of china and with respect to trafficking of women and children in the country of china. first, mr. earl brown will talk about the challenges that have been proposed by china's legal definition of human trafficking, which, by the way, is a narrower definition than it has been described internationally, and that is a problem. when they describe a narrower definition of human trafficing and try to enforce against international standards, that's a problem. next, dr. jung will discuss china's anti-trafficking policy and its impact on migrant sex workers based on her research in china's urban underground brothels. i understand she's done a lot of work for several years, actually on site in those circumstances, and her work is really ground breaking. finally mr. wang will discuss the impact of the chinese government's anti-trafficking

campaigns on the work that certainly nongovernmental organizations are doing among communities that are involved in trafficking. and finally, patrick will address the distinction between human smuggling and human trafficking. so i am going to be here only an hour, and then i'm going to turn it over to charlotte. in that time, i want to thank the witnesses very much for your willingness to be here and say also that when the witnesses or those who are going to present testimony for discussion today, when they are completed with that, we're going to have a pretty wide-open discussion with the audience as well and have a wide-open question and answer session, and so i appreciate very much all those who have now come to be a part of this today and feel free to participate fully in this question and answer session. so first we'll hear from earl brown today. labor and employment law counsel for the lay solidarity,

international workers n.g.o. affiliated with the u.s. labor movement. he's represented trade unions and employees in the u.s. labor law since 1976, so he has long experience. he's previously served as general counsel to the international brotherhood of teamsters, associate general counsel to the united mine workers, and a partner in u.s. labor and employment law firm. he has very substantial credentials. we very much appreciate mr. brown being with us. mr. brown? >> thank you, senator. i work for a labor and human rights n.g.o. that has offices on the ground, around the world, working with trade unions, human rights, and labor rights. so we see the daily stories from victims of trafficking, labor trafficking, in the main from around the world, and those stories globally are not

different from the story we hear about china. i'm glad that the senator acknowledged the progress that china has been making, and in the past three years, china has made remarkable progress in arresting, beginning to arrest the labor law structure, and at least in the trafficking area at the end of 2009 ratified the treaty, the convention on trafficking, and the protocol, the conventional organized criminality and the protocol. but i want to go to the human face the senator mentioned which keeps most of our organization working around the world. a lot of overtime is uncompensated, and that is, first of all, based in asia, we

have an office in thailand, and that is the center of labor trafficking and a center of trafficking as it impacts china. and a demonstration of how trafficking is the regional problem and an outgrowth of a dual labor market, a formal legal market and an informal or tending to illegal labor market. i interviewed for many hours a young thai boy who grew up on a pineapple plantation, and the one thing he wanted to do is get away from pineapple. he never wanted to see one again. so he went to the big city and was literally, as we say in english, shanghaied by a chinese gang, held in a home for three weeks, put on a vessel, fished without pay under force of a gun, off the

waters of indonesia, and from there, he and a friend jumped off the boat, swam to the coast of indonesia, amonged around in the jungle, came back to thailand and was shanghaied again. that is an amazing story, and this was a hong kong, southern coastal china gang operating in thailand. in another instance, i was in the south of thyland with a migrant workers rights n.g.o., and we were at the border with malaysia, and there were all these women in a box. and after inquiry, we found out they were from north korea. and they had -- their story was they had fled north korea across the river into china, had transited all over china down to unan, from unan into

burma, from burma into thailand, and from thailand they were now going into malaysia. we couldn't figure out exactly what they were doing. they told us they had been promised jobs in electronics factories. the chances of them working at jobs in an electronic factory are low, and the chances of them ever getting paid for any kind of work they do are very low. so these are the stories that, in our view, from our offices around the world, are multiplying, as the economic price it takes on workers everywhere, as more workers are dropped out of formal legal structures, as more employers seek to avoid labor loss of clients by resorting to semilegal and illegal labor markets. we have a pretty word for them. we call them flexible labor markets. but in fact, they are labor

