>> i'm using my mic. do you want to use yours? before we go, i want to thank, for putting this event together and andrea who is here today. she has been an amazing intern for a year and has done a lot of graphs and charts. -- he helped put it

together. we are not going to sing happy birthday.res, happy i want to start with one question, and then we're going to open it to the audience. in our research one of the things we concluded from looking at the graph showing the increase in border removals and the crease in interior removals, and the latest data there were only 10,000 people supported who the united states neither had a criminal record in the interior or were a recent border crosser and meaning of the 300 70,000 people reported in 2013, only 10,000 fell outside of modern priorities,

meaning the question i'm going to ask is -- do we believe it is an undocumented immigrant in the united states you don't have a criminal record and you don't leave the country, is the test of your deportation aluminate it? chance of deportation is a lot lower than if you are a border crosser or you do fall in one of the priority categories. i wouldn't quite use the word a limited, but reduced. -- the word you live in a to -- the word eliminated, but reduced. casual crossing has gone way down. are people affected by border enforcement who are definitely tied to communities. the programing is

where people are arrested in every jurisdiction of the country, when the fingerprints are sent to the fbi for background checks they are used to identify people for removal. even though the program doesn't support a lot of people who don't follow into those categories, i think because it is so seamlessly integrated with law enforcement, it has a broader ripple effect, and i'm not sure people understand how narrow the focus is. i think it has had a much bigger impact than the numbers suggest. >> i would agree with the general conclusion that if you don't run afoul of the law the chances are fairly small. >> the border region is a big region. it's 100 miles to the border. there are people who may be living there a long time who could get apprehended. i think

mark's point about the border anecdotally, a lot more of these are people who live here before and may have and andrted and have families are trying to get back to these people. we would look at these differently. wouldn't necessarily see this as priorities. at the senate bill a lot of them would potentially be eligible for legalization. there are challenges. you have got a fundamental dilemma. you have got to show serious credible enforcement to address republican concerns, but on the number are a fair people the democrats they got to be eligible for legalization. is it appropriate to be targeting this? are still real issues out there. >> i don't work with the data.

i would agree with your assessment. is withould expect these people crossing the border, it's true people in the past went back and forth repeatedly. it was a way of life to cross repeatedly when the borders didn't mean much, when we treated the border as maybe a string of barb wire and everyone knew it was a joke. crossing reputedly had one moral significance. once you start to say, we are going to apprehend you and put you in the records and call it a crime and prosecute you criminally and you keep doing it over and over it has a different moral significance. it's one thing to cross to be with your family. it's another thing to make it a way of life to break the law. i'm not saying these people are evil, but it has to have a different weight in the way we regard it if we believe in the rule of law.

i am as sympathetic to these people as anyone, but i think it has a moral way. >> if you had better legal channels to allow people to immigrate and work in the united states and you have a legalization, you deal with a lot of these people trying to navigate through a dysfunctional system. ofhave got this problem trying to establish credibility of enforcement without having made some of the changes to the legal system i think are necessary. i think you and i would agree on hat front. that onek we have seen of the messages to the undocumented community is you shouldn't leave the country anymore because the consequences -- the chance of you getting caught reentering is much higher. significanten a change. the enforcement mechanisms are working much better.

the second point is when you get caught the consequences are much greater, to the point where you might not even be eligible for legalization in some cases when there is legalization, so that could remove your ability to become legalized when the legalization process begins, so i think one of the things we have learned in the process is for those advocates talking to the immigrant community, we have to be more honest about the fact that leaving the country now is far more dangerous than it used to be and it can end up breaking up your family because if you have been here 20 years, you went back and forth and saw your cousins in chihuahua twice a year, and now if you got caught he would be returned on the bus and you could try again a few gone.ater, those days are we have to be more honest about the consequence of leaving the undocumentedll the immigrants we care about so much. >> i'm not saying good that people can go home for their

grandmothers funeral, but it's a reality. >> let's open it up to this wonderful room of people. we have a mic. if you can identify yourself and speak into the mic that would be great. >> my question is for ted, but anyone can answer. if there is a lack of good data on things like apprehensions and who is crossing the border, how can we get those numbers, and morecan we do to make dhs accountable? >> i think it is improving a lot. i want to give it some credit. the data released a year and a half ago was the record that the border patrol collects on the sector by sector station by station basis on apprehension, what they call turn backs, which

