taking issue with an erroneous report. i don't have a number. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] later, a discussion about immigration policy from the u.s. chamber of commerce. >> which part of the u.s. constitution is important to you? that is our question in this year's student cam competition. make a video condit -- michoacan -- make a video documentary

showing is your point of view. entries are due by january 20, 2012. there are $15,000 in total prizes and a grand prize of $5,000 current for all the tools, go to the studentcam.org. now get regular updates of what is on the c-span network with c- span now on footer can get tweets once an hour, including which infants are live and links to help you -- including which even alive and links to help you watch. republican rickre perry has campaigned for her husband in new hampshire and florida.

this is 20 minutes. >> rick grew up in a small part of the world in texas. for county's down from the red river and 20 miles west of dulles-fort worth in a farming community. his family were farmers and a little part of the world call paint creek, texas. we grew up in the same area current farming, ranching, little bit of oil, some gas. people are happy about that. illiberal west of i-35. not -- a little west of i-35. not a lot of development. but we grew up with real people, people who knew how to tell the truth, real people who knew how to make a decision and stand by that decision and you could be good for your word. when rick first ran for statewide office for agriculture commissioner, which is what he did when he got out of the air

force, our children were little. he flew his own airplane. he was a c-130 pilots in the air force. i think is the only other candidate, besides representative paul,, paul, who has worn the uniform of our you military -- of our military. so he flew their plan all around texas. people said, you will not win. he was running against a man named jim hightower who i think was there for 16 years. i did not think he knew much about agriculture, but i think he knew about journalism rick would go around and meet people and shake hands and meet them in the eye and they said, you are not going to win. nobody will fight harder and work harder, in that instance forested, but for your country. we did not have to do that. he was governor of texas and he was happy to be governor of

texas and he was good at it. we created more jobs than any other state in the nation. we added jobs when the rest of the country lost jobs. we had been rated by acl magazine for 17 years ago -- by ceo magazine for 17 years in a row as best state to do business. every time we lost a service man or servicewoman, it broke his heart. he has written every person, every family that has lost someone in the war a letter. we had a big fire in texas. he may have heard about it. we lost over 1500 homes. people lost lives, lost their livestock. we lost a firefighter from another state. and he called that family. we got a letter that was addressed to him, but like most

whites, i have to see what is in the mail. i read that note from that woman who lost her son, the firefighter. and he called her and she said, oh, rick perry? the governor of texas? he said, yes, ma'am. but i am not calling as a governor. i'm calling as a parent. i want to extend my sympathy for you losing your son. that is the kind of man rick perry is. some people may be more polished in their presentations, like the little the dates they had last week, where i was sitting there biting my nails and wiggling my hands and wiggling my feet. i think we have a debater in chief right now. i am not looking for a debater in chief. i am looking for a leader in a commander in chief who will do the right thing to get our country back on the right track

and working again. [applause] the president has promised us hope. but for more than two hundred thousand people in iowa alone, he cannot find work. and for the 45 million americans who rely on food stamps, just to feed their families, hope this short and hard to come by. and when we see this, it breaks our heart. but is still our resolve. now more than ever, america needs bold leadership and i believe that rick perry is the man because he believes in the american people. he believes in the constitution and what our founding fathers wrote for us. he knows that private enterprise and private citizens do not to be told what to do, how to run their business, how to choose

their doctor, how to run their schools. he wants washington to get out of the way so that americans can make their own decisions to get america back to work. [applause] a want to tell you if you things about him that may not have come out in the debate. he is dedicated to border security. we have lived our lives as residents in the state of texas. he has lived with this problem as governor of texas. we, as a state, not the federal government who has been an abject failure in providing security for our border, we, as the citizens of texas, have spent over $400 million of our tax money to the border, to protect it appeare. he has texas rangers, better

boots on the ground, to stop the flow of drugs, weapon, and people. that being said, we suffer the consequences of washington failing to do its duty to secure our border. and, yes, our home is home to millions of legal a demint -- of legal -- of illegal immigrants, many of whom came there at a young age. many of them were born there. and if you were born on texas soil, you are a dual citizen. some have attacked iraq on this issue of immigration. i hear a lot of it here -- attacked rick on this issue of integration. i hear a lot of it here in iowa appeared in texas, we only offer in-state tuition to residents of our state. -- interstate to have attended a

texas school for a minimum of three years and have earned a high degree. people in the country illegally must be pursuing their citizenship in order to get an in state rate. it is not a subsidy. when you consider washington has failed to secure the border, has shown no signs of dealing with the millions that are here illegally, states like texas are left with one of two choices. either we take care of those populations or they get on welfare, which is a greater cost to our taxpayers. or we give them the opportunity to graduate from a texas school, the opportunity to be a contributing member of society. this law was passed in 1992. it is law in texas.

it only did so with four negative votes. that is because virtually all of our conservative legislators in texas know that we have to deal with the population one way or the other because washington has failed. but keep in mind, rick is the same governor who vetoed driver's licenses for illegal aliens, who fought to keep sanctuary cities out, and you just build the federal government -- just billed the federal government $350 billion for the cost of incarcerating illegal in the hands. no one has done more to secure the border and, as president, he is committed to stopping the tide of illegal immigration we are grad -- illegal immigration.

we're glad to be here in iowa. we're glad to set the record straight. as i said, we are here. we intend on being here much more. we think we share a lot with you, texas and iowa, in that we are real people. my husband is a real person and he cares about you and he cares about your children and he cares about your grandchildren. we did not have to do this. we are here because we care. and saving the soul of our country. so thank you so very much for being here. [applause] >> mrs. perry, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here this

evening. your message, i was really glad to hear on immigration because there has been a lot of confusion. i also want to say that i consider gov. perry a leader because, in the 1970's and the 1980's, there were no republicans in texas. [laughter] it was governor. who was the first statewide officeholder -- it was governor perry who was the first the one officeholder who became a republican. >> actually, that is kind of a fun story. actually, in the part of texas that we lived, we did not have republicans. they did not have a place to vote. you worry very conservative democrat or a liberal democrat. -- we were either a conservative democrat or a liberal

democrat. we did not have the republican primary. so i organized the first republican primary in haskell county. this is like one of those miss america questions. [laughter] that is how we came to have the very first republican primary in our little town of haskell and we have 1 stillpoint thank you. >> it has been great for the country, -- and we have one still. thank you. >> it has been good for the country. please thank me in -- please help me in thanking the first lady of texas for being here. [applause] >>

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> hi, john, nice to meet you. >> my name is john. i met the governor perry at the texas fair grounds. >> i watched that. >> they were using light aircraft. for everything that we figure out, they have an answer. i am glad to hear that. even though i speak spanish, a

lot of mexicans and latinos want the border in forced. >> remember, we're putting our money in. it is the federal government's responsibility to protect the border. he will not even answer written questions. >> to do nothing and get those anyway they can. >> you are right. >> perry will do it. >> thank you. thank you for being here tonight. >> you betcha.

>> hello, bobbie. thank you for being here. i am so glad. thank you. you may hear some of the same stuff tomorrow. good, thank you, brad. [laughter] >> do you have an facebook? >> i do not. >> i was looking up there.

there are a lot of anita perrys out there. >> how odd. thank you so much. good to see you again. hello, how you? my name is anita. hello, there. how are you? >> very good. yourself? >> very good. it is good to be here. thank you for being here. >> i am with strong american now. i want to give this to you for your husband. he is the first person in our

country to sign this legally into law. i want to thank you for that. we met him last month at a picnic. he met me and my son, a 12-year- old boys' camp. i want you to think in for me. -- 12-year-old boy scout. i want you to thank him for me. >> certainly. thank you for being here. >> my daddy will be 91 on thursday. >> one thing i am interested in is -- >> that is ok.

>> i am very disturbed that congress and everybody wants to cut our defense. if you look at these statistics, a look back several years, the numbers have declined tremendously. i am hearing now that there are 200,000 marines who will be cut. i do not think that will help us very much. >> no. >> our first duty is to protect this country. if we do not protect the country, the rest -- >> that is what he believes. >> i was in the marine corps. >> ok, thank you. absolutely. his best friend is a marine.

it is important to us. if we are not strong militarily, we have no prominence. it is important that we are strong. >> this is my wife. >> hello, betty. so nice to meet you. this is his brand. >> oh. his father is just afraid. -- his father is joseph ray. >> thank you.

ok. thank you for being here. >> it is good to meet you. >> thank you. >> you can write to the point. i need coaching on short answers. >> thank you. thank you for being here. >> welcome to iowa. >> thank you.

>> welcome to biowatch. >> thank you. you know what, it is butte -- welcome to iowa. >> thank you. you know what, it is beautiful up here. >> thank you for coming to iowa. >> thank you for being here tonight. alrighty. hello, there. nice to meet you. thank you for being here tonight. >> i will give your husband credit for telling it like it is. >> yes, sir. thank you. thank you for being here. hello, how are you? thank you.

well, my gosh, it is so important. he has spent more time here than i have. but we will both be back. i think we have a lot in common with the people in iowa. you are authentic and you speak heart.ou say from your ho what you see is what you get. that is what you get with my husband. >> how much are you helping your has been preparing for debates, whether it is policy or debate. >> probably not a lot on policy. but, while there and be yourself, be confident, be who you are. he is who he is. i do not see people that are much smarter than i am to talk about policy. >> your comments about more polished candidates, is that a

specific comment about mitt romney? >> i will not say that about my friend mitt. he has been running for office for four years to five years. this is my husband's second debate on the national stage. it is unfair to judge him the beenwhen hthe others have out there. he would tell you that the other night was not his best performance. but he will only get better. i think part of the attacks have something to do with it. a narrow is being shot it you and your the one person in the middle, 30 seconds rebuttal does not give you a lot of time. >> what are your plans for the campaign trail?

>> i will be back with him in the first 10 days of ireland. from here, i go to california and south carolina. we have a lot of country to cover. we love meeting the american people. the american people are the best that we've got. we love being here and being in iowa. we will be back together and separately. >> last question. >> where are you going in california? >> 0, my gosh. we're doing fund-raising and meeting people and asking people for their votes, asking them for support. thank you. you all waited all afternoon. [applause]

bye, and gentlemen. thank you. >> i have children to put to bed right now. >> good for you. thank you for coming. we certainly appreciate your support here. it has been a very good night here. >> next, republican presidential candidate mitt romney's wife ann. she spoke in new hampshire. this is 20 minutes. >> after promising never to

undergo another presidential campaign, ann romney was inspired to encourage her husband to run again. in addition, the controversial issue of the president's national health care act, which she recognized was a reform that would cripple the economy and knew what americans were thinking at the time. but a strong and inspirational republican leader with executive experience needed to step into the presidential race and change the direction of government involvement in their lives. a good-looking candid it helps, too. [laughter] like her husband, ann has established herself as a leader and potential first lady of the united states. first of importance is her role as a wife, mother, and a

grandmother. she is an accomplished equestrian, which i did not know. and as a former first lady of massachusetts, became a leader to a host of charitable faith- based and community organizations locally and internationally. the common thread that motivates ann romney to dedicate herself to others in need is children and young women. she recognizes that all citizens have a greater and more meaningful impact in improving people's lives than government can. among some of her accomplishments as first lady, she served as the governor's liaison to the white house office of faith-based and community initiative. she has been a long serving supporting and leader in the united way of math bay as well as the action code today, a coalition that provides funding

to urban church programs designed to serve at risk youth. she helped olympic aid, an international nonprofit organization that uses sports and play as a developmental tool for children in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. she lends her time and leadership to e doquin therapy --to equin 30 programs for children. also to persons with disabilities, the american red cross, and the perkins school of the blind. as firstly, she served as a board member of the mass children's trust fund where she was the recipient of the 20 -- of the 2006 lifetime achievement award from operation kids. since this announcement to run for the presidency for a second

time, ann has been very busy travel in the country extensively on the campaign trail. meetings and speaking to as many americans. now that she is in new hampshire, i am sure she takes great pleasure to spend a little time in their home. please welcome home ann romney. [applause] >> thank you. cai was getting bored by the direction. the vital signs? [laughter] -- i was getting bored with that introduction. did i do all those things? [laughter]

children is where my passion is. that is where i like to lend my life, to children. especially children who are in need. i remember once when i was driving, i had my five boys in the car when they were all younger. that was not always a pleasant experience, by the way, to have five boys and a car. it can be bedlam. you drive with one hand and do this with the other. there were good times in the car, too. i remember driving by a man with at risk youth in it. i think they were probably in detention or in juvenile authority and probably being transported from one facility to another. my heart absolutely stopped when i saw that man. as i was driving next to it, it was so symbolic to me. i thought, if i could have

those boys in my car, they would be ok. if they had had the kind of parenting that they needed and if they had had the kind of love and support, they would not be in that van. there would be ok. we were going on vacation and doing something fun. i recognized then how important it is to have good examples and good parenting and a good life skills that you learn in the home. and how grateful i was for good parents. in the introductory prayer, i was touched. i thought of how we are to remember those who have gone before and are grateful for people that have made sacrifices for this nation. i have a long history of people that have made sacrifices in this nation. it started with william bradford.

as you know, he was on the mayflower and was the first governor of massachusetts. he was my direct ancestor. i am his 17th grade granddaughter. and so, i am grateful that william bradford made enormous sacrifices, to get on that mayflower and come to this unknown place for religious freedom. i also have -- if you follow that bradford one, you go through the revolution and everything else. but on my father's side, my grandfather was a welsh coal miner. when he was 8 years old, he started working in the mines. he worked six days a week. he would go before the sun came up and he would come home after the sun went down. he never saw daylight except on sunday.

i am grateful that my grandfather recognized that he wanted a better future for his grandchildren. and he made an enormous sacrifice in leading wales and leaving the coal mining community that had been doing coal mining for generations and came to america for a better life for his children and grandchildren. my father was 15 when he came to this country. and the same sticks with me from my grandfather, who did not know well. he died when i was a baby or maybe two or something. i do not remember him. i remember having pictures of him, but i just do not really remember him that well. the saying that my father would give to us as we were studying and working hard in school is you study or the pick and shovel for you. [laughter] those were the choices.

those were the choices that my father had. you either do well in school or your back in the minds. i think the reason we need to express gratitude and feel gratitude for those who went before us is that there were people who made huge sacrifices for this nation and to make it what it is. a shining hill and a light that all people want to come to for opportunity and for a place to have a better life for their children and their grandchildren. i think so many of us are motivated right now because we feel a sense that this may be in jeopardy, that this shining hill, that we may be losing some of the glitz and the glamour and everything else that represents the united states of america, that maybe the next generation will not be better off than the generation before us.

and we all need to figure out what it is that we can do to change that. right now, what i can do is be out there representing my husband and giving people an opportunity to recognize that we need a person in the white house with leadership skills that will change the course and direction that our country is headed in. i am willing to do that. i am grateful for the second site -- for the sacrifices of the generations before me for personal opportunities. it is time now to give back a little bit in a small, small way. in thankfulness to my generation and my ancestors who have sacrificed, for me to make my life a better life. i am grateful for them and i appreciate the person who gave that invocation and blessing this morning and made us think of those people that went before

us. and how important they are. we need to remember them. and live our lives in such a way that we can show gratitude for them. i was with my grandkids this weekend. i was in california yesterday. i have the chance to be reenergize by being with my grandchildren. it is great to see my grandchildren, my five sons being good husbands and fathers. but my grandchildren are also aware that we're doing something right now. they are old enough, some of them, to figure out something special is going on with their grandfather. it is interesting to see their perspective. they of course want to see -- want their grandfather to be

president. but they do not know what that means and how hard that is. i had a very special little gift, not from this trip, but from a trip six weeks ago when i was in california again. i 11-year-old granddaughter chloe was listening to me talk about how difficult it is to travel. those of you that no who have to get on the airplanes often, it is not as easy going through security. i was talking in little bit about how hard it was and what a pain it is to be in those security lines and how hard it is to get your license out and your ticket and wearing your glasses because you cannot tell what seat you're sitting in and it is not a pleasant experience. she was listening to all of this. the next time i saw her, she made me something. it was like a necklace with little pockets and it. [laughter] the one pocket for the ticket,

the one pocket for my lessons, and the one topic for my glasses. she is 11 and she made it 100% by herself. you can tell. [laughter] it was so sweet for to do this. i took it and i thanked her and we got in the car and mitt looks at me and he says that was so sweet of chloe. and he goes, you cannot wear that. [laughter] and i said, but i will wear it." i put it over my neck and it is a little raggedy looking, but it is wonderful. it reminds me when i put it on and we're close to my heart why it is we're doing what we are doing. by the way, it is very convenient. [laughter] i have those three little pockets and it is just great. i appreciate chloe, her efforts in participating in this endeavor that we are all

involved with right now and i do wear it close to my heart and i do think it is wide mix and dyer doing what we're doing -- why mitt and i are doing what we're doing. 60's.e in our 6' they will be ok, too. i worry about my grandchildren. a word about the country they will inherit from us -- i worry about the country they will inherit from us, all of the things that they will inherit from us. and i think about what i inherited from my grandparents. and i want to do a better job. i do not want them to be burdened with debt. i want them to trusted in their government, that it will not exceed what they should be doing as a responsible

government. that is why we are in it. that is why we care so deeply. and that is why i am committed to knowing that my husband is the right person at the right time to do this job. he is prepared. i look at all of the experience of his life -- never mind that he has been a great husband and father. there are probably many of you in this room who have done the same thing. it is wonderful kid is so important. but he has also been a success in business. he brings to the table how he understands the economy, understand that jobs are made, understands the dynamics of how much trouble we're in right now and how the climate for creating new jobs is terrible. so he understands that because he has been in private business. he has also done something extraordinary. he left a very successful business -- left -- left everything on the table and left to run the salt lake winter

games in 2002, when they were in huge financial trouble. that took a lot of courage. it ended up being the most successfully run games in the history of alembic games. it was an amazing thing to -- history of olympic games. it was amazing thing to come from such a deficit, a world stage event after september 11 with high security issues -- he turned it around in its successful and left a surplus instead of a debt. and he did that so beautifully. and then he went to massachusetts as governor and did the same thing. $3 billion in deficit, leaving it for years later with a rainy day fund without raising taxes and without borrowing. we need somebody that has had this kind of experience, that knows how to do turnaround work, has worked in the private sector and has worked in the government sector. it is not knowing the answers.