markets where wages are not paid according to standards, children are allowed to work, our restrictions are not maintained, and labor is cheap, because it's illegal. and to us as a labor, as labor lawyers, as worker rights advocates, this poses a huge rule of law question, because the employers that want to abide by the law, and by the way, most citizens of the world encounter the law through petty criminal law or labor law. it's not through copyright or patent law. they don't encounter it through commercial contract law. they encounter it through labor law, where they paid their wages as due when due, and they encounter it when their kids get in trouble with beating or traffic rules or some other thing. and that's how they judge the law. and if that law is not enforced

and if employers want to obey that law have to compete with employers who don't obey the law, they are eroding the rule of law generally at a level i don't think is widely appreciated. and this impunity thaten erosion of the rule of law that tends to the illegal and legal labor market is growing in the world, is growing in the region. i don't think any government is up to speed on it. the traffickers, the brokers, the freight forward of human cargo, the driver, the receiving agent, the escorts, all these people are so adaptable, that it's very hard for understaffed,

underresourced labor bureaucracies to keep up. it's hard for prosecutors to keep up, even the most nimble prosecutors. that's why we, in our work in the world, focus on strengthening labor institutions on the ground, as well as assisting on rigorous prosecution of these crimes. now, the senator pointed to the progress in chinese law, and he pointed also to a gap. china, again, in december 2009, i believe, ratified the the positive lerm owe protocol on trafficking. but the chinese law remains for chinese and only talk about women and children and has a particular emphasis on sex trafficking. the i.l.o. estimates that for every one victim of sex

trafficking, there are nine victims of labor trafficking. now, we do not view sex trafficking and labor trafficking as competing. or complicating. and it's a remarkably rich bipartisan interfaith cross ideological consensus on all trafficking. and they're not competing. nask, they're mutually reinforcing illegality, because people are trafficed for labor, for young women, the most vulnerable, the children are often sexually abused. people who are trafficed for sex are often slotted into work. it's the same thing. it's the same driver. it's the same agent. it's the same shift. it's the same export in many, many cases. so we're not for an artificial divorce, but we would certainly urge china and the united states, because this is a problem for all countries. and we need a new problem.

trafficking survivors in the united states where a lot, in our opinion, a lot of chinese workers are trafficed because of labor law illegality in the united states. that's what fuels it. so we can't point to one system as perfect and one is imperfect. they're mutually -- it's a mutual problem. as i say, it's two countries, one problem. and with that, i'll leave you and thank you for this opportunity. >> mr. brown, thank you very much. we appreciate your perspective, and i think you've offered a lot for people to make observations about and ask questions of. next we'll hear from dr. jeung, a professor of anthropology at the state university of new york. she received her ph.d. in anthropology at yale university in 2003. she is the author of four books

on sex, gender, migration, h.i.v./aids, and the states. her works include "red light," "the lives of sex workers in post socialist china 2009" and "h.i.v./aids through an an throw logical lens in 2009," and she has another book that is coming and not yet published. all right, it is. apparently it is. just released, "sex trafficking, human rights, and social justice." she's done a prodigious amount of work in these areas and a very impressive amount of work. dr. zheng, thank you very much for being with us. >> in the beginning of 1989, the state has launched periodical nationwide anti-trafficing and anti-prosecution campaigns known as a crackdown.

to end trafficking and the sex trade. during the crackdown, public security bureau employs a complex system of race to attack the underground brothels, to locate and document traffic sex workers. these campaigns are the prosecutions against women and the women will not voluntarily choose a profession that violates human rights. by confusing trafficing and prostitution, stories of the rescue of suffered women highlight women as naive, passive, and innocent. due to the failure in a dominant traffic and discourse, it's not only in china, but also in the whole world in the international discourse to make distinctions between voluntarily migrant sex workers and forced sex workers. anti-trafficking strategies focus on rescue. by declaring that a woman who engages in prostitution is a victim who requires help to escape, anti-trafficking campaigns enable law enforcement officials to

exercise force to raise brothels, rehabilitate, and deport women and children detected as illegal migrant sex workers. usually when a woman is rescued from the sex trade and put into police custody, she's subject to possible sexual assault by the police and the forced relocation into more dangerous working areas. in my own research, police wage crackdowns and have pushed sex work underground and made it more dangerous. this includes discrimination, continued police harassment, and other violence by local gangsters without any legal redress. one cannot deny the fact that some individuals are forced to work as sex workers against their will. one also condition the fact that sex work has its own share of occupational hazards.