seen tryingho are to enter the united states and change their mind or whatever and go back to mexico. think theyople they missed. these are people they actually cited. we knew there were 10 people. ory only caught five of them more commonly, footprints and other things. they are very good at saying this was probably a group of 12 people. all of this data was released for an important report in 2012. it gave us pretty good data on apprehension rates. i think border patrol is too we used what they call the recidivism method. i looking at people caught multiple times and making an assumption of who will try again

, and most recently we have aerial drones. you can do observations in the desert. months,fly over four and if you are not communicating with the agents on the ground, you can say, this is the percentage we have caught. there are press reports that suggest an apprehension rate of about 50%. i have never been able to verify that with the government, but the data is not perfect, but it's a lot better than it used to be. it's not clear to me this has penetrated leadership. i see a real commitment to improving data gathering into reporting this in a more systematic way. i think that will be a big step forward. >> i am going to come to you next.

>> my name is lucas with united we dream. i'm an undocumented immigrant. my parents rob me here when i was the-year-old in 1989. i'm originally from brazil, overstayed a tourist visa. my dad was -- my parents brought me here when i was one year old in 1989. your numbers you have been talking about reflect the actual reality of the pain that families are suffering on the ground? the separation of families? how do these numbers reflect that i couldn't bury my father? i will say something about that. starting with i'm sorry for that. give is thatwould the administration has been pretty successful at focusing enforcement on people they say

they are going to focus on. supportivelso been about removing about 400,000 a year, so that's a lot of people. even though those exclude a lot of people, they include a lot of people, and most of those people have deep roots in the community. you can't have it both ways. you can't do robust enforcement and not have a major impact on deeply rooted, long-standing immigrant communities. your story goes to that point. i don't know the conditions under which your father was deported, but most people who are deported have lived in this country for a while, and many have families here. they may also have been previously removed or convicted of a minor crime or another apprehended at the border, in which case they are defined as a priority. there are a lot of people who have these connections in the u.s., so both storylines are true.

true the administration is focusing on those categories and that is having an impact on communities. >> i didn't think i would necessarily end up doing this kind of work. the situation is one where aat a lot of us want is program that would have allowed you to bury your father. the only way that is going to happen is if congress acts. there are a lot of people in congress who have insisted they will only act if they believe we are not going to end up in the situation we ended up in 1986 where we legalized 3 million people with the promise this was going to be a one-off and a decade later we have 12 million people. you have to be able to say we do have a credible enforcement system in place. been in some way the republicans will be persuadable. i'm not sure.

then the logic changes. a lot of the reason i do this is the way to do this right is through the immigration program and the only way you do that is through enforcement. i think these need to go hand-in-hand. they haven't. >> i will say a version of what both of them have said. it's a terrible story, and it's awful, and everyone can understand your pain very well. we do live in a time like prohibition where we have rules that are really unrealistic and we have rules that are wrong and people are breaking them, and that the situation you are in. he did something that wasn't that bad and got punished for it. the way to fix it is not to say that no rules matter and we don't believe in rules. an order to get the better rules we have to say we do believe in rules. that's the state we are in now. in some ways your family and many others are suffering, but

we aren't going to get to a fixed width better rules if people think we are in a system where no rules apply. >> one of the questions i get asked about is we have to recognize if the graph is is a lag going on between the reality of what people are experiencing and what the system is doing today because in many cases -- if you read the new york times piece about the backlog in immigration , there are people coming for deportation who were apprehended six or seven years ago under a completely different system than what we have, and what you saw in that data is far fewer of those people were being deported than they used to be. the courts themselves are implementing discretionary standards and letting far more people go because they weren't apprehended under the same set