i think we know what the solutions are. it is knowing how to get things done. he has been in an informant with a heavily democratic legislature and gotten things done. -- in an environment with a heavily democratic legislature and gone things done. i know how chloe's little badge that i wear now reminds me that it is worth the effort. it is worth it for me to be here, too, and to talk to all of you and to have you recognize that, not only is mitt going to be the next nominee for the party -- you need somebody with substance, with experience, that has had the hard road -- but he will not just be the nominee. proceed also perceiv

barack obama. [applause] we are in this to win it. we're committed to it. we know it is important. i am grateful for mitt, frankly, that he is willing to step forward and do this. it is a huge undertaking. i never wanted to do this again after running the first time, i was convinced of this. never going to do that again. and then it reminds me that i said that -- and then mitt reminds me that i said that after age pregnancy. [laughter] i have five boys. it is good that i forget about some things. it is true that i was convinced that we would never do this again because it was so difficult the first time through. but it is worth at this time and it is worth the fight. i am now his biggest

cheerleader and pushing him on an encouraging him and letting him and loving the fact that he does so well in the debate, too, by the way. [applause] love how well he does in the debate. it is ok to know that he graduated from harvard business school and harvard law school, which he went to at the same time. it takes a great mental capacity to be able to do that kind of thing. he is a very bright guy on top of everything else. i feel fortunate to be married to him. i feel fortunate to be engaged in the battle we are in right now. i feel it is a worthy cause. i am delighted to have the support of a lot of you in this room. and you need to know that you are the workers. your the activists in this room who can talk to your neighbors, get out, get on the phones when the time comes, because new hampshire will be big and mitt will work and when it and we will need your help.

thank you all very much. [applause] >> want to thank ann for coming today. we have a small token for sharing your time with us. >> thank you all. >> now another road to the white house event. this one with congresswoman michele bachman. she spoke at liberty university in lynchburg, va. pin she recently won the straw poll theire. this is 40 minutes.

>> good morning. good morning, everyone. thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to be here at liberty today. is there any better university in the history of the world? [cheers] it is awesome to be able to be here today. chancellor falwell, one to thank you for inviting me to address not only the faculty but also the students and the staff of this absolutely amazing university. it is a privilege to be here and i want to congratulate you and i want to congratulate this university for your 40th anniversary on training champions for christ. [applause]

at a university like liberty that is the largest christian university in the world and the largest university here in the state of virginia, it may seem odd when you look at the topics that i will be talking about today. but for a few moments, i want to challenge you with the concept of not selling, not selling. at a campus like this, where everything is big, where you have accomplished so much, or the vision of dr. jerry falwell and if you committed christians to came together and them of their needs before almighty god, and we look around amazed at this university. it is only just begun, the greatness that will come out of liberty. these are just the early days of the greatness that god has planned. not only for this university,

but for each one of your lives as well. i would like to say, first of all, 33 years ago this month, i did not settle. i married the very best man that i know, my husband marcus bachman who is here with me today on this platform. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, i challenge you. you can have it, too. do not settle in that department either. make sure that you get god's very best for you, too. it is worth it. and have you ever noticed, when we talk about this concept of selling or will we sell, that when we settle, usually what we settle this for the easy choice,

not the higher chores. sometimes -- the higher choice. you decide to get some yogurt. you really want cookies and cream and it is out and you have to settle for cake batter. that is not so much of an issue. that is selling, but not so much of an issue. or maybe you started a habit that was not so good. you decided you would cut a couple of glasses. you have two or three skiffs that you can handle. but then it feels so good to sleep in and you have lost 75 points on that final grade. then it was not 75 points, but 150 points. you know who i am talking to. [laughter] then it is to 25. now it is getting serious. that is called selling. but when you settle, you find

out that you may have some negative consequences that you have to pay. all of a sudden, saddling does not seem quite as fun as it looked before. in your generation, i can understand why you may decide to settle. you have been through a lot. in your lifetime, all of you remember what we just observed the 10th anniversary of 911. you can remember where were you were. some of you may have been nine years old or older. you remember where you were. that is a point in your life that you will never forget. -- you remember where you were. you have lived with the threat of terrorism in your life. every time you go through an airport, you are reminded of that. those who were older remember a completely different time. and you're told frequently that yours may be the generation, the first generation in two hundred

35 years that may not do better economically than the generation before, your parents' generation. no other generation into hundred 35 years would say that because every generation -- no other generation in 235 years would say that because every generation has been better. we were not a nation that settled. that is why this is such a precarious time that we live in. in particular, for your generation because i am not willing that we settle because you deserve more than a nation that suttles. -- that settles. [applause] i believe that, as believers in jesus christ, that each of us

have only one life that god has given to us, the greatest benefit that we could have. so i charge you this morning -- do not settle. do not settle with this gift he has given to you. do not settle when it comes to your personal life. do not settle when it comes to your career decision. and certainly do not settle when it comes to your relationship with jesus christ. he is the lord of the universe, the master, the creator, the health plan and the omega, the beginning of the and. why in the world would we do anything less but settle? we should never settle. and all of you are living in what often call and tell our children -- you're living in the decade of decision. some people say it is from 16 to 26 or 18 to 28.

but it is that decade of decision when you make the fundamental decisions of your life. when you decide what your relationship with will be with n almighty god. where you will go to college, what your major will be, what your lives occupation be, who your mate will be, buying your first house -- you're making the decision. that is why this topic is irrelevant. even to champions for christ. even as champions, we are tempted to settle. here again today, i am telling you, whatever you do, do not settle. because this mighty god that we serve has a vision so big that you are privileged to walk in it every day on this campus. if you look around, as you look around, you think back, all the

way back to the early 1970's, this was a campus that started with barely 150 students. and look around. jerry falwell did not sell. the early donors did not settle. the early students did not settle. do not think this is it. this is just the beginning of so much more. if you're a freshman and you're just getting through these first weeks, you have not figured out which end of the campus's which -- do not settle. there is so much more. and it is so much bigger. the most important decision that i made in not selling was what i was going to do with my fate. i grew up in a family of lutherans. and my family was wonderful. they taught us to pray when i was a little girl. and i have no doubt that coming in my home church, the gospel

was preached. but i tell you, if it was, it flew right over my head. i did not get it. i did not understand with the gospel was. i thought, because we went to church, i thought because i was a lutheran, i thought that was it. i was on my way to heaven. it was not until was 16 years of age and three other friends and myself were goofing around one night, we heard there was a party in our church. we went in. the doors were open. there is not a party in there. in that moment, the holy spirit kaulitz of to the altar. when we got to the front of the church, all of us, under the power of the holy spirit, which fell to our knees. we knelt in front of the altar and we started in prayer. and the holy spirit they are convicted me and touched my heart and that of my three friends. and what i investors could -- and what i enlisted at that moment was that i did not know

jesus. although -- and what i understood at that moment was that i did not know jesus. although we went to church. at that moment, we began weeping before the lord. even though i had not been a drinker or been on drugs or had been overly rebellious or chasing around, it did not matter. i was a sinner. and i had a heart that needed to be cleaned. and i thank god that the holy spirit put that call before me. at that moment, i repented from my sin. i turned away from it and i said, oh, god, come in. clean out my heart. make me new. i want to be a child of yours in your kingdom. and he did. he did what he promises. what he does for one, he will do it for all. he is not a partial. that night, i went back and i knelt down beside my bed and i said to the lord when i got home

-- i do not know what just happened to me. but i do know that i am completely different than i was before. something has changed inside of me. and so, lord, i radically abandon myself to jesus christ. whatever it is you have for me, i am here and i am ready and take me. i am yours. and the lord put in me then a hunger for his words. up until that time, i would read the bible. it did not make sense to me. i put it down. i could not get excited about the word of god. but when the lord came into my heart, he put in a hunger and a thirst for his word. at 16 years of age, i set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. so i could get up and read lamentations, jeremiah, second chronicles. this is not exactly what you would normally consider great reading at 5:00 a.m. but for a new believer in jesus christ, i could not get enough of the word of god.

and although i never went to bible school, that was my bible school. feasting in the word of god, letting the holy spirit teach me from his word. you see, i did not want to settle. i wanted to know jesus christ in his fullness, every part of him. i wanted to grow. and that is what i encourage for you, too. he is big enough and he will take you into a death of meeting -- into a depth of meaning. as it begins, he takes you into a realm like none other. do not settle. that is what jesus says to us. jesus took me through college, through law school. and during my time in law school, that is when the lord

gave me my life's verse. i was having a quiet time with him one morning and read through the scripture. it was in second corinthians 3: 17. or the spirit of not only for this university, and i just found out recently that my life and burris is also the verse for this university. it is also the animating principle of this great nation. liberty, and it is because jesus came to said the captives free. it is the essence of the founding of this nation. i am often reminded of those is sacrificed to come to this country.

it was in 1630 when the reverend was aboard -- he was coming to take the new place as governor in the massachusetts colony it was headed on course to get to salem, massachusetts. it was early june in 1630 when it hits shore. he was thrilled to be able to come. they pulled up near the shore and as they looked out, they could not understand what they saw. the people who came to greet them were gone. -- gaunt and withered. they could hardly move. he saw that those agreed hammer half naked, they were nearly half dead. their countenance did not

reflect life. he saw that they were husk. 265 pilgrims had preceded them. they thought they would be welcomed with a community that was growing and vibrant. instead, only 85 soles were left. the rest had died or some had already gone back to england. those 85 that were left to plan to go back to england. they had given up. they said they could not do it anymore. john winthrop knew that almighty god had sent him on this journey to the united states. if they were to be sure to bring the gospel of jesus christ and to begin a new work in this new land that was not yet in nine as the united states of america. john winthrop went back and he

wrote down the words. in the midst of the words that he wrote, he gave the same -- the famous speech that you have recorded some and times. president reagan quoted these words in a speech that he gave then 1974. they are taken from the sermon on the amount in the book of matthew. this is what john winthrop wrote. he said, for we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. the eyes of all people are upon us. if we shall -- and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story. john winthrop encouraged those who were on board. he went on to quote from the book of deuteronomy chapter 30 were moses said, and here we put

before you, which is good or reaches bad. we choose life or we choose death. it was at that moment when it john winthrop and the pilgrims had to make a choice. what would they choose? would they choose to stay or what they choose to go? at that moment, in the midst of that sermon, they had to make a choice. the choice was made. the choice was not to settle. the choice was to trust in almighty god. in hem, -- in him, they trusted. that was the founding for this nation. the choice that the pilgrims made. it was not easy. it was hard. when we settle, it is a short- term east, but it is the long term heart that the lord asks us

to choose. they gave us the most magnificent document that any nation has been given, the declaration of independence. the declaration of independence tells us that these troops that we have been given say to us that it is an almighty god u.s. given to us or inalienable rights. it is not government to give us our rights. it is god who gave us our rights. since god was our creator who gave us -- gave them to us, no government can take them away from us. that is the privilege.

the only reason we have a government this is to secure the rights that god gave us to read -- a cut -- god gave to us. life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. as dr. falwell told you, the first among those rights is life. my husband and i, when we were in our college years, were challenged. we saw a film series by dr. jerry falwell's mentor. we were 19 years of age and we were spellbound as we watched this movie about biblical world views that jesus is not just lords of the sabbath. he is not just lords of theology. he is lord of all of creation. he heat is a great god. in the midst of that challenge, he also told us about life. life is the premier issue, the watershed issue of part-time. he was right -- of our time.

he was right. we learned by experience we lost one of our children in a miscarriage. when that miscarriage of kurds, we did not think we were materialistic people. we did not think we were coming year -- career minded people. god got a hold of our hearts of that moment and he shared with us the importance of life. we decided that we would open our hearts to however many children that god would give us. we accepted those children. we have five biological children. over the years, we took 23 foster children into our homes and raise them up and launched them into the world as well. [applause] during the course of your life,

i had absolutely no intention to go into the area of politics. when our children, we home schooled, we put them in private christian school, we did not have that option with their foster children. i decided when i saw what was coming home in the back packs, i would not settle. i got involved in their education in public school. i led a movement in minnesota. after five years, what they did they did what no other state did. we threw off federal government controls in public education in our state. we brought back high academic excellence in a not so conservative state and it happened because we decided that we would not settle. [applause] not only should we not settled there, when i went on to serve in the united states congress, i

was appalled at what i saw. the ease with which i saw members of congress spending your money hand over fist. i did grow not in a very conservative background. i have never seen people spend money like this before. i decided i could not hold back and i had to get involved. probably the most egregious level of taking of our liberties was with the issue of obama- care. obama-care is the first time in history of our nation that we have taxpayer subsidized abortion. earlier this summer, with the passage of obama-care, president obama ruled in a stunning level of power grab, that he would order every private insurance company in this country to provide the morning after abortion pill free of charge to anyone who wanted that killed. -- that pill. this is something that we should not settle for in our country.

we need to stand up to obama- care. [applause] we need to stand up to the government takeover, at not only of 016 the borrow economy in the obama-care, we need to stand up to the federal government taking over private companies like automobile companies. that needs to come to an end. we cannot settle for the federal government taking over private industry. we cannot settle for the federal government taking over the banking industry, the insurance industry. we cannot settle. we cannot settle either when it comes to standing up for america's greatest ally and our neighbor in the world, israel. we must stand with israel. [applause]

this is an election of all elections when we have the opportunity to turn the nation around. when it comes to obama-care, i have been involved in this fight for some time and i will tell you, unless we repealed it in 2012, we will have socialized medicine for the united states future. that is not something that will be good for this nation. we cannot settle. i want to close with a story that you are are very familiar with. it is taken from numbers chapter 14. it is this story of the spots that were sent out, one from each tribe. two of those spies were killed and joshua. -- caleb and joshua. is this land good or bad? is this a land filled with milk and honey or is it not? are the city's fortified?

what did you find out? i sit on the intelligence committee. that is what our nation does. it defines the intel so that we can defend our nation. that is what the israelites were doing. the report came back from the 12 spies. they were showing their brothers and sisters, yes, this is a land filled with milk and honey. it is filled with good things. there are giant and the land, the giants on the order -- they are too strong for us. their fortified. the majority says, saddle. stay here. as a matter of fact, let's go back to egypt. let's be slaves again. let's not press forward. did the context of this. every day, the children of israel had a pillar of fire by

night to show god's protection and a cloud by day. they had provision every day. daily, they saw god's provision. moses had said the 12 spies, god has said if we take the land, he will be for us. he will do this work. in spite of all of those assurances, the spies came back and 10 of the 12 said, no. we cannot possibly do this. we have to settle. except two. a small minority said yes, we can do this. we can do this by putting our hands in god almighty hands. we can do this. what happened? the people did not go along.

the people were fearful, they did not trust god. you know the rest of the story. for 40 years, those who failed to trust in god, those who settled ended up wandering in the wilderness. they lost their lives in the wilderness. this is what i close with today. do not take your life, i do not take this university, do not take the future of the most magnificent country that god has ever bequeathed in the mind of man, the united states of america, do not settle. do not settle for anything less than what this great an almighty god has planned for you. he has planned greatness for your personal lives, before your marriage, greatness for your children, greatness for your career, greatness for this

nation. it may not be that you become a billionaire. or maybe you do. it may be -- or it will be that you will walk out his plan for you. that is greatness. fulfilling his plan for you. that is how we define greatness. [applause] i join with the founder of this marvelous institution, dr. jerry falwell, and encourage you, my beloved in jesus christ, do not settle. fullfil his plan. you only a taste of what he has planned for you. god bless you and god bless this

magnificent university. [applause] >> my name is michele bachmann and i am running for the republican nomination. i thank you for being here today. it was a privilege to be able to be here at liberty university. i want to thank dr. falwell for the invitation to come. and to be on the platform with

my very good friend. he has been a wonderful friend and mentor to me during my time in the united states congress. it was wonderful to be able to be here. and to be on the same platform -- his leadership at heritage has been stellar and i am grateful that he was able to be here. the purpose of my remarks today was to talk to the students, to the university, about not selling. not selling in their personal lives, not selling in their professional lives, and not selling as far as our nation is going. people are very concerned right now with our economy. we've had prolonged elevated levels of unemployment, well over what the president had projected when he said we would not go above 8%. we have also seen a deflation in value of homeownership over the years. we have increased levels of people who are demanding government services because they cannot receive jobs.