however, research throughout the world has revealed that there is a broad spectrum of work experience and that the vast majority engage in sex work as a result of poverty and a lack of work rather than trafficking n. my own three -year research of my grant sex workers in china, these women actively seek sex work, not only in the city as undocumented migrant sex workers, bus also outside of china as a means of earning money that it would take them nearly 10 times longer to make if they stayed in china. they expressed that it was their dream to migrate to other countries to conduct sex work. from my field work, i know at least half a dozen women who worked as sex workers in other countries, such as japan, singapore, hong kong, and south korea. and then they return to china to keep working as sex workers. each of these traffic sex workers made the decision to seek out traffickers to move for a new livelihood.

none of them could meet the criteria established for legitimate immigration, that is to say, the point system, family reunification system, refugee determination system, or the business entrepreneur recruitment program. each of them turned in 20,000, the money they borrowed for whom to pay back over time. each of them also passed the interview before being permitted to go through the visa process. after one year, they expressed that it was their ambition to continue working as sex workers. these women became models, their stories of fast money, even though tempted by exhausting working schedules, were a major impetus of other sex workers to participate in global industry.

for these women, the risks and hardships reported by sex workers were much minor concerns compared to the possible payoff. these women perceived as the only people who could help them cross the border and work abroad. to them, the source is not traffickers, but it is their nobility and the illegal status. unlike them as traffic victims of trafficking, these women seek out people to help them migrate and conduct sex work. to them, the importation by the state constitutes the biggest threat to their free movement and the new livelihood. i argue that the rescue not only thought this, but as h.i.v./aids, but also stripped away voluntarily sex workers livelihood by treating them as victims. police raids, crackdowns and

rescue forced more voluntarily workers for potential workers to assist victims. it will ameliorate a partnership or alliance between migrant sex work communities and law enforcement, to access the expertise of the sex workers communities to help prevent forced labor and identify traffic person. thank you. >> dr. zheng, thank you very much. next we will hear from mr. wang, he received a medical degree from shanghai's school of public health. upon graduation, he worked at china's national health education institute from 1988 to 1994. he then served on the staff of beijing management college from 1994 to 2002. in 1994, wan created -- i

worked at for the beijing institute which works towards prevention of aids transmission throughout community education and outreach. mr. wan has been with us previously. we very much appreciate the work he has done and appreciate him coming today for his presentation. wan? >> we work mostly with population like sex workers, ethnic minorities, migrant workers, people living with aids. we are not working specifically on trafficking, but we had a chance issues in different population. so today he will give you some cases.

first, i will talk about drug user communities. so we are now working with drug user. so for drug users, women drug users tend to become sex workers. so they are illegal and become -- and because both drug users are illegal, most people tend to be more and the family members might be in human trafficking. for example, the family, the

son were using drugs. the mother oovept we'll, because of economic burden, the mother was in human trafficking , so it's some case relating to drug use. and also in burma, a lot of -- a lot of growth. so the second case is like ethnic minorities. so in china, they have drug use, so the uighur ethnic group

is such ethnic group. so in other cities, cities like beijing and shanghai, there are many uighur migrants. so on the street, many homeless uighur, and mostly, you know, like a building, and, you know, sometimes you're selling drugs, and some of them are using drugs themselves. so teenagers are mostly kidnapped by criminals and criminals in urban cities, criminals on the street. so when they were detained by police because of culture, the

issues, they know nothing. they know nothing. they don't even know the family . so you eventually cannot do anything. so the uighur, it was something about this phenomenon, so he was sentenced to 15 years. so this was aids and also, he was really sick.

