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tv   Washington This Week  CSPAN  July 7, 2014 4:00am-6:01am EDT

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legitimacy. because they have the human intelligence to do something about it. these groups have an opportunistic way of doing things. two or three years ago, we could have appealed to their ideals and values. you know, some meetings with the hearts and these are revolutionaries and -- today, you know, they look at, at foreign actors and say, where were you in our moment of need? make a case for why we should actually help you. it has become a transactional relationship and we have to be honest about it. at the same time, describing the complexity should not lead one to overstate what assad can offer. i do not understand what operationally, he can offer.
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he has limited resources and is focused on his survival. someone saying that assad will send some of his forces to rebuild ties with the west -- does one really think that he has a better understanding of jihad he forces -- jihadi forces than the rebel forces fighting isis? at the political and strategic level, working with assad validates the suspicions of many sunnis, and including moderates, that reluctance to helping rebels is linked to a preference for a side and a strong secular dictator. "secular," let's qualify what that means here. it will be difficult to undermine the legitimacy. if we go down this road, this
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applies to iran. in a rock the best ally is a run -- iraq, the best ally is iran. if we had not realized what matters is the local actors and the legitimacy of the intelligence. the rationale to stand up to radical actors, perhaps, we should not be in that business altogether. the few successes that were scored in yemen and iraq are due to local actors taking on the responsibility. can you create a set of incentives and disincentives for local actors to join the fight? the reality is, the level of casualties is massive and there
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is no recognition by us in the general discourse about that fundamental point. >> an attorney to isil or isis whatever, part of the problem with the name is what do they mean. do you see, at this point, any indication that there is groundwork amongst the palestinians? >> actually, i was -- it was very interesting to see that groups and salafi jihadi figures welcome the call for
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the caliphate. in lebanon, you have a group that actually welcome the call. aside from that, very few actors. they attacked a couple of has below convoys. -- hezbollah convoys. the success is the brand that is going up 1.5 years ago. these are franchises. they announced their allegiance to or loyalty to because they hope to get something in return. it is sexier to say you are isis. as i said, it is opportunistic behavior. precisely because it is opportunistic, the response should be political.
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a number of groups have joined al new straw -- al nusra because they were getting more funding and scoring middle terry victories. -- military victories. they left or switched. can you build incentives or disincentives? it is a huge bet. the announcement of the caliphate. this is high expectations. secondly, it is hegemonic behavior on his part. many other jihadi groups are resisting that and are not necessarily convinced about the caliphate or the modell it he -- modality or timing. they see it as vulnerable. it is important to be sober about the military capabilities of this group.
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i am not sure they can sustain victory. the point is, they can mount spectacular attacks and have done it in mosul. we will see, during ramadan, if they can pull off something in baghdad. again, it's -- the debate within jihadi circles is heated. there is no massive consensus that the caliphate under baghdadi's leadership is the right way to go. i would not espouse an alarmist assessment. everything depends on the response. if the response is purely counter-terrorism, isis will arrive. -- thrive. they will present themselves as
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persecuted by the right enemies. >> i am tricia johnson. you talked about how the war does have the possibility of lasting another 5-10 years and isis operates in syria. how do you think the length of the syrian war will affect isis activities in iraq? >> i am no iraq expert. i have to quickly develop knowledge because of the effective merger of these two battlefields. my colleague has written an excellent book on iraq and is in the lead on that.
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look, isis has been good at mobilizing local resources. whether it is true extraction, violence, racketeering -- they have proven very good at co-opting or entering alliances with some tribes and some elements. it is difficult to believe that the events in iraq oh nothing to local groups. -- owe nothing to local groups. there is savvy on his part and his lieutenants. the announcement of the caliphate, in a way, changes the game because of the hegemonic ambition. i think that, in the medium term, the backlash against isis will be massive. debilitating?
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i do not know. will isis be able to hold a territory the size of jordan on the border of turkey, that kurdish areas, i am doubtful. i worry about i sent -- isis becoming a model to other al qaeda franchises in the region. we see this in aqap. they are saying, perhaps, he is right. there is a different way of doing business and that is his territory. but -- it is taking a massive risk to announce the state. a state is something recognizable. they will not have a world cup team anytime soon.
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well, who knows? isis, when you look at the social media and presence, they organize summer camps for kids. there is indoctrination and other things. they are pretty savvy at the level of engagement and, at the same time, they, you know, nail people on crosses. a bit problematic. the point is, it is all about the expectations you set and being able to meet them. they may have $.5 billion in their coffers. how do you make sure you get all the food that you need? i am talking about an area that contains about 8 million people. how do you meet the needs? how do you make sure that electricity and water are flowing if you are at odds with
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everyone? do local deals do enough? the local deals i refer to our with the assad regime or isis and al nusra. providing crude oil and products because they need gasoline for trucks and etc. it is not a fireball model -- viable model. >> independent diplomat. thank you. great talk. you talked about the diminished cost-benefit with the u.s. engaging with the opposition. i wondered about your opinion moving forward and how the opposition could play a large part in the u.s. strategy.