we of unemployment that is off the charts for african-americans use, at 47%. this is simply not acceptable. as a candidate for the presidency, i am not selling it for the condition of the united states and i am writing to turn the economy around, to change our tax code and to make sure that we can finally the appeal obama-care and dodd-frank and get our country back on the right track. what we need more than anything in this country is millions of jobs created. too many people are underemployed or unemployed. that is my focus in this campaign. with that, i would be happy to take a few questions. >> [inaudible] >> the first bill i was sent to congress will be the one to turn the economy around. that would be dealing with the tax rcode.

i want us to have the lowest corporate tax rate in the developed world. i would have an entire package of job creation initiatives. it would begin with a 0% repatriation tax. currently, there is $1.20 trillion in income that is armed by american corporations overseas. -- that is earned by american corporations overseas. this is the money that taxpayers would not have to pay back. we need to bring that money in and lower the corporate tax rate. i am not willing to have that money come into the united states. i want the jobs and companies to come back to the united states. in ireland, there is currently 600 american companies. they employ 100,000 people. i want to bring those companies back into the united states. we count of the lower the tax burdens. we also have to lower the regulatory burden. it is approximately $1.80

trillion a year. as i talk to business owners across america, they tell me the number one reason why they are not hiring is the obligatory burden. the chief regulatory burden is obama-care. that is why they are not hiring. obama-care -- the repeal mr. part of that package as well. >> [inaudible] >> as soon as president obama unveiled his jobs program, he said one word, a disaster. he employs 500 people. this will not create a job because it is a package of all of the failed policies that president obama has already tried. why would they work this time? that is not just one job creator. i heard that over and over and

over again. not just in iowa, but all over the country. from arizona to california to south carolina to florida to minnesota. they have all told me the same thing. the president's job creation plan is not about jobs. it is about his political reelection. we need to be about the american people. we need to be about their business. that is turning the economy around. >> [inaudible] >> i love gov. christie and i think he is marvelous. i am pleased with the field that we have. i would be more than happy to see him join us if he would like to. >> [inaudible] very recently, that is where you're standing was. does that give you a good omen for the future? >> we intend to be the comeback kid in this race. i won the iowa straw poll.

that is most reflective of a general election or the primary election. i will be the first caucus state in the nation. -- iowa will be the first caucus state in the nation. i am the first woman ever in history to win the iowa straw poll. we have a very strong base of support there. we will continue to build on that base of support. we have spent a lot of time in south carolina as well. we will be all over the country and we intend to do very well. we won the liberty straw poll, too. this happens. you have ups and downs, and we are on the upswing. we cannot wait. >> it looks like florida is moving the primary of to january 31. >> we have loved the time that we spent in florida. we did not participate and the

florida straw poll. we had to make a decision because we entered the race fairly late. we did not participate in the florida straw poll, but we intend to participate in the primaries and florida. i firmly believe that the american people have already made their decision. i think they believe that barack obama will be a one-term president. that is why we cannot settle with our nominee. we need to have as our nominee a bold, strong constitutional conservative who will be strong on national security policy. also strong fiscal conservative, a strong social conservative, and a strong two-part -- tea partier. i appreciate your patience, thank you again.

>> some upcoming events to tell you about. in iowa, newt gingrich presents his campaign platform, which he is calling his 21st century contract with america. we will bring that to you at 8:00 tomorrow night on c-span. on friday, rick perry hold a town hall meeting in new hampshire. live coverage begins at 6:00 eastern on c-span. >> up next, a discussion about immigration policy from the u.s. chamber of commerce. falling by campaign speeches by the wife of rick perry and the wife of mitt romney. >> tomorrow, we will talk to the president of the think tank, the president of the american postal workers union, and a look at the

political fight over epa regulations. "washington journal" begins at 7:00 eastern. >> what more did you of the candidate, see what political reporters are saying, and drop the latest campaign contributions. -- track the latest campaign contributions. it helps you navigate the political landscape. >> michael bloomberg argued that policies forcing skilled immigrants to leave the country are hurting the u.s. economy. his remarks are followed by a discussion about immigration policy. this event begins with the chamber president thomas

donohue. this is three hours. >> we expect a very stimulating morning. the mayor of new york has been sitting on his plan for a long time on the runway. he has managed to get off, we have been doing a bit of a slowdown year.

i have to leave to go to chicago and see if i can get there. i am pleased that you are all here. we are really very good at doing these dances where you move people around. if we are honest and work on immigration, we will look at one of the most serious challenges we have and we will understand the fundamental reality that those countries across the world that have good demographics, strong demographics, growth demographics and high skilled people when the game. we are lucky. we have a strong demographic base in this country. we have a strong growth. as a part of that demographic and the hispanic community, we are older as a society and there

are great opportunities. when we look at immigration, there are many points and questions that we have to deal with. not an immigration bill. one will look at immigration, we have to be looking at every sector of our society and who we want to attract. this is not a matter of keeping people away. our discussion today is going to be very much about who we need to get to come here because we need them. i visit with members of the congress and i hear all their problems. i said, excuse me, if we do not keep the skilled people in this country, after they are educated in our universities and institutions, companies had a choice. if we cannot get them here, and they go somewhere else, we said the work to where they are. it is simple.

what we want to do today is have a serious conversation about jobs. and about what it takes to bring and keep jobs in this country, to develop jobs for our citizens and for our children and we need 20 million jobs in the next 10 years. a terrible thing, when we get them, and we have those jobs, we cannot fill them. that is crazy. there are not a lot of ph.d. and chemical engineers walking around. a lot of them that we are training, more than half of the people in our graduate schools are people from other countries. that is not surprising. our ancestors are all from other countries. is drivee trying to do

the system that will create jobs, try the system that will bring innovation and skill and strength to this country. we're going to have to take on and overcome a good deal of misinformation and some prejudice. that would shift to the question of eventually getting an immigration bill. i have been back here 14 years and i have been trying to chase an immigration bill since i got here. we're always moving it. i think there is a reality going on as we watch things around the world. i want to thank mayor bloomberg. i hope he will convey to him -- he has a great job. he also has some other benefits. a huge foundation and a big -- he is a proponent of big ideas. go big or go home. he is putting a lot of time and energy and money in this and we

want to work with him to see if we can get this talent to keep it in the united states. one of the things that he and i both agree with, i am not sure you can do this whole thing in one great big bunch. we might have to do with a piece at a time. this is the piece that we really ought to be able to get done. i want to thank him. to show you our flexibility, we went -- we said, how about you go on a little sooner? you say some of what to bloomberg is going to say. it was great that he agreed to do this. i had a little chat with them and it reminded me about the time we spent together when he was advising a company on whose board i served. i was encouraged because they

were in some difficulty. he is a good lawyer. i do not know of how good is that doing what he is doing in the government, but he was a good lawyer. talking about immigration, he went from cuba to the united states. he has a broad legal background as responsible for running the nation's immigration and naturalization system. he served as the u.s. district attorney and during that time, he served in the crime section. he knows how to catch the bad guys. he mentored and attracted and recruited a lot of the u.s. attorney hires. good teachers are good managers. he has a long and distinguished background. i will not read it all because

the use of some of that time. he holds a jd from the oil and -- loyola law school. those people to go to school in california, they have a great deal about immigration. he was named as one of the 50 most influential minority lawyers and american in 2008. scratch the minority, he is one of the most intellectual -- influential lawyers. he has to do all the difficult stuff in dealing with our borders and all the challenges we face. i will -- i will say this and he will adopt this. he has the challenge of helping us figure out how to get a legitimate movement forward in our immigration regulations and approach in this country. thank you very much for being here. i offer you the podium.

how long do you want him to talk? until mayor bloomberg gets your? -- gets here? [applause] thank you very much. we follow 300 issues here. this issue is fundamental and essential for our country. we are committed to it. all we need to find is a door to sneak through and we will do it. [applause] >> good morning. thank you. if we were to have a genealogist identified for us the family ancestry of the people in this room, we would have in our hands a tangible and powerful reminder that our country is a nation of immigrants and a beacon of hope and opportunity.

what those of us who will hold the microphone today served as a few examples. more than 60 years ago, the grandson of immigrants was born in the neighborhood of boston. through education and harper, he rose to become the architect of the media empire and the mayor of new york city. the family origins of our distinguished panelists are spread due out the world. i am a proud american who came to this country as a refugee from cuba. our discussion today is focusing on immigration, american competitiveness, and the challenge ahead. it is part of the national chamber foundation's business horizon series. a horizon is the range of one's perceptions and it is important that we appreciate what we have but we endeavor to define what could be.

we all the acknowledged the need to reform our immigration system, to fully realize the contributions that immigrants can make to the growth and prosperity of our nation's economy. we well understand the obstacles of our current laws when we seek to attract and retain a greater share of talent in a world of ever-increasing competition from abroad. at the same time, however, let us not discount the man that america remains. each year, we have -- we handle six to $7 million -- 7 million applications. this year, the statutory maximum number of employment based vises, 140,000, was met. in the great founded publicly traded u.s. companies employ approximately 220,000 people in this country and more than

400,000 people worldwide. the market capitalization of these companies exceeds $500 billion. with an immigration system in need of repair, america still continues to provide dauntless and unparalleled opportunities. our immediate charge is to realize our existing laws full potential to support the business of american business. so that we can out innovate and out compete in a global economy. before i touch upon our challenge is an endeavor to define our horizons, i would like to thank the chamber and the u.s. foreign-policy innovation for hosting this exceptional series. thank you, mayor bloomberg, and our distinguished panelists. we approve more than 80% of the business immigration

applications we adjudicate, we received criticism for the path we have paved for businesses and business people to obtain the benefits for which they are eligible. at times, the past can be narrowed or too slow. it is not overseen the agility that the dynamism of the business world requires. in response, i share with colleagues my view that we are not to shrink from the criticism, but we must instead record to ensure that we do not deserve it. we are working hard. our work is underway and three main channels of progress. policy, a process, and people. we are reviewing and revising our policies to ensure that the legislature's intent and the laws objectives are fully realized. we are re-engineering are adjudication process to yield greater efficiency. we are providing the human capital support and training.

a few examples, i think, or -- are elected. in early august, we clarify our policies to reflect the availability of the national interest waivers to foreign board, entrepreneurs and we have provided the needing training complement. we are expanding premium processing to immigrant petitions for certain multinational executives. in mid october, we're providing new training to our indicators -- the petitions the american businesses apply to transfer. we have made significant changes in the way we educate cases in the immigrant investor. a program that is designed to create american jobs. we have retained a business analyst to support our dictators and we have received more than

75 applications for additional economists. we will be hiring corporate expertise, issuing new policy guidance in the next few weeks, and currently we have outstanding and target request for proposal to reengineer our business process from beginning to end. the full allotment of 10,000 visas has never been breached. in 2008, over 1200 were issued. potential remains great. this year, we will more than triple the number. across all business lines, we'll be hiring people with business experience and harnessing the expertise of business leaders from both the public and private sectors to inform our policy development in our training so that we can more ably address the realities and needs of the business community we serve. we receive thoughtful and creative responses to requests for information as to how we can reinvent our entire customer

service system, which is currently based on a call center model. we will be issuing a formal request for proposals shortly. we must be able to provide meaningful case information to businesses that need it on a real-time basis. we have challenges before us and each challenge presents an opportunity to change and improve in the service of one of our immigration systems. the engine of that prosperity is the american business community. a committee that attracts the best and brightest from around the world to invest their talents, skills, and ideas to grow this nation's economy and create american jobs. immigrants fuel our growth, not just today, and the day after, immigration is an investment in our nation's long-term future. who knows which immigrants will

become our next great innovator? in the shadow of the need for legislative reform, there is a great deal that can be done to realize the current system's full potential. by doing so, we advance america's growth and prosperity and bright in the future. with a brighter future, shot as dissipate and new horizons are defined. -- shadows dissipate and new horizons are defined. thank you. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> if the questions are difficult, [unintelligible] >> on re-engineering their activities, we depend on --

>> we will utilize the process, whether we rely on it or not is a term i am not sure its expanse. our business analysts are trained in the process. yes? >> one challenge students and scholars have in this country is the number of databases that have proliferated throughout the federal government system. with the re-engineering of the process, will it integrate with the student exchange information system as well as working more closely with the department of labor?

how did the databases integrate? >> secretary napolitano has launched an initiative to develop programs and resources for individuals who are applying for higher education here in the united states. she has designated one of for appointees to spearhead the effort. immigration and customs enforcement has recently revamped their website. that is uppermost in the department's mind with respect to the resources that are available. and streamlining the process that students that are seeking to obtain their higher education here, and remain here, what they can access. >> you were talking about the

investor visa. can you give us some more information about the amounts involved, what the criteria are, the types of industries your most interested in attracting people to? >> if i were route to respond to the full scope of that question, i would caution people to get comfortable. it would be a while. let me see if i can capture that as succinctly as possible. the eb5 program is built on the premise that individuals from abroad to invest in new commercial enterprises here in the united states and those commercial enterprises create 10 or more american jobs, they can obtain an immigrant visa for a

period of two years. if the jobs have been created, the conditions will be removed. the amount of investment needs to be $1 million, unless that investment is made in a targeted employment area, an area of acute high unemployment. the law defines that as 150% of the national average. the amount invested needs to be $500,000. the money, if invested directly, need to be created directly from that new commercial enterprise. if, however, that money is invested in a commercial enterprise within a regional center, an economic unit of development, the jobs can be created directly or indirectly

or even induced in order to pave the path for the immigrant investor visa. that is a quick answer. >> good morning. thank you very much for being here. this was not intended to a been a follow-up question. we are talking to businesses every single day. we have american chambers of congress all over the world. what can the business community be doing to help spur those investor visas? what can we do to help? >> quite honestly, i appreciate the question, the first order of business is for our agency to streamline the process so that the creation of jobs and people

already seeking to access the program can deliver on the promise of their business proposals more rapidly. one of the things that i think the chamber can contribute to is the profile of the program. i do not know whether there is sufficient publicity around its potential. as i alluded to in my prepared remarks, for years ago, there were just over 1200 immigrant visas issued in a program that has an allocation of 10,000. i think we will bump up against the projections. the program is growing exponentially. i think the potential of that program remains untapped. when i think the chamber can help in sending the message out.

>> i was very much involve the development of the comprehensive immigration reform in the bush administration. as the gain support for that, we had a tremendous bipartisan support in the senate. what can we do in the business community to help dial down the rhetoric on this issue so that we can have a more rational conversation? tom mentioned the need for education on immigration. what advice would you have for us, not only on technical issues, but in entering the conversation in a rational and sensible way? >> you know, that is a very compelling and difficult question. i have commented on -- in the

context of discussing immigrant integration the challenges of the rhetoric that is employed on this issue posed for achieving our goals, even within the bounds of existing law and regulation. i find the rhetoric that is so very divisive not only to be counterproductive in achieving reform, but counterproductive in building collaboration and partnership, which is so critical to success within the bounds of the laws that we currently have. the thought that comes to mind is to continue to advocate, to kenya -- continued to participate in the dialogue and to exemplify the stability that you wish others to have. it is only through, i think,

demonstrating the style of engagement, the replication of which would lead to success, can we succeed. i was viewed as an aggressive federal prosecutor and. -- a federal prosecutor. by that, people meant that i was aggressive in pursuing what i think was right. i remember, in a very difficult sentencing argument, my colleague in the defense bar called me a formidable adversary. it struck me quite profoundly because i never viewed myself as an adversary. just an advocate. i think there is a material difference between the two. i think the debate on immigration should be one that

is not characterized by adversity, but one that is really defined by advocacy. i think that if we continue in this room to discuss the issues in the way that we all have and hopefully others will follow, and reason will prevail. >> your mention of the re- engineering of your business process, i think everybody who knows anything about it and knows anything about immigration finds that it welcomed the opportunity and something they look forward to break you have something in process now called transformation. what is the link between the two? is one independent of the other? >> for everyone's visibility, transformation is our effort to modernize our agency, to move

from a paper-based agency to one that is defined by the use of electronic means. those two efforts, transformation and re- engineering of business processes, are sometimes one in the same. otherwise, work in partnership with one another. we are transforming our 539s. we are scheduled to launch the new electronic environment. we are re-engineering the process so that we bring into the electronic arena a more efficient process and we are not just making modern antiquated process. we are trying to be engineer and

head of the transformation efforts because quite frankly, transformation is a multi-year effort and we need to bring efficiencies to bear in real time. those are working in sync with one another. >> i think this might be a call launched the previous question. you mentioned the single word in your prepared remarks, discrimination. then you also provide a tremendously elegant description of the history of the immigrants in our country. what plans -- or do you have plans for an outreach that captures those thoughts? to bring to the american public a reminder of what the role of the immigrant has been in our country? >> we have tremendous outreach

efforts under way. we most recently launched a citizenship education and public awareness initiative that is designed to reach people who are residents who may be eligible to naturalize. we might not be aware of the path available to them or how to navigate that path. that campaign, or that initiative, publishes indirectly the power and beauty of our immigration system and the power and duties of the contributions of immigrants. i am very careful in what types of initiatives we launched to spread the word of the power of

the immigrant and the united states. the money i use is the money the immigrants pay for the benefits for which they're eligible. i try to balance the importance of proselytizing with the frugality that is incumbent upon us to exhibit. >> one of the things that we have discussed from the chamber perspective is the specialized knowledge category and the key role that plays and allowing multinational companies to manage their global workforce. the issues that we have seen with education -- education in this area, it -- you mentioned in your remarks that the agency is starting a training exercise to try to not issue a new

guidance in the area, but to train your officers concerning how businesses operate and to improve their understanding about the movement of global workforce. can you talk a little bit more about what the steps might be? >> thank you, amy. this is an indication that i hope i do not regrets. if you have an example of a request for an intercompany transfer that you believe was apparently denied and reflects a lack of understanding on the part of our agency with respect to how intercompany transfers work in the business environment, and we welcome those examples. those examples help us train our colleagues and ensure that we do not repeat those mistakes. there are a number of different ways in which we're going to

introduce the business community and to our agency. so that we understand the industries we serve, we understand the dynamics of the business world, and its needs. we are going to be hiring people from the business world to join our teams. we have already, and will continue to hire business consultants to guide our policy- making and help train. we are exploring ways in which we can build advisory panels of business leaders from the public and private sector to give the strategic advice on our policy development and our human capital needs. >> i appreciate you -- i appreciate your insights. thank you for coming today. adjusting your schedule.