he was kidnapped from his hometown, yeah. so the next group is ethnic my deprant workers. 10 there are many migrant workers because of culture and land wage difficulties. they might be by criminals and labor trafficking shows. it was almost as that in some factories, yeah, in a cities. the next case is the female sex worker. so two years ago in beijing, we had a kind of center for female

sex workers in beijing. so we have a team among sex workers in beijing. so three years ago, there was a woman. she moved to beijing. she had no official -- she had no -- so he got -- he couldn't receive government medical care program, yeah. so in beijing, among the female sex workers, many woman, it was criminal for some reasons, like to find a job, to set up a family, this type of reason.

and then, you know, some of them were forced to be a sex worker. and some might, you know, like they might be gradually force them to be sex worker. so the next case is the male sex worker. so in china, like emerging larger gay communities, so in other cities, there are many sex worker, like example some managers went and went, some went to a hotel, and so many

managers entered following this where they could find young men. and those young boys might be manipulated and then sent to the center. so some boys are pretty young, and they might be -- so most of them -- but some were there. so the sex workers, for some people with the lack of medical care, so we understand it.

we could probably walk with sex worker communities. but the general is not the party. so government tend to crack down. this creates a difficulty for us to walk on trafficking issues. so this cracks down on general and it's totally implausible. so from our perspective, government could have some prostitution, so that might

create an element which enable us to walk like human trafficking issues am thank you. >> thank you very much. finally we will hear from patrick. he has been a physical owe at the century foundation and the author of a book, "the snake head: an epic tale of the chinatown underworld and the american dream." he holds degrees from columbia, cambridge, and the london school of economics and yale law school, and his writings have appeared in most of the major publications. he's currently on leave from century, serving as a policy advisor in the office of the secretary of defense, where he focuses on nonstate cross border security issues. thank you for being with us today. >> thank you. good morning. i'd like to start by thanking the senator and the commission for having me. it's a privilege to be here, and i should also go into the disclaimer that i recently

joined the department of defense, so anything i say here is my own views, doesn't stand for the department in any way, and in fact, is based on work that i did before arriving there. i want to approach this from a slightly different angle and talk about two different concepts that are distinct in some ways but also sort of opposite ends of a continuum, human trafficking on the one end and human smuggling on the other, and particularly the issue of free will. i was so glad to hear dr. zheng talk about sex workers and the issue of free will and the misconception that is can sometimes cloud our analysis of these issues, where you can find somebody who's in a situation which is fundamentally exploited, a situation that in some ways we would think an individual wouldn't want to be in, but is also in that situation out of free will. actually in some instances chose that situation, and the very tricky path of delineating when something that starts out

as free will becomes a more coercive situation. and the person that i'm going to tell you about is not actually a victim of trafficking but somebody who was a human smuggler, what in china is known as a snake head. i wrote a long article about her in the new yorker magazine, which i then developed into a book. she was from southeast china, came to the united states in the early 1980's. and for about two decades, was one of the most prolific human smugglers on the planet. what they would do is bring people from her region of southeast china illegally via an extraordinarily sophisticated series of routes into the united states, where they would tend to ask for asylum, but as often as not, join the underground economy and work as undocument workers in various industries here in the u.s.

and there's an interesting misconception about human smuggling as practiced by the snake head. part of the problem is you'll often hear the two used interchangeably. kind of funny for me. i went to great pains to make the zicks in my book, and half of the reviews refer to it as a book about human trafficking. how does that work out exactly? but i do think we want to be clear about this. the misconception that is fairly prevalent in the u.s. is what happens is people who want to leave china approach a snake head, pay a small down payment on a much larger fee, and the fees would astonish you. in the 198 's, it was about $18,000. by the 199 's, it wased pads,000. today the industry is still going, and it's about $70,000 to get illegally from china to the u.s. of course, people aren't able to finance that right away, so they pay a small down payment to the snake head f. they make it here, and it's a big if, because people are flying via numerous airplanes and airport as soon as they could get

stopped, often they're in the holes of ships, the ships can sink, they can be interdict. but if they make it to the u.s., they owe the balance of that fee. and misconception you'll still hear today is that the migrants will get to the united states and then have to work as indentured servants for years, slowly paying off that fee. but when i started my research and actually talk to people who've been involved, they said think about it from our point of view, i don't want to be chasing after dozens or hundreds of debtors in various stages of repayment, so instead, people get over here, and they're held for a 72-hour grace period. often at gun point and gven a telephone. and they're told call anyone you know, beg, borrow, steal, but i need the balance of the fee in 72 hours. what happens is people then make phone calls and they borrow from people in china, from people in the u.s., anyone they know, $5 hundred here, $2,000 here. they cobble together the fees, they pay off the snake head, and then they're released.