of standards we are applying today. a really thoughtful piece in the new york times using data that came out of the is thet the key thing anecdotal stories, many of them are things that happened two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago under a completely different system. i think both of these things can be true. your story can be true while also this can be true. thatmy basic contention the president deserves far more credit from the immigration community for having been responsive to their concerns and actually change the system where virtually it's almost impossible if you live in the interior of the united dates and don't have a criminal record, it's virtually impossible for you to be deported today. that's a completely different 2009 whenn we had in all 11 million were under imminent threat of deportation at any time of day and it's a

completely different system than what the republicans passed in the house. house republicans have wanted rollback priorities. and reestablish a day when ice would create a reasonable threat of deportation. republicans are on record voting for that in 2013. the contrast between somebody who has all -- who has only beinged 10,000 people responsive to your concerns and the republican leadership who wants to undo all those reforms and put the threat of imminent deportation back in the system immediately, there's an enormous contrast there. i think this is something we have got to unearth. this is very different from where we were a few years ago which is why i think we are having events like this. there is new data we have to help create a clearer picture. >> i'm not going to rise to the debate.

i could, but i'm in your house. maybe later in the conversation. >> thanks for coming and spending time with us. i want to get a couple of reporters, and we will come back to some other folks. >> i am jim. this is a very important issue for readers. is if thisn i have is purely a republican versus or isatic disagreement, it really a geographic disagreement, and if it's how is the experience of people in the border states with illegal immigrants different from people like us who live in the d.c. metro area, where immigration seems be nine?

tbenign?a -- seems what we are saying is in some ways, despite the there is lessds, of the divide then you might argue. and the administration is going to say the border is important. honestlyns look at it and they say adding a deterrent to the border is a good thing. simon and i are standing here we are adding a new deterrent to the border and that's good. think people in the government

-- i think both of them realize -- both sides realize we are not going to get to affix a must we have a sense of rules that work, and maybe there are more agreements. other point. i think years ago the answer was more yes than it is now. one of the major things that has unauthorized immigration has become a 50 state phenomenon. even though the numbers aren't as big and rural pennsylvania as in arizona, the rate of change is very noticeable. phenomenon, so it's not the case that only border district are concerned about immigration the way it was for many years. >> if you look at geographical impact, originally this effort to build effective enforcement started in california and texas.

operation gatekeeper really shut down the corridors. the result was all traffic went into arizona. you want to know why arizona became ground zero? it was because you guys started first in california and texas and all the traffic came through arizona. that has been shut down. the numbers are very small compared to a decade ago. publicplaces where opinion is most affected is the southeast. there were great rates of increase of 300% in recent decades. >> it's interesting that despite arizona's historic role in this debate you have senator mccain -- two republicans being the most outspoken advocate for comprehensive immigration reform and the last senate round and the congressional delegation in arizona is 5-4 democrat. we are coming out the other side

in a place like arizona in part because the flow is significantly diminished over where it was a decade ago. >> i am going to go to you. if we can get a mic over here. we have an actual expert instead of those of us pretending onstage. >> i want to congratulate you on verypanel for portraying a complex situation this nation is facing. all of these things are critically important we are taking into consideration. what i got out of all three speakers is you captured stuff we have been struggling with when ahe late 70's immigration started climbing up the dramatic pace. the strategic approach you described, how we move forward, how we got to where we are today. a measurement of what is happening out there. how can we get to the level of

detail that is going to be meaningful not just to specific pockets in our nation but the nation as a whole? legislativeneed for reform means there are policies that need to be set. one of the things i think is critical is that the strategic approach we took has worked. together's, who put these depictions, an outstanding job. puts together what has happened. 1.6 million apprehensions at the peak of a legal border activity. were 8000 agents at the border at that time. drop in a 72% to 78% cross-border illegal activity. imagine new york city had a drop of crime at half of that. we would be giving the

commissioner, the chief of police, the governor a parade down main street. look at what has happened. there has been that evolution. 1981, the border was climbing at a dramatic rate. you don't. -- it peaked out. strategically.t we're talking about data. we're talking about statistics. critically important. what this admin describes emma what about all the other considerations, measuring the environment. some things are deafening in their silence. the border. trade is up to medically. nafta passing $500 billion worth

of trade. a 444% increase. german this growth. -- tremendous growth. growingon growth, dramatically along the border. crime has dropped dramatically. it goes on and on. this is tremendous for the border. all these things going forward. frome we get away [inaudible] leading to, where is it taking us as north america,. just america, canada, mexico, and the u.s.. .easurements i can go on for hours but i will not.