[applause] >> everybody did take their

seats. it is often said that in washington, our next speaker need no introduction. i need to introduce myself. i have been doing immigration for about 13 years. >> truly, our next speaker does not need introduction. michael bloomberg of new york city. if his biographical material is too expensive and we are on a tight schedule ready. on a personal note, it might have been several years ago, you were testifying in philadelphia. i am not sure if we were working on mccain-kennedy, something or other. listening to your testimony at that hearing, you getting engaged, we had to get something

done eventually. over the years, we learned on the senate floor. the members of the coalition, i want to direct you to renewoureconomy.org. there is an impressive group, mayors across the country. these are the kind of things that i think we did not have eight or nine years ago, which really helped form what we needed. the day's meeting is focused on immigration. i very much look forward to your remarks.

[applause] >> i don't know if it has been a rough morning here, i spent all my time sitting on the tarmac at laguardia. we started out thinking that we would have no problems whatsoever. we kept looking at the map and saying, why? hall's well that ends well. i love the chamber of commerce. i used to be a member many years ago. it cost me a lot of money. it wasn't a gift to support the chamber, it is money well spent. likes to see you, how was your spanish? one of the smartest guys i have ever met, that is neither here nor there. when we left the chamber, there was a beautiful porcelain eagle. trouble was, i was already the

mayor and the mayor can't take gifts. i loved it so much, i bought one to take home. without that, i would not have spent that money. my girlfriend would have been able to have a better wardrobe. my kids another horse. anyways, my remarks will not run too long. for those of you that don't know, it is the beginning of rosh hashana. i have to wrap up before sundown. this is the jewish year 5772. that is when some people say we will see a bipartisan budget agreement. seriously, three septembers ago, the global banking industry meltdown continues, the nation

facing the prospect of economic collapse. thankfully, congress and the bush administration acted to shore up the financial industry. i always thought that hank paulson and bernanke, tim geithner really save this country. people say we should not have done tarp, but those people don't understand how close we came to a meltdown that would have damaged our economy for many years into the future. in the years that followed, congress passed and president obama signed a stimulus package. they rescued the auto industry from bankruptcy. they passed financial reform legislation and they extended the bush era tax cuts. i know all of us have different opinions of those actions.

people think that some were more helpful than others. but as we approach the end of 2011, two things are very clear. first, the american economy remains in very serious trouble. with more concern that we are headed into a double dip recession, and more of the same is not going to do the trick to get us out of that. whatever you think of the president's job plan, i say, what would you do? what ever you think of the republican agenda, and they have put forward some things whether you agree with them or not, you just spend the hour ways out of this. we have to grow our way out of

it. we really need an approach that allows businesses to grow and expand our market overseas. they start businesses here and creating jobs for americans on every part of the economic ladder. there ways that we can do these without cost to the taxpayers. in the process that we could raise revenue, and we could use either that revenue to pay for tax cuts or pay for essential services like national defense, i expect all of you would say, great, what are we waiting for? the truth is, we can do all of that and we can do it in a way that both parties can support if we have an open and honest conversation about immigration reform based on economics rather than anything else.

right now, the two parties play to their base. the democrats say that we need comprehensive emigration reforms. i agree with that. republicans say that we need to tighten the border. i agree with that. if we could get the two sides to talk with each other instead of past each other, i think we could see a lot more agreement than disagreement and we can pass a bill that will do more to strengthen the economy than anything discussed in washington today. we are here to talk about a middle ground that exists and how both parties can seize upon it. we know our partnership for a new american economy, this organization we have formed, there is an emerging consensus between democratic and republican leaders.

it boils down to saying that we will define a presidential election. it is the economy, stupid. if the parties are locked in a standoff over how to create jobs, immigration reform based on economic needs offers a unique opportunity to both of them. it does not require either party to walk away from the position on taxes or spending. they can produce legislation consistent with political principles and will put americans back to work. today, i will talk to you about ideas that will form the basis of that legislation. how they are not a panacea. there is no doubt that they will strengthen our economy and put us on track to create the jobs that our country needs. first, both democratic and

republican business leaders agree that visa distribution should be better align with our economic needs. every year, we admit more than 1 million new permanent residents. but 85% are of for those seeking family reunification or refuge from harm while 15% are given for economic reasons. the real number is probably something more like 7% because many bring spouses and children. humanitarian relief is vitally important. they reflected the values that have long sustained our country. but immigrants have done more than shape our culture. they have built our economy, and we need them to help us to continue building it at this point in our history, allocating only 15% on economics is terrible public policy and is holding our economy back.

in today's global marketplace, we can't afford to turn away those that the country needs to grow and to succeed. i call it national suicide. i think that we should expand the number of green cards available for the best of the best. the highest skilled workers we need to join the u.s. economy permanently. they will not only help create thousands of jobs, it will give us knowledge of foreign markets that will help u.s. businesses increased their exports. a 1% increase in immigrants working in managerial and professional jobs leads to a 3% increase in exports to their home countries. you can take the example of caterpillar, 60% of their sales are international.

but to design the bulldozer that we sell in china, they have to know how the chinese approach construction and infrastructure. having a few chinese engineers in senior positions go a long ways to fulfilling that need and making sure that their products are saleable overseas. the idea that both democratic and republican business leaders agree on is that foreign students that are earning advanced degrees in technical fields from our universities should be eligible to work here permanently. foreign students account for nearly 2/3 of those that earn a computer science or engineering ph.d. from a u.s. institution. these are the individuals that make the discoveries and innovations that propelled businesses and create jobs for americans. they're already here on our soil. but when they graduate, our immigration system has no

permanent pass designed for them. after a brief grace period, they have temporary visas and an uncertain path to a green card limited by a tangle of restrictive rules. turning these students out of the country is about the dumbest thing that we could possibly do. other countries are bending over backwards to attract these students, and we're helping them to do it. we have become the laughingstock of the world with this policy. there is no such thing as too many engineers, scientists, or technological innovators. we need all of them in this country. foreign students they used in advanced degrees in engineering or math, what has called to be called the stem field should be able to remain and work indefinitely after graduation.

offer them green cards when we finish their degrees and we can get down to the real business of convincing them to stay, because that is not a foregone conclusion either. we are in competition with the rest of the world for the best and the brightest. the truth of the matter is, there are lots of alternatives for people in this day and age. the third key idea that both the democratic and republican business leaders agree on is that we should stop turning away some money on to open doors that want to come and start businesses. these businesses will higher american workers. immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a new company, and a recent study shows that u.s. job creation in the last 30 years is entirely attributable to start up companies. 1/4 of u.s. technology companies started during the dot com boom

have a foreign-born founder. 40% of companies successful to conduct a public stock offering had a four and founder. and including many longstanding giants of american business, more than 40% were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. as with foreign students, our immigration has no real path for foreign entrepreneurs. even if they have a bright business idea that has already attracted investors. they are finding other countries smart enough to take them and their new businesses. too dull the pain, u.s. capital that could have seated economic growth here at home this appears overseas with them. let me tell you the story of an entrepreneur that wanted to grow in the united states, the

canadian named eric deep. he went to silicon valley seeking opportunity and capital. he found success with an online quiz program that attracted millions of users and the interest of u.s. investors. they wanted him to start a company to sell the program, but he could not get a visa tuesday in the united states. his ability to build a company that could of created u.s. jobs got him nowhere with our immigration system. his investors gave up and the opportunity pass. it is no surprise what happened with his next idea. he and a couple of other canadians had creative ideas for video games to play on smart phones. he also convinced u.s. investors to get on board. but this time, his partners have

chosen to grow their company in vancouver where they have less trouble getting visas for their employees. and over the border when the u.s. capitol and the jobs that could have been created in the united states. this is craziness. but we can stop it by offering a visa to immigrants to back their business ventures. if it successfully creates jobs for american workers, they can stay and grow the business into the future. america has some of the most enterprising individuals on earth, but on to open doors -- entrepreneurs are like engineers. you can't get enough of them. he why bring more immigrants into the country when you have so many unemployed? for is the solution

unemployment. of democratic and republican business leaders agree that we should expand and streamline our existing tools for attracting talent our country. temporary visas help fill critical gaps in the work force, but the numbers are too few, and the filing process long and unpredictable. the visas have been exhausted in days, and even in the midst of a national recession, the visas have run out for the end of the year on which they are authorized. not only in the software industry, but in electronics, pharmaceuticals, aerospace. this is absurd, to deny american companies access to the workers they need. the government doesn't know how many skilled workers are needed each year. let the markets work.

you can do that by eliminating the cap on visas. another arbitrary cap which it of lemonade is the one that limits employment green cards by country. right now, iceland and gets the same quota as india. it makes no sense. i have nothing against iceland, but think about where they are coming from. we'll get some from iceland, but just because of size, it is more likely we will get some from india. these quotas mean that they can face a wait of up to 10-years for a green card. during that time, they are prohibited from getting a promotion or taking a new job. no wonder why many return home. that is not just for american companies, but the entire

economy. they returned home to help our competitors. think about it this way. the yankees sending him on to pitch for the san francisco giants. this in case anybody is interested, is not going happen. and the yankees will go all the way and win the world series. you heard it here first, just so you know. i didn't mean to take all the fun out of it, but it is going back then. each of the steps that i have just outlined will help the economy at the american worker. if we don't take them, we will not only be undermining our economy, we are putting our nation's future at risk. look at what other countries are doing to attract the people that we are turning away. how the government offers tax breaks in india, and startup

capital to chinese citizens educated overseas and returned to start a business. china has launched the thousand talents program, a campaign to lure back, a chinese scientist with cash and well-funded laboratories. in israel, the government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a program to attract millions of israeli exit path -- ex-pats. in chile, the government is seeking people of any background. the founders of new technology companies their offer free office space, produced red tape, and access to mentors. many of the english-speaking competitors from canada and the u.k. have programs designed to thatct the entrepreneur is

come to create jobs. smarted visa policies alone can't guarantee that the economy will be successful. but that other is no chance there will -- they will stay competitive unless they can attract top talent from around the world. too few jobs to go around today, i said before, why should we let people overseas compete for slots that can go to u.s. workers. i want to repeat the real facts here. as the data shows, immigrants don't take away jobs. they make jobs. that is true for high skilled immigrants. for every position, u.s. technology countries increased their employment by five workers. it is not that the u.s. work force doesn't have extraordinary individuals, cut the global

economy is changing everything. people and resources are moving more freely. offices and factories can increasingly do the same work everywhere. information technology is creating an unprecedented opportunities. as a result, america is no longer the inevitable crossroads for enterprise and innovation. countries now back in with opportunity, so the united states has to compete like never before for talent. that is a competition we can win if we work at it. and we must win if we are going to remain the world of the strongest economy and a beacon for hope for people around the world. exactly one month from today, the entire country will mark the one hundred twenty fifth anniversary of america's greatest monument, the statue of liberty. her torch has brought light to

the darkest corners of the earth, beckoning to our shores hold those yearning to breathe free. it is not her torch, her crown, or herb broken chains that have inspired so much. it is her location. the power of her symbolize and the reality of new york city as a gateway, a golden door to the land of opportunity that is the united states of america. the reality is our history but it also must be our future. and today, we are saying to those who dream of becoming americans, who dream of coming here to work and start businesses, we don't need your sweat, your skills, your ideas or your innovations. but nothing could be further from the truth. we desperately need immigrants that want to come here to work, have the skills the company's

need to succeed. the american dream cannot survive if we keep telling the dreamers to go elsewhere. today, we may have turned away the next albert einstein. tomorrow, we might turn away the next levi strauss. and we certainly won't be turning away people like my ancestors who came to love my country with almost nothing except for one thing. a desire to work and work and work. to build a better life for themselves and their families. the debate here in washington will not be ending anytime soon. in all likelihood, the grid lock will not be broken unless the parties find a way to highlight their political interest. that is hard to do when egypt has entrenched positions. but both parties can champion a

cause that is vitally important to american companies. it offers both parties a chance to show business leaders that they understand the needs of the american economy. and it is a chance to show the american people that when it comes to immigration reform, they are in favor of policies that will help american workers and help our country get moving again. this is a chance we can't afford to mess, and it is up to all of us to convince congress to seize that chance. let's get together and to make this happen. your future and your children and grandchildren future depends on getting this done. i can't urge you enough to call your congressman or congresswoman. call your senator and said that we just have to have this. there is a time for a political campaign, but there is also a time to save america.

i have been working with my centers in new york, particularly chuck schumer, i think there are others like lindsay graham. you have to call your senator, your congressperson and say that this is something that cannot be consumed by partisan politics. it is not something that can wait for the next election. this is about keeping america the greatest country in the world, a place where our ancestors came and where our future has to come. thank you very much. [applause] >> i will take a couple of questions on topic. any questions? sir? seem to -- yes,

tell everybody who you are. >> [inaudible] >this is a great program have laid out. we have seen in other publications and it is an interesting platform. what do you do to encourage immigrants to come to the city and make it easier? what would you recommend to other levels of government for getting this particular change in outlook. >> let me enter a little differently and i will come back if it is not adequate. i was asked, what do you do about the big industrial cities that have a hollowed out? they have schools with and the seats. they have housing that nobody is living in, they have roads

without cars. what you have to do, given the political reality and economics the way it works, you offered visas to people to come to america, you assign them to a city. the deal is they have to live there for seven years. they have to agree to take no federal, state, or city subsidies whatsoever. but if they stay there for seven years, you give them and their family full citizenship. let me tell you what happens. we do an awful lot more things right in this country than we do wrong. america is the place where people want to come. a place where people want to practice their religion and say what they want to say, be in charge of their own destiny. and leave their kids in a place for the end of the will be able to prosper going forward.

you would fill each of those cities overnight. the people you attract would buy those houses and fix them up with their hands. they will demand a better schools because people that come to this country understand that education really is the key. they created businesses because they will have to do something to support themselves. if they have to drive halfway across the country at take to jobs, they will. that is the immigrant ethnic, no matter where they come from. that is the way i think is a politically viable because it doesn't cost us any money. no one can argue that they are coming here to be supported by others. you know that will create businesses or there will starve to death, and take the jobs that maybe nobody else wants. they said, we don't have enough jobs.

yes, he will never have enough jobs unless he gets somebody to come there and create those jobs. if americans are willing to do that, they would have done it. you see it the basic industries have been left and nobody is moving in. if we can't just sit back and say that god will provide. god will help those that help themselves, that as a way to do it. in new york, we have created an industry that replaces the manufacturing companies. have a 50 million tourists in new york city. they create jobs by entry-level people, people that have a great command of the english language. certainly not a high school diploma or more people that may have more problems in their background. to some extent, we have made up

for the oil line industries. we are creating small businesses which i think is really the solution to the country's unemployment problem. that is what supports the country, the pension system. when the companies that are labour intensive and hire people. those of the smaller businesses youe automation doesn't let do more with less. we have also tried to attract different industries. we have tried to diversify our economy. we have double the number of the fashion houses. he google just bought a building to fill with technology people. blumberg and all of these companies are expanding their

itn whole new york city. well worked very hard to bring in film and television to new york. today, if you want to make a feature-length movie, there are no sound stages available. studios are expanding, but we have 23 new pilots starting this year, a weekly shows. it employs something like 250 people. that is what you want. we'll try to attract businesses where new york has an advantage of intellectual capital and the diversity of our population. america is a country that is built on immigration, it is built on diversity. the more different people you have from different parts of the world, you will have more choices when you want to go out to dinner. you'll have more choices of where to go to pray.