and this is an interesting situation, because on the one hand, the voyage over here, the trip over here is very, very perilous. it's just fraught with risk and exploitation. i'll give you one example. this is the most smuggling ship, many of you have heard of, the golden venture, which ran aground off queens, new york, in 1993. this is something i get into a lot. i knew it was a ship which had a hole in which the passengers -- where there were 300 passengers. the the hull of the ship was about half the of this room with a much lower ceiling. and i knew it was a long voyage, and i was trying to figure out -- i'm want a sailor, i had no real bench mark for how long they spent at sea, and i felt, well, what are some famous voyages i can measure this by. in 1620, the pilgrims came on the mayflower, and it took them 60 days on that ship. and in 1993, the golden venture was at sea for 120 days before it arrived here.

10 people were died actually. these types of stories are not unusual. they then get here for the pleasure of having somebody points a gun in their face. the difficult thing, though, is that when prosecutors over the years have tried to -- they busted up a safe house and found that gun point situation, that looks an awful lots like hostage taking. you try to bring it as a hostage taking case, but as often as not, they had trouble finding witnesses who would cooperate with them because the passengers of the snake heads would say, well, i wasn't really hostage taking. this is a contract. i knew going in that i was risking my life. i knew i would owe this enormous amount of money when i arrived. i knew that they might hold me at gun point when i got there. but if i welch on my debt to the snake head, then the snake head will, you know, find it much more expensive to be in business, may go out of business, and that's a net loss for everyone. and so there's a very pragmatic way in which, for many of the

people who undertake these journeys, this is something that's clearly legal. and exploitive in that they're paying much more than the actual costs of getting here and very risky and hazardous, but it's something they go into with their eyes open. >> you mentioned illegal. >> i'm sorry. did i say legal? oh, friday morning. those little distinctions that matter so much. to give you an example of how this played out in reality, when the sister was apparently apprehend and had tried in the southern distinct of new york in 2005, this is when i began looking into the story, part of what fascinated is she's one of the most wanted asian figures at the f.b.i. it was a big landmark case. and yet in chinatown in new york, she was considered a hero. to this day, you can go to the

eastern part of chinatown and she's venerated. i went to china, and it was the same thing. people regard her not as an exploitive figure, but people throw around the term robin hood to describe her. hair yet tubman might have been a better example in that case, and she got very wealthy doing this. nobody knows, and i think you're in hazardous territory when you're estimating about the numbers in these underground economies, but the f.b.i. estimates she made about $40 pillion doing this over the years. -- $40 million doing this over the years. that was all tax free, so that's $80 million to you and me. this issue is one we should be thinking about more than we are, because that circumstance, the human smuggling circumstances is something that happens not just in the chinese

context, but in the mexican context. it happens in australia, europe, japan. there is a global migrant worker population which is availing itself of these services to move from place a to place b, and i think that there's a lot of confusion at the law enforcement level. even in the u.n., sort of international organization level, in figuring out, are these people criminal, these people doing this with free will, or are they victims? and at what point do they go from being a criminal to being a victim, or could they be both? i'll give you two last little points and then wrap up. the first is that, in some ways, this might be an academy question at this stage, at least with regard to china, in that there were huge numbers of people coming from southeast china to the u.s. from around