looking at the border through the appropriate lenses. we hear the horror stories i have heard some money times. stories about 20 years old. it is the same one. stories thatlized make the national news. how can we capture the national environment of the border? what is the true national environment? i will close out with we are country of laws and we need to continue to be that. the only thing i would add is comprehensive immigration reform. i wish we could go back and titled this comprehensive border security. that is what it is.

thank you. >> we will be able to get in two or three more. i will do a lightning round. thank you for coming. >> [inaudible] --[inaudible]

i wanted to talk to you [inaudible] we cannot deny that reality. we appreciate being here and adding that to the discussion. i stick to my argument. we are not going to get it fixed if we go to the situation of anarchy and the american people looks at that. they will not accept the level of immigration. anarchy to live with for a few years. we are not going to get there. we are not denying the reality of those horror stories. you're bringing them here very

perfect -- very painfully. we know the pain you are describing. it does not mean if we were to listen to that pain and say ok, let's everything go until the past law. >> i do sympathize although i have not experienced it personally. i do not wreck we know your pain. it is the case that a lot of people who fall into one of those priority categories do not necessarily look like real bad actors. maybe they got convicted of a minor crime. maybe they were previously deported and they came back in. somebody who was deported 20 or to go and comes back in and has

been here with their family does not seem like a bad actor. the one thing the obama administration is looking at is adjusting those priorities. ultimatelyd add is it is not a problem the administration can fix by itself. even if we decide congress is never going to do anything. the administration does not have .he authority i advise you to years. they're still vulnerable and it is not something the president can fix without congress. finding a formulation that allows the build to go through congress has to be part of the conversation if you're getting durable solutions. >> the political process operates on multiple levels.

the dream act movement has transformed the discussion of this issue in this country. it was a transformative moment. equivalent to the history of the civil rights movement. the senate now at bill or you look at the house republic on -- republican principles that came out. we have got the republican sayinghip on the record they favor legalization. extraordinary progress. the reason i have worked on the border enforcement stuff, it is the last thing we had to persuade the republicans to get them over the finish line.

i am disheartened with what is going on with house republicans and i am trying to tease out optimism. on all the issues that you care about we have a pretty substantive agreement which is not where we were five or six years ago. can we get it over the finish line. that is what changes the situation. is the elephant in the room. i am disappointed. the eighth thought we had a good chance and i thought going into the house principles we were close and it has not happened. i do think that if you compare where we are to where we are in 2006 or at the time when romney was running, he used to have the hell no people were the majority and there were a few outliers who hardly dared talk about it and the hell no people ran the conference and were the

conference. hold off ande will hold onto the house. as recently as one romney was running he could say self deport and that represented where a lot of house republicans were. he could save be due with the dream act and that is where house republicans were. and i use a leadership saying legal status, you have the majority leader writing his own dream act. i don't think there is a republican in the conference to do not realize that something will have to happen and the republican party will have to be hard of the solution. it is about when, not if now. they are in denial and delusion. there like people who know they have to go to the dentist.

they do not want to do it. the certified know they have to do it. i can put it off. they are in denial about how it doable it will be. i am not saying there -- they are in a place that is good. last 10ally are at the yards. to throw that away by having the president do a unilateral act that gives an excuse to say we are not going to do it, i do not think that is smart. >> let's do three and then we will take those questions and make our final comments. we will go to these. >> [inaudible]

at what point does this become [inaudible] >> thanks to everybody for the

discussion. i'm also with adc coalition on immigrant rights. a two-part question. is washington a border city? what is the 100 border mile around the u.s.. it is misleading if we do not have an idea. the second is in terms of

is whenity the question we say the president is deporting all may the dangers for males and terrorists. how do we explain the momentum and against compliance. atcalifornia we're looking massachusetts. [inaudible]