you'll have more choices of people to talk to, and you will have much for the first business opportunities because people recognize opportunities from their homeland or get a brilliant idea. the strength has been the diversity of its population and the fact that we live as a mixture rather than as a mosaic, which is different from other big diversities. the answer to your question comes back to immigration. >> first, i want to say that baltimore has done with your design describing. they can't give a green card, but they have reversed a decline of the population. most of the talk has been about comprehensive immigration reform. some of us more recently have been talking in terms of

steppingstones, -- small pieces of legislation that can get half. how to know what you think about house judiciary committee chairman smith that he thinks a new era of them bill could pass this year. it would not do lots of other things. it would not include the hh1b. it would provide a green cards to roughly 50,000 trained workers in to make permanent residents out of them. >> anything you do to get more people to come and stay as a good idea. is the goal that it happens to be for me. some of the problem is being addressed. a number of undocumented in our country which is very hard to counter, it has got to be dramatically lower than it was a

few years ago. the number of people trying to cross the mexican american or canadian american border has gone down precipitously because the economy in canada and the economy in mexico is better than the economy here. a canadian company just announced that they will build their next jack in mexico. the people that came here for jobs, that is what the undocumented basically come for. it is not a country easy to come and put your feet up. you come because you want to work. i am sure somebody will show that they put their feet up, but that is not the real world. there are jobs back wherever they came from. to some extent, the issue of what you do with 11 million undocumented is fixing itself. it is also true that whatever

the number is, they are here. they broke the law, but because we, as a country, wanted them here and we wanted to have it both ways. so we said it was illegal and helped them, and did not enforce the laws. to sit here and jeopardize our economy because of what happened in the past is about as dumb thing as you can think of. we are sacrificing young people oppose the opportunity to get a job in the future because whatever you think happened in the past. it is nonsensical. we are looking back, for example, at the mortgage crisis. who caused the mortgage crisis? it wasn't just to the banks, it was fanny, freddie, and congress did more damage than anybody else. the problem we have is helping people keep their homes and pay

their mortgages in having people take new mortgages. you go around the world and they cannot conceive. explain to us why you're doing what you're doing. comprehensive immigration may form -- reform may be the desired thing, but the problem now is that americans don't have jobs and the tax base is not growing the way you would want it to, so you can reduce rates, have services, or any combination that you want. we're trying to blame somebody in the past, and we are wrong on who we are planning. >> one of the topics you mentioned was entrepreneurship.

having graduated from business school, i saw that most people going to business school and the beginning of lord away, even those with good ideas and they end up joining big companies for joining mostly financial services because the financial stability, they don't want to take the risk. they don't end up starting small businesses. what should the government will be for people interested in starting businesses? >> you can encourage small business growth with tax policy. one of the things we all talk about is the tax rate in and these tax breaks, gimmicks or whatever. keep in mind that some of those were there to encourage certain kinds of economic activity. and before you go and get rid of some of them, let's understand what they really do. if i want you to drill for oil over there, giving you an incentive to do so, you can

argue is a tax break for oil drillers, but we want the oil and we want somebody to build houses. their arguments about whether the mortgage reduction really encourages housing. canada, where the interest is not deductible has the same percentage of home ownership. the first thing is, you are wrong, they are not going to financial-services. because financial services are cutting back. every day, thousands of people are being laid off. the young people going directly out of business school today, but let me tell you, when i went to business school, there were small investment banking firms and consulting firms. for a young person to go start a business, and it is very hard.

they have that that they have to borrow to go through college and business school. some want to build a nest egg or get more experience, but some go and start businesses. i know people that never went to college in the started businesses. bill gates is the one that everybody holds up. a lot of people said that this isn't for me. you can go do that if you want and doesn't have to be a business that -- i was not smart enough to start a company. the reason the west and the company was a gun fired and nobody would hire me. do you want to end this? >> the unions continue to argue that the recruitment of immigrants generally is driven by the desire to undercut the wages of americans.

they argue that regarding and deprogram, and is this a disagreement over statistics or something else driving that position? it is sometimes very hard to decipher what is going on. >> to the top level science engineering, it is hard to argue that they create products that people manufacturing and service. that is where the union membership needs to be. not totally, but generally. what is clearly true in this country is that farmers are moving out of the country. there is the argument a union would make that if you raise the compensation.

the problem is that people would not by its most people in america just aren't going to work a backbreaking job, a low- paying job that is all the market will support. temporary workers come here for three of four months. if we can't get them, the farmer doesn't grow his crops. i think they would tell you that it would not be satisfactory. that is what farmers needed, and if they can't get it, they will move their jobs south of the border. but you can get produce from around the world today. it flies.

what you have to do is work with the unions, understand where they're coming from. there is nothing wrong with that. there are plenty of statistics to show, and plenty of places you could work with the unions just as the democrats have to work together for industries where immigrants will have to create jobs. this really is crucial to america. i hope that behind the scenes, there are plenty of people in congress working because they must be getting pressure from farmers that can't pick their crops, companies that they solicited for political donations that can't keep growing here and are expanding overseas. they have to be reading the newspapers just like everybody else. we live in a global competitive

technological world. it requires a kind of coming together and doing what is right for the country. i think that if they don't, the voters will hold them responsible. they say the voters will irresponsible, but there are an awful lot of unemployed and an awful lot of people that worry about becoming unemployed. maybe this really does have the legs and the power for the polling booth. there is enough blame in washington to go around. this is something where everybody can stand up and do something for america. yes, there'll be a couple of people that demagogue against them. but if you stand up and say that i created jobs in my city, by state, my district, maybe this will be the time that they do something.

thank you for having me on. [applause] >> lets go ahead and get started, we have a panel of true experts this morning. some have flown all the way across the country. i think these are great following general speakers, and his honor as a tough act to

follow, but we will try to take the big picture, move it down. our panelists are going to try to fill in the slices of the pie from their companies and their personal experiences about the beneficial effects of immigrants into the personal situations. i think it helps americans take the abstract and down and understand what they're talking about today. the mayor said the stage already, but a few comments did not want to go away. we are at 9% unemployment, but we are facing a shortage of workers for certain kinds of jobs. you don't have to take my word for it. a couple of studies have come out recently, the mckinsey global institute on june 11. the united states will not have enough workers with the right education to fill the profiles

of jobs likely to be created. united states will not have enough workers with the right education and training for the jobs likely to be created. our analysis suggests that a shortage of 1.5 million workers with a bachelor's degrees had higher in 2020. 6 million americans without a high-school diploma are likely to be without a job. americans that attend college and vocational schools choose a field of study that will give them specific skills that employers are seeking. this points to potential shortages in many occupations such as nutrition, welders, nurse's aide. in addition to the often predicted shortfall of computer specialists in engineering. a new one came out of georgetown. america was slow coming out of recession in 2007, only to find

itself on a collision course with the future. not enough americans are completing college. by 2018, we will need 22 million new college degrees but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million. whinnied 4.7 million new workers with certificates. you can't throw a stick without finding articles on this issue. a new york times, factory jobs return but employers find skills shortages. giving a lift to the fragile economy. because they laid off so many workers, manufacturers have a vast pool of people to choose from. employers complain that they can't fill their openings. the problem is a mismatch between the kind of skills needed and to the ranks of the unemployed.

2 million open jobs, i can go on. the point is, in a world with 9% unemployment, it is hard to believe that this is the case. it is worth mentioning that we look at the 9% figure, but among those with college degrees, the unemployment rate is 4.3%. 0% unemployment is what we prefer, but as we're talking today about what the companies faced, we need to keep those statistics in mind. -- ifkers can't find companies can't find the workers they need, it will not create jobs. you don't need an economics degree to say that if companies can't find workers, they are not going to grow and that will hurt everyone including americans looking for jobs.

it allows you to put things in perspective. right now, in this country, we have three separate worker programs. as we talk about trying to expand the program and the various ways, we're talking about a small drop in an ocean and a drop that is very important to drive economic growth. those are basically the three programs that drive immigration in the temporary worker area. if you look at a charge of 165 million and you put the level of the numbers included in the temporary worker programs, it is flatter than a pancake. i am not going to go through the

various statistics that the mayor went through on graduates from universities, 50% with ph.d. and a master's coming from immigrants from overseas. we have a hard time keeping them even if they want to stay. a lot of them say i will go back to my home country and compete against -- it is sort of a ludicrous position we are in, one of those areas that over the years we keep struggling with. maybe the next year-and-a-half or less we have a shot at making some progress. certainly there are some economic studies that say that immigration has a slight adverse effect on americans with very low wage levels. there are more economic studies

anyone to shake a stick at. at the high end, economic studies are clear. it has a positive effect on the american economy, generally. it is not even a debate among that. that is where we are. the mayor touched on all of these subjects. we have an excellent panel here, and i will introduce them quickly. there bios are in your material. i will go down the list, then we will shake it up a little bit. senior counsel of global migration at microsoft, came in three days ago to get ready. as a senior management level of migration services, microsoft u.s. immigration department consists of a team of 17 professionals responsible for the handling of all u.s. immigration matters for microsoft.

to her right, manager of a global immigration services. the company diversified with 57,000 employes worldwide and directs the company's emigration and international visa function to facilitate the transfer of personnel worldwide for regulatory compliance and associated travel issues. i have known elizabeth for over a decade. she chairs the subcommittee, and always comes to the table well prepared and whenever we needed somebody to testify, let's live up elizabeth. she will fly down and do what needs to be done. executive director of enterprise innovation, stephen has 10 years of private equity experience.

a graduate of georgia tech, he returned to his of water as chief commercialization officer. it was led to streamline the licensing of technology have to make the institute's resources more accessible to business and industry. i think he and our next speaker will have a different perspective on emigration, all in agreement, but sort of a different take. he said i introduced him as a doctor q. even though i took four years of spanish. he is a neuroscience for cellular and molecular medicine. at john hopkins at the bayview medical center. that just about does it right there.

he is an internationally renowned neurosurgeon that leaves cutting edge research to cure brain cancer, and as we have talked on the phone earlier, he has quite a story to tell about his inexperience. i think most of you know her, a research officer for the federal reserve bank of dallas. she has done a lot of great writing on immigration. she wrote the book, u.s. immigration reform and a new era of globalization in 2010. do we have copies in the back of the room? she will provide a look back as we go through the specifics. elizabeth, since you're the chair of the immigration subcommittee, let's start with you. >> while i chaired the

subcommittee on immigration, i hear from a lot of other companies that are having the same kind of problems, attracting and retaining high skilled talent. but so we can get a little snapshot of companies that use highly skilled workers, i will talk mostly about my company and what we do. it is a $14 billion diversified industrial company. we employ 58,000 worldwide. we have 83 manufacturing facilities, 47 of them in the united states. we operate in every global region. our strategic and branch, trained air-conditioning, transport refrigeration, locks and everybody knows our golf carts.

it does a lot to sustain productivity for industrial production. they are all the no. 1 or no. 2 brands in their market. a lot of that is because we have a very innovative product. we employ 3000 engineers globally. 700 are lead accredited engineers, who recognized green building certification. we are committed to sustainable energy solutions, we have a center for energy efficiency and sustainability. it is a dedicated global team that is increasing the pace of environmentally sustainable innovation of the product that we manufacture and sell. while it really only uses less than 1% of h1b workers, their

highly specialized knowledge and skills driving innovation that supports a very complex global platform of products that are sold in every country around the world. our engineering managers recruit at top universities in the united states. when they go out to recruit, they're looking for candidates that have attained at least a master's degree, and they're looking for candidates with a very highly specialized in jerry specialties that relate to a product line. like integrated electronics. most universities now that are really at the top echelons throughout the country have a lot of cross-disciplinary degrees. which are really amazing

because you will take somebody that has maybe a business degree in engineering degree. they're very good at creating the business system because they understand the business aspect of it as well as having the capability of being able to create global platforms for itt business solutions. this year, we recruited the three ph.d. candidates that are working on product development. when we went out to look for engineers, one of them that we hired, in his doctoral thesis was on design optimization, a renewable energy system. a commitment to innovation and sustainable energy. as i said, he completed a ph.d. at a u.s. university and had opposed completion employment experiments -- experience, a

close connection to one of our product lines. with his employment experience, he was uniquely qualified to identify breakthroughs in energy from home air-conditioning, heating, and ventilation systems. not only is he doing a wonderful job for the company creating innovative products, but he is also doing research that is supporting our commitment to energy efficiency. that will help everybody. as i said, these people have a lot of opportunities now. because i do global immigration, i see other countries were also interested in small talent pools and a lot of other countries make it much easier for these highly qualified

individuals. mayor bloomberg talked about canada. i have someone down who is concerned we will not be able to get a green card for him and he is applying for canadian citizenship. it is a pretty easy process. it is a skill-based thing. i'm afraid we will lose him. that is a simple fact. if we cannot come through the labor certification and get him a green card, because he is an indian national, he has to wait eight years to get a green card, he will go elsewhere. and now they're wonderful opportunities for them in their home countries. there are great opportunities in the european bloc for i.t. services.

this is our competition. we're not just competing against other u.s. companies. we are competing on a global platform with other countries looking to attract the same talent that we are trying to keep here. if we keep this talent here and redo the product innovation here and we do the manufacturing of these products here, this creates jobs for americans. for example, our centrifugal air tracked business has an almost 90% of the products exported, mostly to underdeveloped countries. these are products that sell from $500,000 to over $1 million. they harm manufactured here in north carolina. right now, we are going through a number projects to develop new cutting edge product

enhancements for this particular product line, which creates energy and is also energy efficient. it is an international competition for this very small pool of highly skilled talent. i think we have to look at the immigration system in the united states that is in keeping our ability not allowed to hire these people initially as an h1b worker -- we do run out of them each year. by january, we will be out of h1b numbers for fiscal year 2012. so our recruitment people will not be able to hire a farmworker who requires an h1b visa.

how do we get green cards for them? why do they have to be stuffed in a job for eight years to 10 years because there is such an incredible backlog in immigrant visa numbers? again, a lot of the candidates that i am looking at, because we are and engineering engineering company, come from those classifications. that is something that mayor bloomberg brought up. if we had some mechanism to retain these people, it will drive business. it will keep manufacturing in the united states. in the end, it will support our economy and our gross national product. thank you. >> you mentioned high tech. in the past, you have also mentioned a shortage of skills. for example, welders and such. >> yes. there are manufacturing jobs as

well as high skilled jobs that are shortage occupations. precision machinists, that this kind of a skill that you do not see much in the united states anymore. again, it is essential for certain of our product lines that you are putting together. putting together to -- tool and die people, they are less skilled workers and there is no mechanism to bring them into the country. we spend a lot of kind -- a long time with that, looking for welders. the attrition -- the people who are retiring now who have those skills and the young people are not going into that at all. young people do not want to be welders in america. foreigners will come in and do welding.

but that is not something that attracts good and we do have our own welding school. we still cannot get the appropriate candidates. my engineering manager tells me that there is a skill to welding. it is not just being willing to do it. it is a highly skilled profession. as is precision machining and tool and die stuff. they do not require a college degree, but they are highly skilled jobs as well. >> first novel, i want to thank you for organizing the event and inviting me to join. it is an honor to be part of the panel and the conversation and i am grateful for the opportunity to be here today. i am senior counsel for global migration at microsoft. microsoft global migration group is one of the largest in house

immigration programs in the country and is responsible for helping to enable microsoft to lead the industry in its ability to hire and retain talent by delivering timely, effective, and measurable immigration solutions. in simple terms, i like to say that we help microsoft hire the best and brightest talent. once on board, we helped insert them into the microsoft family by allowing them to focus on their jobs and their personal lives while we handled their immigration matters. having them focus on their jobs and their lives and not worrying about their immigration matters is a really big task. between tom, randy, the mayor, and elizabeth, we have covered a lot of ground here. i want to spend a lot of -- in the the time covering what we see on the street level and giving you some specific examples of what we're facing in the competitive marketplace.

i would like to focus my remarks around three main issues. number one, why do we need to hire foreign nationals in the first place and what would be the detrimental effect if it could not bring them into the u.s.? no. 2, what is our experience when we are able to bring it in the foreign nationals that we need? is it right? that is often argued in for rick professional hired, there is an american professional who is not. or is there another more positive creation affected? number three, what are we doing because of the broken immigration system? do we have to operate at a deficit until things change? why does microsoft need to hire foreign nationals and the first place? what would be the detrimental effect if we did not bring the four national mini into the u.s.? what lost opportunities which we face? for us, when we look at lost opportunities, it is really hard. we're focused on innovation.

we're focused on being the next great thing. we want to come out with the next best technology that you all want to use. so we cannot just identify the sites -- those opportunities. we have to create environments where we allow that innovation two floors. that will allow certain ideas to force and then see what opportunities present themselves. like most major companies, microsoft competes in the global economy. part of that intel's having operations around the world. that being said, we have been firmly -- part of that entails having operations around the world. while we have more than 90,000 employees worldwide, more than half of them live and work in the united states. our research and development efforts have always been led in primarily conducted at our headquarters in washington can and we fully expect this to continue. and fat, 83% of our nine points