the mid 198 's to around 10 years ago. you would often hear 50,000 to 100,000 a year coming from via these services, and that's coming from one place. it would be like you went to china, and all the americans you met were from providence, rhode island. but the numbers started tailing off, because the economy in china picked up, southeast china in particular picked up to a point where there were factory jobs, plentyful jobs in the manufacturing sector. and then since the advent of the economic crisis, that's changed. and suddenly a lot of those factory jobs have disappeared. and within china, we've seen a big migration away from the east coast, with many people leaving and going back to the villages they left behind. and interpretly, i had been predicting, well, people are willing to go back in to

wherever it was they left, and they may be willing to ventura board. sure enough, a few months ago, we started seeing these stories coming out that border officials were perplexed because there was suddenly a spike in the number of chinese they were apprehending coming across through mexico. so i think that this remains a significant issue, and i'll leave with you one last trend where i think it's especially troubling, and this gets something that the senator mentioned earlier, which is children, and the matter of children, and particularly i think devilish question of how you construe free will for a child. name touch with a number of -- i'm in touch with a number of pro bono attorneys who work in new york city with recently arrived people who were smuggled in, and one trend they've noticed, just in the last few years, they've started seeing a large number of kids who are sent by their families. their families reach out it a

snake head, pay the fee, send the kid. the kid doesn't necessarily want to come, and these who are children who are 13, 14, 15 years old. the understanding is they're going to get and here work generally in the back of a restaurant and send money home. and what some of these attorneys are trying to do is say, look, this is actually -- it might seem like a smuggling situation, you're paying the snake head who's a smuggler, but this is really a trafficking situation, because in what realistic sense can a 14-year-old child make that kind of determination and say i want to go and risk my life to get over there and then spend my life doing that in the united states when i get there. so i hope that that provides something we can discuss, and thank you very much again for having me. >> mr. keefe, thank you very much for being here today and presenting those thoughts. you've actually raised so many more questions than you've answered. you have raised really

interesting questions, as have other witnesses on the subject of smuggling vis-a-vis trafficking, vis-a-vis forced labor. i was looking at something that i had written previously. the international labor union reported in 2005 that at least 12.3 million people worked as slaves or in other forms of forced labor. it was under something i had written about with respect to children. an anti-slavery activist and author of the book "disposable people" says that in 1850's, a slave would have cost the equivalent of $40,000 in today's dollars. today, slave working on the ivory coast, some as young as 9 years old, will set you back as little as $30 in today's dollars, because they're considered disposable. and it raises -- again, it's something i wrote in the context of forced labor especially, and earl made the point that forced labor is a

problem much, much larger, in terms of the number of people, than the sex trade, particularly those in the sex trade that are forced. and then you also raised the question of free will, not just in the sex trade or even the export of the sex trade, but free will of those who engaged with someone who will smuggle them or traffic them into this country for the purpose of working here, not necessarily in forced labor. so you've all raised a lot of very interesting questions, and because china is one of the major population centers on this planet, and because you have a lot of folks in the rural areas of chain athat have almost nothing and then they migrate to a city and are involved in a lot of things, it is easy in those circumstances to engage people to have them involved in forced labor smuggling or trafficking or begging or any number of things

, that the problem with china is the one that we now describe in this circumstance, but the problem is beyond china, as we know. and let me again conclude my remarks by saying, as i said at the start, we've been very critical of china in this commission and the work we do in this congressional executive commission, justifiably so, i might say, because we keep it the most correct database or the most complete database of chinese political prisoners, human rights prisoners in the world. i mean, our database is the one people look to, and we know a lot about what is happening inside china, some good and some not very good at all. in this case, it appears to me that china recognizes there's a problem and has begun at the national level to take some steps to say this is a problem we want to address. and for that, we say that's good news, but the implementation of it and the enforcement of it, that's something quite different. and then the folks who have

spoken to us today raise all kinds of questions about what is forced labor, what is free will, what is smuggling, what is trafficking. so thank you all for making a really interesting set of presentations. what i'd like to do is call on abby story for the first question. we have a microphone here. and abby story works with our commission. she's the researcher on human trafficking. let me ask abby to go ahead and ask the first question, and then what we'd like to do is open this up, and any of you can come to the microphone and we'll begun a robust discussion. as i indicated,ville to leave at the end of the first hour, and charlotte will have more, and then convene. >> thank you, senator dorgan. i total al greefment i think you've all raised more questions than probably you answered today. so i have questions for all of you, but i'm just going to pick one for now, and if we have extra time later, maybe i'll