i will address the first two questions. question there is a piece i want to talk about. the difference between prosecutorial discretion prioritizing who is going to be focused on versus what you are describing which is the executive ranch exercising , certain laws not to enforce because there not in the national interest. there is a different understanding and none of us are lawyers. constitutional scholars have written on both sides. have far the executive could go

if they decided it would not happen and congress. terms of the politics of making a decision like that it is a very -- it would be a confrontational position to take. the types ofthan discussion we have seen. it would be may be motivated by recognizing congress but it will be the stuff of prophecy. on your question i think there is no question that there are convicted criminals who are defined as priorities who identifies your secure communities that are not serious criminals and terrorists. you have seen a broad reaction

to security across different jurisdictions. you have jurisdictions that are going the other way. it is at the heart of the different views and people have about we should be using enforcement. there is no question the administration has focused in on cheeseor ties -- higher -- priorities. is operated at the land border. our coastal borders do not fall under that definition. i want to talk about the executive action question. closely with people who are active on both sides of this issue.

all -- for the president a becomes a calculation of can anything happen with congress and i look at the time frame through the summer. if the republicans had not made some movement, i do nothing it will happen this year. i do not think it happens for the next two years. i do not see congress during this in 2015. what can the president do and he can do quite a lot. i am not sure that the politics are necessarily bad. the message that sends it as if you're not willing to legislate i would do everything within my executive power to fix this problem. dare the congress to challenge

them in the courts. you could claim that might force side. on the republican you can go to political strategists and see what they say. has tried hard to go down issues. on addressing i do not think we're there yet but we can get there pretty soon. i am not sure why anyone asks many more. for what it's worth. it is not a cold corpse up there now. it is on life support. i would not bet you a cop of coffee -- a couple of coffee but not a cold it is where talking about people in leadership positions.

they want this in the worst way and they are having meetings trying to make it happen. there is a lot going on up there. i still would not give it high odds. not dead. next year will be hard. assuming republicans take the senate. it is not impossible. everyone understands this -- it has to get done eventually. if you are a local guy face election there is not much advantage in doing it for almost everybody. the hope would be that some of those bigger concerns would have an immediacy. there are people today say we will do it next year. this is a better opportunity. there are a lot of people you would not expect to see we have to do it and do it next year.

it will be -- 2016 seems likely. imagine whether it is jeb bush talking about this and making it safe. contested here so i do not rule it out this year or next year. why would you kill it by acting this year? i hope someone will make that argument. my fear is he will act. if he is making a longer-term calculation it will be my legacy.

acting unilaterally advocating for unilateral hesitation on enforcement, never. it is one thing. when president bush acted administratively [inaudible] besides getting to a better position. i do not see anyone i can think of saying we will never get it ite so let's start making easier for people to go back and forth illegally. i do think the folks who talk about the 100 miles and so on. my conversations is that there are not a lot of actual agents positioned far outside the border itself.

talked to the person who wrote the i.c.e. report. e were people who were caught not physically crossing tehe border. the logs of where these folks were caught, this is a material beng that needs to answered. offve been vocally to get this ass and get resolved as quickly as possible. the second thing is getting to the politics. my concern and one of the -- meetings happened in

this office. i have been a stalwart advocate for immigration reform for nine years. non-latinos in washington who spend as much time fighting for this as i have over the last decade and i am concerned about the way the community is attacking the president. everyday john boehner gets up has lessthis, he incentive to move this year. the attacks have been making it harder to pass comprehensible immigration reform. youas done exactly what wanted and he needs more credit for it. every day that you are in front of the white house there's a lesson for john boehner to do a

deal. he wants there be -- to be in equivalency, he wants to reinstate the regime. i think this false equivalency that is being created has been damaging to the cause. we cannot let the republicans off the hook. how many times, what else can we do here. 68 votes, we have all sorts of stuff on the enforcement side. everyone who cares about the border, the border will be far more fortified. theill get much more -- tools the customs and border will have for apprehension will get much more sophisticated after we passed the senate bill. i do not think we're going to get this done in 2015, 2016.