$6 billion in research and development activities -- $9.6 billion in research and development activities occur in the u.s.. microsoft is a company whose entire basis is ideas and innovation. sure, we need to make sure that we stay on target with our development schedule. but we also want to make sure that we encourage -- that we trade increased opportunities for innovation. we want to be able to be a game changer. we want to create that hot technology. this means having access to the best minds in the field. star talent acquisition strategies are absolutely critical. finding the right talent is not as simple as substituting one person for another. for our business, it comes down to having the right technical skill set for our core technology jobs. we focused our recruiting for core technology jobs at u.s. universities, which continue to

be among the best in the world for computer science and engineering graduates. so there is a serious shortage of u.s. students with expertise in the fields we need. we have found through our expansive recruitment records that u.s. universities -- at u.s. universities, how of the small pool of graduates, the majorities are for national students. randy mentioned the georgetown university study that projects jobs and education requirements in 2018. we will need 22 million new college degrees. but the country is on course to fall short of that number by at least 3 million. moreover, we're falling short in many of the field we need the most feared computer-related bachelor's degrees awarded in the u.s. dropped from 60,000 in 2004 to cut 38,000 in 2008. nor are these shortfalls limited

to the bassos degree level. last year, only about 1600 computer science ph.d.'s graduated from u.s. universities. of these, some 60% were foreign nationals. as well, for instance turn 50% of the computer engineering degrees at the u.s. masters level. this is poor employment for recruitment. one of the stumbling blocks in this debate is that people often ask how you can talk about a shortfall of talent when the unemployment rate is hovering around 9%, and increasingly, however, the unemployment problem in the u.s. is also skills problem. we see this in a unemployment rate for the different groups of americans. we see a 9.6% unemployment rate for individuals with only a

high-school diploma. in contrast, unemployment for individuals with a college degree or more is only 4.3%. this education-based difference in the unemployment rate is mirrored in the i.t. environment. the unemployment rate for computer and mathematical operations hovered around 3.7%. it was under half the overall unemployment rate. what is clear is that our country is operating with a dual the unemployment rate, one for those with strong post secondary education and another starkly different one for those without it. to promote the country's long- term competitiveness and from -- and create -- the u.s. must produce more university graduates in these fields. our first priority should be to elevate and enhance the skills of american citizens so they can compete for the higher skilled

jobs in this economy. we need to bring more americans up to a secondary level. that makes such a major difference in employability. we also must make sure that students are focused in the fields that the economy needs pin it does not just start at the post secondary level. we need to do more to spark the interest of american students of all ages and to help build the educational environment for our own students to survive. for us, this is about addressing the issue at its record microsoft approaches its u.s. education strategy with the same level of thoroughness and creativity and resources that we bring to software development. microsoft contributes tens of millions of dollars annually to support organizations and programs designed to encourage students and workers in america to pursue stem field and to increase the skill level of the u.s. work force with a wide variety of free and reduced-cost

online digital literacy training. i can spend a lot of time going through the programs, the educational programs, but i will save time and just mention a few. we have elevate america and elevate america veterans initiative. we looked at a community-based efforts to provide free jobs and -- to provide free job training opportunities and other transitional services for returning iraq and afghanistan veteran service people and their spouses. a new privately funded program to improve teaching and learning in sun's technology, engineering, and math. our $6 million commitment over three years will make this program focused on investments that will improve student learning and make -- in the crucial infield out in her home state. we have a washington

opportunities scholarship for we pledged $25 million over the next five years. as well, microsoft education announced a new $15 million investment in research and development for merc of learning technologies, including game- based construction and the creation of a lifelong learning digital archive. i have to tell you, just as i have a child who just entered kindergarten, by e-mail came in yesterday. i saw that we just once a new program where we actually bring an elementary school student on tour campus and have them experience in the technology that we create and spend time with them really just trying to spark their interest in technology and the idea that they can be the next greatest thing, that they can be an innovator. if they just focus on the math and science and technology field, who knows what they may become. i think it is really exciting as i look at my son.

i hope you will go down that road could i look to companies like my own and others to really sparked the interest of our young students. but skilling the population is not the solution near term coul. part of the solution means access to foreign professionals. i need to be clear that our need for high-skilled foreign talent is not just a shortage issue. we will always want and americans should always welcome those who are the very best at what they do no matter what country they come from. we should want this sort of impact talent on our team, not on someone else's. i can list the number of microsoft leaders who are foreign-born. but in the interest of time, i will just focus on one. -his name is alex to mentor and he came from brazil where he was

enthralled with software developed when he started playing begins at the age of five. he strutted at the rochester institute of technology in the u.s. from the time he graduated and joined microsoft in 2001, he has been the primary inventor for 60 patent filings, 14 that have been granted this year alone. he is one of the fathers of connect and is responsible for incubating the project. he took the business and drove it through proof and execution good if you're not familiar with it now, it is the device that allows people to control through voice and gestures the fault -- the software and games for microsoft and xbox. it is very cool. other than being just a game, kinnect is a good example how often innovators from abroad help to promote jobs and growth and opportunity in the american economykinnect holds -- in the

american economy. kinnect holds the world record of sales after it launched in november. it has been a key revenue driver, generating more than $1.2 billion in revenue in its short life so far. it has been a huge job creator at microsoft. but there is an important downstream economic expectation good packaging, transportation, buyers, stock clerks, persons in the stores who sell it and the list goes on. beyond that, there are also avenues of innovation not yet even imagined that this revolutionary technology will open for others. kinnect is a game, but we have read articles where it is being used in operating rooms by surgeons. the list of innovation is on and on. we are very passionate about it

and we are passionate about the fact that it creates as a job creator in the u.s. economy. companies and developers can allies on the technology, whether through games or the technologies such as health care and robotics and more. as a country, we should be doing everything we can to make sure ideas like this one bloom here in the united states. this means making sure that people like alex, who sits near the top of past company magazine as the creative people in business for 2011, are attracted to study in this country and bring their talents to the american workplace with a ready pass to permanent residence in the u.s. so what is their expense -- what is our experience when we are able to bring in the foreign nationals that we need? there are no serious studies. microsoft's consistent growth

has letters to increase employment every year since the company's founding in 1975. this growth means more jobs for u.s. workers. over the last five years, our u.s. work force has increased by 22%. although microsoft has directly created u.s. jobs with a significant rate, this is not where the economic effects and been in 2010 from a study by the university of washington illustrates the powerful downstream economic effect of high technology jobs. the study found that the nine but 16 -- that the $9.16 billion in turn created job opportunities for other state businesses for a multiplier effect amounting to 267,611 jobs that year. through this multiplier, every job at microsoft supported 5.81

jobs elsewhere in the state economy. contributions have been possible by combining american brainpower with some of the talents of some of the brightest professionals from around the world gripped the u.s. work force is made up overwhelmingly of u.s. workers. but part of the recipe also relies on our ability to attract an essential complement of the best minds from other countries. microsoft is innovating and innovative department. because of shortages and intense competition, filling our talent needs remains a serious challenge. we currently have thousands of unfilled job openings with over half being computer science positions did our continued ability to help fuel the american economy depends highly on access to the best possible

talent. this can be achieved exclusively through educational improvement. we need to be able to attract and have adequate access through the immigration system to skilled workers from abroad. so what are we doing because of a broken system? do we just have to operate at a deficit until things change? certainly, there are times when we have looked at work-arounds. when we could not bring in the talent that we needed, we look to canada and we moved jobs to canada. we opened up our development center did today, we are facing different challenges and our most pressing immigration problem is the profound shortage of green cards. as previously discussed, we have employees, indian and chinese

nationals mainly, who are looking at a 10-year wait for more to obtain their green card. these are individuals who have master's degrees, ph.d. boss from u.s. universities, who have gone through the process. we have looked for an american worker through the american labor process. we have shown that there's not one available. we have been certified and they have gone through the petition process. they have been approved. immigrant visa available due to the restrictions of numbers to allow them to obtain permanent residence in the u.s.. that is really difficult to persuade the best and the brightest talent in the world to come here if we cannot offer them permanent residence here. if they will have trouble obtaining a mortgage, even buying a car because they are seen as only being here temporarily, they cannot put down roots.

they are worried about their children going to school and then having to transition them back to a different country. it is really difficult. these are bright people. they could get high wages in other countries. we have talked about the wages in canada. we have seen wages in india and china and brazil skyrocket. the jobs will go to where the talent is. we need to make sure that the talent is here in the west. -- in the u.s. we look forward to legislative reform any meaningful way that will benefit the country, encourage investment, retain and attract high skilled talent and create jobs. a lot of thinking clearly has already been done in defining clear policies that congress can take. i think mayor blubber went through -- mayor bloomberg went through changes that we shall

look to. which certainly recommend that congress ensures that the supply of employment-based green cards acknowledge the economy. after they graduate, rather than a tawnies abroad. again, we need to welcome these people in and we need to show them a path to permanent residency here in the united states. we need to welcome these people with open arms, not kind of let the men and then tell them, maybe, if you're a really long wait, maybe then we will allow you to reside here and planned your ribs. and while we await legislative reform, microsoft will continue to do what it has done for years, to be a positive participant in the process through collaboratives with the

u.s. government. -- wouldple would be st thee be the stem obpt. it would give graduates with more of an opportunity to remain in the u.s. and contributory economy. there are still plenty of good ideas out there. employers have already gone through the department deliver process and received certification, who have already gone through the sts process and received an improved emigrant visas position and would have their green cards today if not for there were not enough visas to go around. we cannot make mistakes with our economy. it is a mistake to not allow an innovative economy to hire the

best talent. we need to help keep our position as the global innovation leaders. to do that, we need a system that does not work as a detriment to our innovation. thank you. >> as you're talking, was making a list of senators for you and elizabeth to meet with. [laughter] a compelling case. let's go to the other side of the country, ga. -- i know you have a different angle on some of these issues. >> thank you for having me here. i was laughing in the brick that i could probably replace my prepared remarks with what mike bloomberg said. he hit a lot of the right points. he did a great job. i think my role is coming from academia. i am not personally and academic. but i would like to discuss what emigration means to us as a research university and what some of the policy's main toward where students can do after they graduate. for those of you who are not

familiar with it, we are the largest school in the nine states. there are some people who think we're pretty good. we are ranked as the force -- the fourth best engineering school in the u.s. that is not a plaid place to be. it ranks as the seventh best university of all types in the country. and we are broad. we're not just good at one thing. we have 12 different disciplines in engineering. we are actually top 10 in 11 of those categories. we do not offer the 12th one, which is agricultural. we do not have any cows. i think we're strong across the board. and we are in atlanta appeared as you might expect, ever since the civil rights era, we have a strong record of graduating minorities, initially african- americans, and now binaries' all types.

-- and now minorities of all types. we are usually numbered two or three in any of us and we're top 10 in all of them. we have a very diverse campus. part of that is that we have a lot of foreign students. right now, 7% of our undergraduate body is. we get more applications than we .an take goo 40% -- the national average for stem students is 50%. in computer science, it is over 60%. we are at about 40%. those come from india, china, and korea. but we represent 115 countries, including iceland. i do not think that i can name

115 countries if you asked me to. but that is our latest list. and overall student body, 18% of our total enrollment of 21,000 students. so 2000 foreign students on our campus. it is hard to get into georgia tech. we're pretty picky. we get nine applications for reese loft in our freshman class. the 3800 students have made it through the process are the best of the best. at that point, everybody is smart. they're hard-working, dedicated, and flexible. you cannot ask for better students, either at the undergraduate or the graduate level. companies could not ask for better workers per hospitals cannot ask for better physicians. as a country, we cannot ask better citizens than these kids. but as a country, we have put a bill of barriers and we're making it very difficult for these bright kids to build careers in this country first,

just getting their student visa approved, never mind residents say, has turned into a nightmare. we have created a whole department since 9/11 to help these students. we are not doing joint programs in other countries. so the chinese nationals and indian--- international's cannot get to georgia tech students to their countries. is a nightmare. it did not used to be that way. look back at history. 100 years ago, the united states had a mediocre set of colleges and universities in 1911. harvard was pretty good. but it fell off pretty fast after that. by 1950, unchallenged and unquestioned -- we have the finest higher education system on the planet. 60 years later, we still do. other people are working on it,

but we still have the best. what happened to change that higher education system between 1910 and 1950? immigration. the higher education system in this country was built on immigration. it was triggered, unfortunately, by adolf hitler. he took power in 1933. he basically destroyed the german university system, which was unchallenged at that time, the best university system in the world. he ran off that talent. because talent family. it is tough to move factories real people get on airplanes. at that time, on boats. and most of the german professors and many of the students went to britain and increasingly to the united states. among other things, that won the war could imagine the manhattan project without jewish scientists could imagine even worse, manhattan project with those jewish scientists working on the bone.

that would not have been a good outcome all over europe, both sides, brainpower started moving, mostly at that point to the united states from all over the continent. then from latin america and asia. basically, we sought in the best brains from all over the world into our colleges and universities over 20 years. that led to more than half a century of really unchallenged economic dominance for the united states. we are now seeing challenges to that. it is interesting to reflect that, if we had had current immigration law back then, that migration of brain power would not have happened and we probably would not have had the dominant economy or the dominant military on this planet for the past 60 years. let me give you a current example. a couple of months ago, i was judging a georgia tech students event. it was about doing mostly master students with some undergrad,

mostly in computer science and electrical engineering. i was incredibly impressed by the quality of the student teams. it was a mobile app thing. it was really impressive. these were commercial-grade apps or you could see how they would get there from here. i spent about a decade as a working venture-capital is before getting to academia. i was pretty impressed. these were class projects that felt like a venture capital event where people were coming to pitch ideas for investment. i started acting -- would you like to start a company? i have friends in the business. i think i can get some of these projects funded. usually, i cannot. i am kind of slow, but i figured

out -- i started asking where are you from? 28 competitors in this student project, 26 of them were from overseas. there is no way that a -- the 26 students can get their degrees at georgia tech and start companies. they want to, but they cannot. there's only one thing that i will say that you must remember we educate kids and they want to start companies here and they have to go home. they want to stay here. they can afford an h1b. they do not have $21,000. and the immigration service does not recognize self employment. there is no path for them to create company. so there trusses are to fight -- so their choices are to find a great company that will sponsor

them for h1b and a green card and they can have a very successful career that way, but they cannot create companies and create jobs. or they can go home. and they are doing very well in china and india and brazil and they can compete with us from there. i built the carrier building entrepreneurs. entrepreneurship is very hard. most people who try it fail. figuring out who will succeed is really one of the key skills sets in the venture capital business. i submit that being able to pack your bags and moved to another country where you may not speak the language for graduate school is a pretty good indicator if a young person has what it takes to start a successful company. over half the start-ups in silicon valley have a founder from either india or china. these are the people we want.

the kauffman foundation found young companies less than five years old have accounted for essentially all the job growth in new -- in the united states in the last five years. all of the job growth, from young companies. but our policy does not allow them to come here to participate in that job creation either get a job with the company or go home. at georgia tech, we have seen the impact of this every year. we are dealing with multiple students with these issues. last year, we had a spinoff company created by a graduate student from another country. master's in electrical engineering. a brilliant kid. he went through all the hoops and did his mpt, but then he ran out of options and could not stay and he gave up.