come back up. you had mentioned the desperate circumstances that people are under in china and the risk that they take, the incredible fees that they pay, and clearly they're wanting to get out for many reasons, but we just focus on the economic reasons. but i'm wondering, what other factors have you noticed in your observations or research that are pushing people to take such leaps of faith and risk to come out of china? have you noticed any other factors driving this? >> yes. and this gets very quickly into very tricky terrain. people flee and often pay snake heads to flee because they're experiencing persian cushion of

one sort or another. there are many instances of people run afoul of the one-child policy when it has multiple children and it really gets down, not just parents, but often village by village, and so you have those instances as well. what makes this exceedingly difficult to parse is that even the migrants ask for asylum when they get here, by and large, and generally they're smart enough to know what the various criteria they should be touting are, and so you'll have a situation in which say in any group coming from china, say 10 of them are coming and they're saying, oh, i'm fleeing the

one-child policy. and they're all telling stories that sound remarkably similar. the excruciating aspect of this is that probably, and i'm making these numbers up, but if you had to generalize, nine are telling those stories, because i think this is a good shot of getting asylum and one is telling the story because it's true, and this makes the task of immigration judges incredibly difficult, particularly because they it doment have a lot of resources and they're not in the position to do fact finding in terms of the situation on the ground. so the brief answer to your question would be, i think that there are a range of forms of persian accuse that are driving people to leave -- persecutions that are driving people to leave now, but parsing out those cases is complicated by the fact, with the encouragement of the snake heads, economic migrants will come, in their asylum process, drape themselves in the hole of

these types. >> can i just ask, those children who are born outside of the one-child policy, is there in china because of that policy and children are born outside of the policy more of an incentive to coerce parents to sell their children at that point. i mean, do we see some of that? has the one-child policy been something that has incentivized the trafficking. >> i wouldn't be the one to answer that, but there may very well be others in this room who could. >> all right. open for questions. who has some observations or questions? feel free to come to the microphone.

>> thank you, everyone. i have questions for all panelists, but human smuggling, as we know, for some certain areas, this practice is evidence, i was wondering if there are some social, political, social that really. >> you want to start on that? in the imperial cal world, in the real world, and i'm portraying a bias here, often

and it's mingled, so there are distinct legal categories, but you could imagine an indictment of someone for trafficking and smuggling. the cultural and social fuel to my mind of trafficking in southeast asia and east asia, which is one becoming region in terms of the market is fueled by the subordination of women the drug society, all of them, the legal status, the marginal legal status of internal migrants and the moore enginal social status. particular until china, have made advances in addressing the system which operates to marginalize rural migrants, but

as we in our own history know, from reconstruction and slavery, it's one thing to accomplish an ininterior legal status, it's one other thing to eradicate what justice douglas used to call a badge of slavery. so in our own system, we have implement tarry social aspects that fuel. again, the subordination of women in this society remaining , the inattention to labor law enforcement by government, and all of that, those were the cultural and legal factors. but you can't have the legality

of one country. >> i would point out, one factor factor is the historic continuity, i'm thinking east asia and also southeast asia, there has been a tradition, this and that, if you're a daughter, then you need to sacrifice yourself to cultural and support the parents. and going back to decades ago, there's always been situations, for instance, in some fan i ams and so on, then the parents will be likely to sell their daughters for prostitution for supporting the parents and so on. in southeast asia, there has

been research done that shows that the daughters are encouraged by the parents to go into the sex trade so that -- because the daughter is saying if they do this for the parents, then they will trigger a good karma, meaning next life they will be born more wealthy family and so on. so i think that's why you've seen a lot of these women putting themselves in danger to support their male siblings to go to school and also support their parents. >> rather than go down in each case -- >> basically i'm trying to say in southeast asia, again to say, you know, southeast asia, the trend -- from 17th century, 18th century, t