is a leader and champion against immigration reform. rand paul this by his efforts to portray himself as a more ecumenical leader voted against comprehension -- comprehensive reform. the republican primary will look 2007-like what we saw in 2008. the republicans could win the presidency and we could have a republican senate or house and a president. what does immigration reform look like? i do not think any of us would want to see that. i do think that it is about right now. we have to put all the pressure we possibly can on the

republicans, taking it off the president to my and force them to do the deal now. that weot be until 2024 get a bill that anyone is happy with. the political and comparative is to get this done now and keep the pressure on where deserves to be witches on john boehner and the republicans. thanks for being here. let's thank our three guests. [applause] to thank tomar for sharing her views. thanks, >> for more than the year, there have been allegations that i

knew about the planning of the watergate break-in, and i was involved in extensive plot to cover it up. the house judiciary committee is now investigating these charges. 6, i ordered all materials that i had previously furnished to the special prosecutor turned over to me. these included taped recordings of 19 presidential conversations, and more than 700 documents and private white house files. on april 11, the judiciary committee issued a subpoena for 42 additional tapes, and conversations which they contended were necessary for its investigation. i agreed to respond to that subpoena by tomorrow. 29,0 years ago on april president nixon responded to a house judiciary committee subpoena for additional watergate tapes. his response and reflections from former washington post

journalist carl bernstein, sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern. part of american history tv on c-span3. >> for over 35 years, c-span rings public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefing conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house all as a public service from private industry. we are c-span, created by the table -- cable tv industry and your local cable and satellite provider. watch as in hd, like this on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> during this month, c-span is pleased to submit its leading entries in the student cam video competition, this is the annual competition that encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues. students create documentaries on

the question, what is the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? the first prizewinners -- from montgomery blair high school in silver spring, maryland. they want congress to take action against water pollution in the nations waterways. water, it makes up 75% of our bodies. take water away and humanity would perish within one week. water is the most vital substance to the human body, yet it is because of us humans that nearly 50% of all streams, lakes, bays and estuaries are unsuitable for use due to pollution. u.s. we have learned to take water for granted. toiletswater and flush -- use the same idea. water is an unlimited resource. but step outside and the

diminishing conditions tell the difference story. -- tell a different story. water pollution destroys marine life and disrupts an already fragile food chain, and animals are not the only ones that suffer the negative effects of water pollution. >> without clean water and clean air, we cannot live. childrenre we giving to grow and flourish if we cannot protect the rivers and the bays they swim in? it is sunday cap -- to take action. you can protect the waterways of the u.s. and protect one of our most valuable resources. ♪ >> one of the most polluted rivers in the state of maryland is the anacostia.

it was once full of life and ecological diversity, a symbol of prosperity in the d c area. it is now known as the forgotten river. of the eight miles is polluted beyond recognition by sediment and past use and wastewater. between 75 and 90% of this pollution is combined sewage overflow or cso. washington, d.c. and the sounding area use a sewage system that carries sewage and storm water in the same set of pipes, about twice per week it overflows into the river. the hardest hit river is the anacostia. there are 17 entry points to the river. 2-3,000,000,000 gallons of ported to the anacostia every year. tried -- has put together the clean rivers

project. the clean rivers project is trying to restructure this to store and capture cso. we took a tour of the water treatment plant, blue plains, to dsee more. >> this is a storage and conveyance tunnel. when the cso overflows the combined sewage system, instead of going into the anacostia river, specifically the anacostia -- it will overflow into this tunnel, due deep shafts along the river. filling up the tunnel -- along with tunnel. filling up the tunnel and transferring all the overflow water down here to blue plains where it can be slowly pumped back out, so it captures and stores and conveys it to the plant for treatment. >> one of the biggest sources of pollution -- at the end of this

project, this can be essentially eliminated. it will make a huge difference. >> instead of overflowing 70 or 80 times per year, which is more than once per week, it will overflow in place per year. there is a combined overflow going out there, so it is unsafe to be on the river. during those periods. you can get sick. so the clean rivers project will fix that. 98%. it reduces the overflow to the anacostia by 98%. >> when fully implement to this project is expected to take the and across the river off of the list of impaired waterways in the u.s.. c. isc is not alone -- d. not alone in the search for clean water. >> when it rains, industrial waste and storm water come poin