apple snapped him up instantly and he is now working. the kid is brilliant. but it delayed the formation of a company based on the technology until we could bring in new founders the did not have immigration issues and we wasted about a year. in the wireless space, a year is a lot. there was economic growth that did not happen. and this is creating value as an apple employee, but he would treated more as the founder of a company that could hire people in the next year or so. john door for is one of the most successful venture capitalists in the silicon valley. these students will create

value. they will create jobs. they will pay taxes. why would we not want them to stay here? they will get married. there will raise kids. they will buy a house. they will buy two 0.3 cars. there is huge amounts of economic benefits to this. but as we heard this morning, the challenge is that they're taking jobs away from real americans. the mayor already addressed this. that is just not true. entrepreneurs do not take jobs. they make jobs. and we need to give them a chance to make jobs. first for themselves and their co-founders and for hundreds and even thousands of employees. but this is not a zero-sum game. if these immigrants or one of the immigrants are not allowed to create jobs, those jobs and not magically go to american- born natives. those jobs simply do not exist. they exist somewhere else on the

planet, but not here. and the mayor touched on the agriculture issues. these are not jobs growing crops or flipping burgers pared their high-paying jobs that your kids would like to have some day. there are two million jobs, internet jobs in the united states. 20 years ago, none of them existed. much of the companies did not exist 20 years ago. subtract all of those companies that had foreign-born founders and take half of those two million jobs away. that is like the manhattan project without the jewish scientists. it is not pretty. silicon valley gets the press, but it is deeper and broader than that. it is not just who will and it is not just intel. pfizer, dupont, u.s. steel, proctor and gamble -- back when they were founded, there were

founded by immigrants. those are a lot of jobs coming from immigration. to start off with alejandra, i will start with to the cliche -- we are a country of immigrants. we encourage immigrants to come to the world's best graduate schools. other countries are trying to catch up, but it turns out that it is hard to create a network of post -- schools and we started out way ahead. we have a history of risk taking. we have a history of capital for would be. we have a culture that kaulitz failure more than anywhere else in the world. it made the u.s. -- culture that accepts failure more than anywhere else in the world. it made the u.s. the best in the world. our cultural history has given us an edge, even with the global the economic troubles. i think we're still the entrepreneurialism a cup of the world. we have to make sure -- the entrepreneurial mecca of the

world. we have to make sure that they have that opportunity, whether they were born here or not. this is like saying that my baseball team has enough talent to and i do not need any more talented players. but the other teams get talented players, too. that is not tell the yankees play the game and that is not with the united states should play the game either. i look forward to the rest of the panel. >> thank you. that was great. >> first of all, i want to thank everybody for listening to what i have to say. i am not an expert in economics or immigration. as i said over the phone, i am a simple brain surgeon and scientists working at the number one hospital the united states, johns hopkins, the no. 1 department in the united states, neera surgery -- neurosurgery

for little kids. i was told that education was the best provision for old age. as i listen to the speakers, i have to think about the way to solve this problem. it is probably no different way than solving the problem of brain cancer. it will not be one solution. it will probably be multi- factorial. there are several issues. number one, there is the issue of education. we have millions people in our education system that are not being properly prepared so that they can face the challenges of higher education and the numbers have been going back and forth. if you look at johns hopkins, of but the numbers that reflect --

the numbers reflect those of georgia tech did the numbers are stunning in the sense that we have great people coming from all over the world to take advantage of the best education in the world. but in our own backyard and i can tell you myself, living in baltimore, in our own backyard, we're failing to educate our natives. i can tell you about my story. i will illustrate with my laboratory. i will sit with my operating room some of the numbers you see here. i came to this country as an immigrant when those 19 years old in the late 1980's. i have to say that, if i ran out of work as a brain surgeon, i am probably the only bring surgeon who is also certified as a welder in california. [laughter] i could get a job as a welder. i am probably the only brain surgeon who can say that i was also a certified as an official

farmworker in the state of california when i was working there from 1986 to 1988. so i do not see a lot of people running their to get those jobs. so i have job security for right now. i will not be able to compete with many of these other jobs that people have mentioned. but at least those are two. i i was given an opportunity through the legislation to immigration reform of the late 1980's. by 1991, i was a permanent resident. that is when i started at uc berkeley, taking advantage of one of these places that was mentioned earlier. by 1994, i became a student at harvard medical school. before i graduated, i became a u.s. citizen. i went back to san francisco to take advantage of one of the best places to train as a brain surgeon, add uc san francisco.

for anybody who understands language, you will understand that i was beginning to understand. my process was moving forward very fast. i came to hopkins six years ago. i mentioned the other day that, within six years, i was promoted to being nominated to full professor. in my department, it takes an average of 18 years. i took advantage of the inortunities that were put front of me. people say it was it a chance? was it good looks? i am reminded of what a very humble scientists said in 1906 who won the nobel prize in medicine. he told us how the brain was organized. thank you to his contributions, we can now do brain surgery. he said that chance and good

luck do not come to those who wanted. it comes to those who look for it. many immigrants are looking for those opportunities coming to the united states. i echo a lot of the comments that have been said before. let me tell you about my laboratory. i lead an effort in my lab to find a cure for brain cancer. i have a group of 23 scientists. i can count with both of my hands the number of brain surgeons that have federal funding, the most distinguished funding to do research on any type of brain-related work. i am one of them. i lead this multimillion-dollar effort. as i look to my scientists, 23 of them, only two of them are from the united states. the other ones are either immigrants, first generation, or people who are coming to my laboratory to try to help. an article was published a couple of weeks ago that give me

a lot of heat. the requested 10 scientists and nobody wants to look like the bad guy. after 10 scientists declined, they came to me. i said, sure, i would be delighted to tell you the truth. availability, affability, ability, and accountability -- i got a lot of heat when the article was published because my scientists work seven days a week, 24 hours a day. we are losing in our country the fundamental things that made this country the most beautiful country in the world. that is too simple words. hard work. no one wants to hear that. i am here to tell you -- i look like the bad guy. sure enough, a lot of heat has been going back and forth and i had to meet with the dean at one point. my operating room, all right? an s and -- an

anesthesiologist, 60% of foreign graduates. the others are first or second generation graduation-- from thd states. the people who help me monitor the brain as i am taking out complex brain tumors from the part of the brain where, if i may go an extra mm, that person will wake of mute or not able to move his arm or leg. half of them are foreign graduates. nurses, 50/50. my residence, 23 residents that are in the no. 1 program in neuro surgery, 60% are for an aunt 40% are u.s.-born. that tells you what we're going through. -- 60% are foreign and 40% are u.s.-born. that tells you what we're going through.

those are my remarks. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. do you want to wrap up the macro looked? >> who do not know what there is left for me to talk about. as an economist, i thought i should go over a couple of things. let me talk generally about immigration and economic growth could then let me talk about the difference between low-skilled and high skilled immigration and competitiveness. then i will talk about policy and reform at the end pin in terms of economic growth, immigration is an extremely important component. they make up about half of the labor force over the last decade. the numbers for stem occupations are much higher in terms of the contributions of immigrants.

when you introduce emigrants into the labor force, you get specialization. it increases efficiency. it is efficiency that leads to higher productivity. hire a tip -- higher productivity is what makes us competitive. the other really important factor about the immigrant labor force is that it is more mobile geographically than the native labor force. that has an economic payout could immigrants tend to flow to growing areas more readily than native workers tur. we saw that, if you want to give a lower-skilled immigration example, in louisiana, in the wake of hurricane katrina, a

tremendous influx of hispanic workers to the gulf area to restore and rebuild. or to give high-skilled immigration examples, in dallas and other inter-city school districts, we have an influx of teachers teaching math and science. also, the doctors, for example, medical doctors who served in rural areas and inner cities as well, in fact, my mother who came from sweden in the late 1970's, she is a surgeon could she went to work in gary, indiana. there were not many american educated doctors who were where it -- who were willing to work in gary, indiana in the late 1970's. the economy was collapsing and it was a very poor and crime- ridden area. employer contributions, then and

now, they are disproportionate for foreign doctors. u.s.-born doctors will not go there. different studies -- let me remarks briefly on immigration and economic growth. when it comes to high skilled immigration, there really is consensus among labor economists on the benefits of high skilled immigration could there probably is not with regard -- skilled immigration. there probably is not with regard to lower skilled immigration.

in terms of fiscal effect coming terms of high skills contributed vs. what they use in public services, they actually pay off over their lifetime over $100,000 in net benefits to u.s. taxpayers in terms of what they contribute more vs. what they use up in services. on competitiveness, we first mentioned higher productivity. but there is another aspect, which is even more compelling. it is not just a one time change in productivity. but they contribute to productivity growth. if you can contribute to productivity growth, you can set the national economy on a higher growth path. that is not a one time change, but a continuous increase in output that is sustained over time. that is really because high skilled immigrants contribute to

innovation, mostly being stem immigrants. when they patent, the patent at twice the rate of native one- time scientists. they are not substituting for native one-time native scientists innovation. that is another important result. i entrepreneurship is another area. it leads to higher innovation. another benefit that can spillover to higher productivity growth. there are other a fax. there is less research done so far, but it looks promising. there is research that suggests that more high school the immigration attracts physical capital as well, investments. it seems reasonable in this room. but documenting it as good research is harder. but there is a correlation between capital flow and investment and immigration.

and there is to research that suggests that more high school the immigration can flow out sourcing. in terms of policy, it is surprising. mayor bloomberg says it is crazy. it is crazy. the benefits of high skilled immigration is so well documented that it is surprising when you look at immigration policy and say that we have fallen short at taking advantage of something that looks like a free lunch. economists say that there is no such thing as free lunch, but this comes pretty close. i was talking about my book a while ago at an event at the urban institute. how do you set up quotas and high skill arrogance? what is the best way and how big should they be?

and a person from the australian embassy said why would you have any quotas on high skilled immigration at all? if all of these benefits are true, why would you limit them? i am so used to thinking in u.s. immigration policy and quotas that i had not considered the fact that you would not have a limit. i thought about that a little bit. the one where i draw the line is that there has to be demand. as it is, we know it is difficult to bring in foreign workers. it is expensive for companies to bring them in. there's preference for native- born workers. i think we have a built-in priority for native-born workers as it is paired and the second condition should be to maintain that -- as it is. and the second condition should be to maintain those conditions. like a stable policy that is even worth mentioning, having a

job being a basic requirement or even a plan, starting a business. i think there bloomberg and others have mentioned -- i think mayor bloomberg and others have mentioned the 7% that i have been talking about. this compared to other o.c. the countries, nocd one else puts that kind of barrier to immigration. we fill the gap with temporary visas. we have been talking about them today. they have plug the gap. but at the end of the day, you end up with a dysfunctional ring card program where lawmakers have passed legislation allowing more temporary visas than green cards to allow those people to stay.

the employer wants them to stay as well. queues.e a growing cue they can extend 10 years plus. people from china and india, even mexicans and latinos. there is 1.1 million approved and waiting in the employment- based queue. considering all of the contributions you can make to the economy and the competitiveness. in terms of reform, along the lines of american lumber, you have a policy that needs to put a priority on skill-based immigration instead of a permanent visas. grow with the economy rather than be fixed over time which does not make a lot of sense. they are allocated in a strange

well -- way as well. first,, first serve -- first come, first-served leads to long queues. the concludes my remarks. >> just a couple of -- i just want to get it on the table. i still hear a lot on the hill that -- sometimes company's port arthur and bridging immigrants from overseas. they are not working the domestic labor market. they are not searching it carefully enough to fight the people they need. -- find the people they need. i would like to ask you what you do. why would you go overseas if you could find somebody here? sometimes i sit here that these

positions in these colleges are being set aside for immigrants because they can pay full tuition. it is a cash cow for universities. elizabeth, d wants to -- >> first of all, we do well of our recruitment. every job is posted online. we go through a whole system that trickles into our system. all of our jobs are posted on time. there are tons of engineering jobs. when our talent acquisition team actually does the resonates -- gets the resumes, when they actually start searching for the candidates, it is unbelievable how many of them qualify for the

job and are foreign nationals. the first thing they do is call me. what to using about this? sometimes i'm telling them to turn down the top foreign talent because they have already used up four or five years in that status. we would immediately have to jump into sponsoring them for a green card. in some cases i am not telling the hiring managers, do not hire that person. all the jobs are posted up there. everybody has an equal opportunity to apply for a job. we are not going out and recruiting. we would not recruit for a new job somebody who is living in china and would go to the expense of bringing them in.

most of the foreign nationals we are recruiting are being educated here in the united states. we have an active leadership development program that every year goes out and hires people, recent graduates from u.s. universities. most of the applicants -- some to come from canada. it is pretty easy for them. we do not necessarily offer international relocation. to lee -- relocate somebody from another country is anywhere from a $30,000 to bring somebody in. not to mention the cost of going through the petition. just to the application fee is $2,000. if you want premium processing, at another $1,200 to that.

both of us to do immigration in house. i'm not an attorney. i started out as a human- resources professional. when it comes to doing the labor certification and an -- we use outside counsel. i can tell you my legal bills are tremendous. i get a lot of pressure -- why are we spending so much money? you try to explain that it is more and more difficult, particularly in an economy with high unemployment. when you're going to a labor certification and you are testing the u.s. labor market and against a specific skill sets, we do not find u.s. workers with the appropriate

skill set. remember, when you are doing a petition, you were looking at the minimum requirements for the position. it is kind of a reverse of how everybody hires. when you were trying to hire the best person for the job when you're testing the labour market to sponsor somebody, the mandatory retirement is against the minimum qualifications to do the job. that is not the best and brightest. even in those situations we are usually successful in disqualifying candidates who do not meet the still set to sponsor the foreign worker. the first person we are looking for, if we can get an american who can do the job, that is who we will hire. it is cheaper.

>> as i think i mentioned, microsoft looks to hire and retain the best and brightest talent from wherever they come in the world. refocus our recruitment efforts in individuals who are in the workforce and university hires. our primary for -- focus is at u.s. universities. they are the best in the world. we are looking for graduates from those universities. there is a shortage. there is a shortage of individuals coming out of those universities with a stem degrees. there is a shortage of u.s. citizens coming out of those universities with them. we cannot compromise. we are not going to not attempt

to hire the best and brightest. we are in a competitive market. we are competing with other u.s.-based companies. and we are competing with companies outside of the u.s. we want the innovation to take place here. we would like it to be at microsoft. if not, at least in the u.s. we do spend all lot of time and energy in terms of our recruitments looking for the best and the price -- brightest of -- regardless of nationality. we will continue to put effort into building a pipeline of students coming out of u.s. universities with stan degrees. we have a robust in turn -- intern program. we of students who worked in the

summer with teams on our campus -- campus hoping to spur their interesting get them excited about working in the high-tech field so they will remain in the u.s. and go to universities and attain those degrees and come back to work with us later on once they have graduated. there are high school students, we have a robust university program. many of the u.s. students to come through our program that do come and work on our campus at microsoft. we focus on u.s. universities. we are looking to hire the best and brightest. it is not easy to bring in foreign talent or to go through the process. we hope they can focus on their jobs and their lives and we focus on bringing our talent in as quickly as possible and

getting them up to speed and helping them with their immigration process. we struggle with the cap. it is not as bad as it was a few years ago. that being said, that a man to that of from january until october, we're not able to bring in any foreign national hires on the program. it does not mean we can stop hiring the best and brightest. we there have to delay their on boarding or higher than elsewhere. if we want to be competitive, into what that great technology to develop here and the economy the comes along with it, we need to work on the system.

>> an innovative product, as i say we are basically a manufacturing company. over the last several years under our ceo, we have become a service business. a lot of the technical products that are manufactured and produced at our plants in the united states increases jobs for manufacturing. it also serves a whole industry. we do not just service our own products. our industrial technologies group -- we have a whole service industry matter at a lower level but they have jobs as well. the company is growing. it is not limited just to our

products but also to other people, other competitors. >> i am sitting here doing that. that pulled up our website to attack current enrollments. the question was about we're just carving out seeds for overseas students because they pay more. they do. we are a state school. we are less and less state supported as time goes by. we charge of georgia students one-third of the tuition that we charge students from elsewhere. we make no distinction between what we charge from the other states in the united states and the rest of the world. it is still the same rate whether you are from alabama or albania. we will chars the same amount. we are looking at nine applications for every slot we

have. i pulled up the numbers. overall, we get 54% of graduate. 54% of our students are from georgia. they have to prove a history. 27% from other states and 18% foreign. guaranteed if something stupid happens and you get no more student visas, we would manage the same ratios. 54% within the state of georgia, we would have the exact same a dollar figure in tuition. we would get no economic benefit. we would wind up with lower quality student body. there's no financial incentive to us. >> let me throw it up and -- to

the audience. i have done this for a while. i thought this was a good panel. i was doing a little math on the country, yes ma'am. >> i am a reporter from reuters. i would like to ask elizabeth a question. i would like to know what you would like to see from congress. do you want to see a piecemeal legislation or would you like to see a much larger comprehensive legislation? >> i will go first. as chairman of the subcommittee our goal has always been a comprehensive immigration reform. that being said, we of seen a tough road. we have backed comprehensive immigration reform.

i was very involved in the kennedy-mccain bill in 1996. trust me, i have been fighting the fight for a long time. uic that happening in congress? i do not think so. judging from the type of highly skilled workers we need and the fact that these people will be such a contribution to our economy, if we end up with some of piecemeal measures, we would support them. >> i would agree with that. we support comprehensive immigration reform. in the meantime we would support a peaceful legislation. we focus on and trying to work toward administrative reform. we want to look at areas where

we can work with the government to make some slight changes that will have a larger impact on the folks who are waiting for their green cards. >> the chamber was a very involved in getting the stem. that was done through regulations with the agency. in a couple years when we're hitting the cap on the very first day, the stem extension was critical. there may be other things like that we cannot act. if your suggestions, we are always looking for them. >> we do a lot of work on immigration. he noticed with the absence of comprehensive reform, a lot of states have taken their own initiatives. have you seen or do you expect to see certain stakes to become

more economically competitive? do you think that could push a case for reform on the federal level? >> arizona hurt their economy when they did some of their draconian measures. the individual states acting in loops -- in liueu of the federal government is a troubling, especially for companies like mind who have operations in every state. it is a complex set of rules. these states are starting to do this. we are a federal contractor. we are enrolled in e-verify.

i think utah has come up with a strange plan to do their own immigration system. immigration is a federal issue. i do not think it belongs at a state level. whether each individual state is being hurt economically, and do not know. arizona was the biggest. i think it hurt them economically. >> i see a lot of states going that way even though we have this fuzzy law in the supreme court. >> i think we have time for one more. if not, that is fine. i think this has been a great panel. i have the commitment from our partners on this. this will not be an agent -- and we are going to follow up with

this on a report. we will take advantage from all of the information we have gathered today. i think that will help us in our challenges ahead in the senate and house. i want to thank our panelists. [applause] the panels tosk stay here for one minute. let me make some closing remarks. i am the executive vice president of the u.s. foreign for policy innovation. we'll receive the -- i wanted to thank the director for his great remarks this morning and for his tremendous flexibility. a special thanks to mayor bloomberg. i appreciate the comments about

the yankees. i want to thank the panel. we really got some great insight. we often talk about the fact that we talk theory and theory is easy and cheap. this is practice. this is where the rubber meets the road. we talked earlier that we are about engaging in dialogue on issues. he might not think of immigration as an emerging issue. we cannot seem to get there and figure it out. i am a cuban refugee myself. i have a lot of feelings and personal convictions about this. i appreciate it. my father would often say the, as he can to this country, people would say, you have been fortunate.

i said yes, the harder i work, the luckier i get. hard work is something that immigrants bring to this country. and all other successful people in this country. i wanted to thank everyone. especially the partnership for the new american economy for the role they played in making this happen. in founding the partnership, which brought together -- prostie other mayors to make a case for a streamlining and modernizing and rationalizing the immigration system. what a novel idea. i also want to thank my colleague randy johnson. it is a team. in listening to the remarks, i wanted to make two points i think are important. we are in a global market. this is not about a closed circuit.

it is important. the second part, which is a question, we do not need to fix it all. it would be ideal to get comprehensive immigration. to do nothing is not acceptable. we are falling behind economically. it is affecting the business we do. as we look ahead, which planned to write some things. i thought i would end on a light and out. i have to thank for being reminded of a joke. a very famous brain surgeon heard some water running in the bathroom. the toilet was overflowing. he could not stop the water. so he called a plumber. he fixed the water and it's 15 minutes was out the door and handed him in $950 bill.

the doctor said, i am one of them a leading surgeons in baltimore. i do nats make $950 for 15 minutes of work. >> he said yes, i used to be a brain surgeon. but this job is better. >> there are all sort of jobs available. with that, we will end. thank you for your patience. thanks again to our panel. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> tonight, campaign speeches by the wife of texas governor rick perry of followed by mitt romney's wife and. and by michelle bachman. later discussion about immigration policy from the u.s.

chamber of commerce. tomorrow, a ceremony to honor the 50th anniversary of the defense intelligence agency. we will hear from leon panetta. coverage begins at noon eastern on c-span. >> he should start with the assumption that when a politician or a ceo is saying something, they are not telling you the truth. the burden should be on them to prove it. >> he is an eagle scout, and dinner, directed and produced three of the top 10 grossing documentaries, and a best- selling author. his latest is a memoir. sunday, your chance to call and talk to michael moore. on october 3, the supreme court

will hear arguments on whether states can be sued for failing to pay the required rates of the medicaid? . here's a similar case from 1990 arguing that states cannot be paid -- sued by private parties. >> it may be helpful to return to language of the statute. that specifies that the state plan must provide a payment of rates which makes assurances to the secretary. >> listen to c-span radio online at c-spanradio.org. anita perry spoke at an iowa republican party dinner tuesday night. she --

>> the wife of republican rick perry has campaigned for her husband in new hampshire and florida. this is 20 minutes. >> rick grew up in a small part of the world in texas. for county's down from the red river and 20 miles west of dulles-fort worth in a farming community. his family were farmers and a little part of the world call paint creek, texas. we grew up in the same area current farming, ranching, little bit of oil, some gas. people are happy about that. illiberal west of i-35. not -- a little west of i-35. not a lot of development. but we grew up with real people, people who knew how to tell the truth, real people who knew how to make a decision and stand by that decision and you could be good for your word. when rick first ran for statewide office for agriculture commissioner, which is what he did when he got out

of the air force, our children were little. he flew his own airplane. he was a c-130 pilots in the air force. i think is the only other candidate, besides representative paul,, paul, who has worn the uniform of our you military -- of our military. so he flew their plan all around texas. people said, you will not win. he was running against a man named jim hightower who i think was there for 16 years. i did not think he knew much about agriculture, but i think he knew about journalism rick would go around and meet people and shake hands and meet them in the eye and they said, you are not going to win. nobody will fight harder and work harder, in that instance forested, but for your country. we did not have to do that. he was governor of texas and he was happy to be governor of texas and he was good at it.

we created more jobs than any other state in the nation. we added jobs when the rest of the country lost jobs. we had been rated by acl magazine for 17 years ago -- by ceo magazine for 17 years in a row as best state to do business. every time we lost a service man or servicewoman, it broke his heart. he has written every person, every family that has lost someone in the war a letter. we had a big fire in texas. he may have heard about it. we lost over 1500 homes. people lost lives, lost their livestock. we lost a firefighter from another state. and he called that family. we got a letter that was

addressed to him, but like most whites, i have to see what is in the mail. i read that note from that woman who lost her son, the firefighter. and he called her and she said, oh, rick perry? the governor of texas? he said, yes, ma'am. but i am not calling as a governor. i'm calling as a parent. i want to extend my sympathy for you losing your son. that is the kind of man rick perry is. some people may be more polished in their presentations, like the little the dates they had last week, where i was sitting there biting my nails and wiggling my hands and wiggling my feet. i think we have a debater in chief right now. i am not looking for a debater in chief. i am looking for a leader in a commander in chief who will do the right thing to get our country back on the right track

and working again. [applause] the president has promised us hope. but for more than two hundred thousand people in iowa alone, he cannot find work. and for the 45 million americans who rely on food stamps, just to feed their families, hope this short and hard to come by. and when we see this, it breaks our heart. but is still our resolve. now more than ever, america needs bold leadership and i believe that rick perry is the man because he believes in the american people. he believes in the constitution and what our founding fathers wrote for us. he knows that private enterprise and private citizens do not to be told what to do, how to run their business, how to choose their doctor, how to

run their schools. he wants washington to get out of the way so that americans can make their own decisions to get america back to work. [applause] a want to tell you if you things about him that may not have come out in the debate. he is dedicated to border security. we have lived our lives as residents in the state of texas. he has lived with this problem as governor of texas. we, as a state, not the federal government who has been an abject failure in providing security for our border, we, as the citizens of texas, have spent over $400 million of our tax money to the border, to protect it. he has texas rangers, better boots on the ground, to stop

the flow of drugs, weapon, and people. that being said, we suffer the consequences of washington failing to do its duty to secure our border. and, yes, our home is home to millions of legal a demint -- of legal -- of illegal immigrants, many of whom came there at a young age. many of them were born there. and if you were born on texas soil, you are a dual citizen. some have attacked iraq on this issue of immigration. i hear a lot of it here -- attacked rick on this issue of integration. i hear a lot of it here in iowa appeared in texas, we only offer in-state tuition to residents of our state. -- interstate to have attended a texas school for a minimum of

three years and have earned a high degree. people in the country illegally must be pursuing their citizenship in order to get an in state rate. it is not a subsidy. when you consider washington has failed to secure the border, has shown no signs of dealing with the millions that are here illegally, states like texas are left with one of two choices. either we take care of those populations or they get on welfare, which is a greater cost to our taxpayers. or we give them the opportunity to graduate from a texas school, the opportunity to be a contributing member of society. this law was passed in 1992. it is law in texas.

it only did so with four negative votes. that is because virtually all of our conservative legislators in texas know that we have to deal with the population one way or the other because washington has failed. but keep in mind, rick is the same governor who vetoed driver's licenses for illegal aliens, who fought to keep sanctuary cities out, and you just build the federal government -- just billed the federal government $350 billion for the cost of incarcerating illegal in the hands. no one has done more to secure the border and, as president, he is committed to stopping the tide of illegal immigration we are grad -- illegal immigration.

we're glad to be here in iowa. we're glad to set the record straight. as i said, we are here. we intend on being here much more. we think we share a lot with you, texas and iowa, in that we are real people. my husband is a real person and he cares about you and he cares about your children and he cares about your grandchildren. we did not have to do this. we are here because we care. and saving the soul of our country. so thank you so very much for being here. [applause] >> mrs. perry, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here this evening.

your message, i was really glad to hear on immigration because there has been a lot of confusion. i also want to say that i consider gov. perry a leader because, in the 1970's and the 1980's, there were no republicans in texas. [laughter] it was governor. who was the first statewide officeholder -- it was governor perry who was the first the one officeholder who became a republican. >> actually, that is kind of a fun story. actually, in the part of texas that we lived, we did not have republicans. they did not have a place to vote. you worry very conservative democrat or a liberal democrat. -- we were either a conservative democrat or a liberal democrat. we did not have the republican primary.

so i organized the first republican primary in haskell county. this is like one of those miss america questions. [laughter] that is how we came to have the very first republican primary in our little town of haskell and we have 1 stillpoint thank you. >> it has been great for the country, -- and we have one still. thank you. >> it has been good for the country. please thank me in -- please help me in thanking the first lady of texas for being here. [applause]

>> hi, john, nice to meet you. >> my name is john. i met the governor perry at the texas fair grounds. >> i watched that. >> they were using light aircraft. for everything that we figure out, they have an answer. i am glad to hear that. even though i speak spanish, a

lot of mexicans and latinos want the border in forced. >> remember, we're putting our money in. it is the federal government's responsibility to protect the border. he will not even answer written questions. >> to do nothing and get those anyway they can. >> you are right. >> perry will do it. >> thank you. thank you for being here tonight. >> you betcha. >> hello, bobbie. thank you for being here.

i am so glad. >> we met on your first day of campaigning. is it ok if we tickets pictured? -- take your picture? >> thank you. you may hear some of the same stuff tomorrow. [laughter] >> do you have an facebook?

>> i do not. >> i was looking up there. there are a lot of anita perrys out there. >> how odd. thank you so much. good to see you again. hello, how you? my name is anita. hello, there. how are you? >> very good. yourself? >> very good. it is good to be here. thank you for being here. >> i am with strong american now. i want to give this to you for your husband. he is the first person in our

country to sign this legally into law. i want to thank you for that. we met him last month at a picnic. he met me and my son, a 12- year-old boys' camp. i want you to think in for me. -- 12-year-old boy scout. i want you to thank him for me. may i get a picture? >> certainly. thank you for being here. >> my daddy will be 91 on thursday. >> one thing i am interested in is -- >> that is ok.

>> i am very disturbed that congress and everybody wants to cut our defense. if you look at these statistics, a look back several years, the numbers have declined tremendously. i am hearing now that there are 200,000 marines who will be cut. i do not think that will help us very much. >> no. >> our first duty is to protect this country. if we do not protect the country, the rest -- of it means nothing. >> that is what he believes. >> i was in the marine corps. >> ok, thank you. absolutely.

his best friend is a marine. it is important to us. if we are not strong militarily, we have no prominence. it is important that we are strong. >> this is my wife. >> hello, betty. so nice to meet you. this is his brand. >> oh. his father is just afraid. -- his father is joseph ray. james richard. >> thank you. i will tell him. ok.

thank you for being here. >> it is good to meet you. >> thank you. i have to get tho bed. >> you can write to the point. i need coaching on short answers. >> thank you. thank you for being here. >> welcome to iowa. >> thank you.

>> welcome to biowatch. >> thank you. you know what, it is butte -- welcome to iowa. >> thank you. you know what, it is beautiful up here. it is fast becoming a favorite. >> thank you for coming to iowa. >> thank you for being here tonight. alrighty. hello, there. nice to meet you. thank you for being here tonight. >> i will give your husband credit for telling it like it is. >> yes, sir. thank you. thank you for being here. hello, how are you? thank you.

well, my gosh, it is so important. he has spent more time here than i have. but we will both be back. i think we have a lot in common with the people in iowa. you are authentic and you speak what you say from your heart. what you see is what you get. that is what you get with my husband. >> how much are you helping your has been preparing for debates, whether it is policy or debate. >> probably not a lot on policy. but, while there and be yourself, be confident, be who you are. he is who he is. i do not see people that are much smarter than i am to talk about policy. >> your comments about more polished candidates, is that a specific comment about mitt

romney? >> i will not say that about my friend mitt. he has been running for office for four years to five years. this is my husband's second debate on the national stage. it is unfair to judge him the same when the others have been out there. he would tell you that the other night was not his best performance. but he will only get better. i think part of the attacks have something to do with it. a narrow is being shot it you and your the one person in the middle, 30 seconds rebuttal does not give you a lot of time. >> what are your plans for the campaign trail?

>> i will be back with him in the first 10 days of ireland. -- iowa. from here, i go to california and south carolina. we have a lot of country to cover. we love meeting the american people. the american people are the best that we've got. we love being here and being in iowa. we will be back together and separately. >> last question. >> where are you going in california? >> 0, my gosh. we're doing fund-raising and meeting people and asking people for their votes, asking them for support. thank you. you all waited all afternoon. [applause]

thank you. >> i have children to put to bed right now. >> good for you. thank you for coming. we certainly appreciate your support here. it has been a very good night here. >> next, republican presidential candidate mitt romney's wife ann. she spoke in new hampshire. she is introduced by the group's

president. this is 20 minutes. >> after promising never to undergo another presidential campaign, ann romney was inspired to encourage her husband to run again. in addition, the controversial issue of the president's national health care act, which she recognized was a reform that would cripple the economy and knew what americans were thinking at the time. but a strong and inspirational republican leader with executive experience needed to step into the presidential race and change the direction of government involvement in their lives. a good-looking candid it helps, too. [laughter] like her husband, ann has established herself as a leader and potential first lady of the

united states. first of importance is her role as a wife, mother, and a grandmother. she is an accomplished equestrian, which i did not know. and as a former first lady of massachusetts, became a leader to a host of charitable faith- based and community organizations locally and internationally. the common thread that motivates ann romney to dedicate herself to others in need is children and young women. she recognizes that all citizens have a greater and more meaningful impact in improving people's lives than government can. among some of her accomplishments as first lady, she served as the governor's liaison to the white house office of faith-based and community initiative. she has been a long serving supporting and leader in the united way of math bay as well as the action code today, a coalition that provides funding to urban church programs

designed to serve at risk youth. she helped olympic aid, an international nonprofit organization that uses sports and play as a developmental tool for children in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. she lends her time and leadership to e doquin therapy --to equin 30 programs for children. also to persons with disabilities, the american red cross, and the perkins school of the blind. as firstly, she served as a board member of the mass children's trust fund where she was the recipient of the 20 -- of the 2006 lifetime achievement award from operation kids. since this announcement to run for the presidency for a second

time, ann has been very busy travel in the country extensively on the campaign trail. meetings and speaking to as many americans. now that she is in new hampshire, i am sure she takes great pleasure to spend a little time in their home. please welcome home ann romney. [applause] >> thank you. cai was getting bored by the direction. the vital signs? [laughter] -- i was getting bored with that introduction. did i do all those things? [laughter] children is where my passion is.

that is where i like to lend my life, to children. especially children who are in need. i remember once when i was driving, i had my five boys in the car when they were all younger. that was not always a pleasant experience, by the way, to have five boys and a car. it can be bedlam. you drive with one hand and do this with the other. there were good times in the car, too. i remember driving by a man with at risk youth in it. i think they were probably in detention or in juvenile authority and probably being transported from one facility to another. my heart absolutely stopped when i saw that man. -- that van. as i was driving next to it, it

was so symbolic to me. i thought, if i could have those boys in my car, they would be ok. if they had had the kind of parenting that they needed and if they had had the kind of love and support, they would not be in that van. there would be ok. we were going on vacation and doing something fun. i recognized then how important it is to have good examples and good parenting and a good life skills that you learn in the home. and how grateful i was for good parents. in the introductory prayer, i was touched. i thought of how we are to remember those who have gone before and are grateful for people that have made sacrifices for this nation. i have a long history of people that have made sacrifices in this nation. it started with william bradford.

as you know, he was on the mayflower and was the first governor of massachusetts. he was my direct ancestor. i am his 17th grade -- great- granddaughter. and so, i am grateful that william bradford made enormous sacrifices, to get on that mayflower and come to this unknown place for religious freedom. i also have -- if you follow that bradford one, you go through the revolution and everything else. but on my father's side, my grandfather was a welsh coal miner. when he was 8 years old, he started working in the mines. he worked six days a week. he would go before the sun came up and he would come home after the sun went down. he never saw daylight except on sunday.

i am grateful that my grandfather recognized that he wanted a better future for his grandchildren. and he made an enormous sacrifice in leading wales and leaving the coal mining community that had been doing coal mining for generations and came to america for a better life for his children and grandchildren. my father was 15 when he came to this country. and the same sticks with me from my grandfather, who did not know well. he died when i was a baby or maybe two or something. i do not remember him. i remember having pictures of him, but i just do not really remember him that well. the saying that my father would give to us as we were studying and working hard in school is you study or the pick and shovel for you. [laughter] those were the choices. those were the choices that my

father had. you either do well in school or your back in the minds. -- you are back in the mines. i think the reason we need to express gratitude and feel gratitude for those who went before us is that there were people who made huge sacrifices for this nation and to make it what it is. a shining hill and a light that all people want to come to for opportunity and for a place to have a better life for their children and their grandchildren. i think so many of us are motivated right now because we feel a sense that this may be in jeopardy, that this shining hill, that we may be losing some of the glitz and the glamour and everything else that represents the united states of america, that maybe the next generation will not be better off than the generation before us. us.