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>> i see mainstream rebel groups as an essential element of anti-isis strategy. you have to accept the other priority, the fight against assad. you cannot turn to rebel factions and say, we will provide you weapons if you fight isis and forget about assad. by the way, the most atrocities and displacement, etc., is still done by assad and his forces. as bad as the jihadis are, the balance of atrocities is very clearly the doing of assad. there needs to be a recognition of this fact and not creating -- not a creation of a false equivalence.
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i talked to a few of them a week ago and i told them, what is your top priority? they said, preventing the encirclement of aleppo. if we need to invest in one thing, it is that. the encirclement of aleppo would be another terrible humanitarian tragedy. 150,000 civilians are still in that area. it would be a much bigger symbolic blow to the revolution than the loss of the capital of the revolution. this is the capital where the rebels hope to gain in 2012. the entrance into aleppo was terrible and they need to
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continue holding it. there is a question about what the rebels can do in the south. there was a lot of hype about the south of france and the rebels were organizing in jordan and other places. getting pushed from the south. added pressure on damascus from the south has not materialized for a number of reasons. it is not necessarily bad that it has not materialized. i did not see how it would have been sustained of a -- sustainable. without air cover, you cannot make sustainable gains in urban areas and shift loyalty or maintain loyalty of civilians. something that is key. that lesson has been learned the hard way in aleppo. policy should not be to encourage rebels to seek
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massive military victories. it should be about protecting the areas that they have and the population against more abuses. a establishing local -- establishing local governance. they do not have the means or the strategy to put it off. i am not talking about the margins. i am talking about a more forward strategy. a time for him adventures -- ambitious investors -- adventures is long gone. >> we are about out of time. we had two primary objectives today. to share insight and i thought we did well. we also achieved the second goal, to avoid incriminating the iss in any criminal
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activities. i want you to thank him for his remarks. and thank you for coming. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> next, afl-cio president and a forum on immigrant workers. then q&a with wayne a.i. frederick. then your calls and comments on "washington journal."
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today, a look at the israeli-palestinian conflect including the future of palestine's government, the stalled peace process and the recent death of three kid named teens. starting at 4:00 p.m. eastern. >> now keep in touch with current events using any phone any time with c-span radio on audio now.
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up next, -- it's a great honor to be here with all of you. what a beautiful day. >> buenos dias. it is a great honor to be here with all of you. what a wonderful day. my name is hector sanchez. i am the head of the house of latino labor. and also the chair of the national hispanic leadership agenda.
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today, we are here to have a very important conversation addressing action, how failure to pass immigration reform harms workers. we want to be very strategic answer -- and concise, and we want to look at it from a more holistic effective, like the long-term impacts that enforcement only policies are having on the working class. to put two elements on the table. on the one hand, we have all of these republican anti-immigrant pieces of legislation, and a number of states have a devastating impact on the quality of life, in particular of the latino community, and on the other hand, we also have the highest levels of deportation that we have ever seen in the nation, so we asked the question -- what are these policies, and what is the
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impact that these policies are having on the ground, not only on immigrant communities, but in particular the latino community. we have a great panel, experts leaders, organizers, and we're really excited to be here. let's start with president trumka of the afl-cio. he is working with worker centers and others. trumka grew up in a small coal mining communities and rose to the president of the farmworkers of america. i'm happy to call him a champion of workers and a champion of immigration reform. president trumka.
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>> thank you, hector, for that overly generous introduction. i appreciate it. good morning, everyone. let me say hi and welcome to the house of labor. i would like to thank the labor council for latin american advancement for cosponsoring this event with us, but also for all of your leadership that you have shown over the years in the latino community on workers issues. i'm happy to say a lot of trade union faces in the audience this morning as well as many of our allies and many of our friends. today marks a bittersweet moment in the fight for justice for immigrants. it is better because after 18 months of work, the bill languages, deportations continue, and our immigration
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system remains broken. house republicans have failed to -- in their duty to serve the national interest -- they have squandered a very historic opportunity to move our country forward. but today is sweet because of pablo alvarado and hector sanchez and i have become closer. in fact, our very movements are inextricably connected, and i can tell you i am happy to go to war with allies like each one of them. i really am. you see, the war that we have been fighting is of course a moral one. the devastation of families, the disruption of communities,
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emotionally, i've got to tell you, in my heart, it hurts. it hurts every time i see a family split up, every time i see a life disrupted, every time i see somebody's plans sort of you raced. but the deportation crisis is not america as it is supposed to be. nor america as it can be. today want to focus on something else. i want to focus on the economics of immigration reform. because while the moral arguments are reason enough to fight for immigration reform they are not the only reason. there are so many hard-hitting reasons why. it is in every working person's
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interest to ensure that each and every one of their colleagues enjoys full rights. and the best way to illustrate these economics of the crisis is through how we came to this issue originally. in the 1990's, our immigration system broke under the pressure of nafta. and employers came to realize that workers without legal papers could help sleazy businesses exploit all low-wage workers everywhere. why? because employers grew to understand that immigrants without legal rejections cannot complain about working conditions. if a meatpacking plant worker says something about "it is unsafe," the employer can threaten to get him or her
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deported, well, the worker probably backs down, and everybody lives in unsafe conditions. if the worker seeks workmen's compensation for an injury, all of a sudden, an employer might be able to get around the law. if a construction worker finds his paycheck is not include the overtime that he worked that week, will he have the courage to go to the authorities to complain? and risk deportation? and if you are a sleazy employer choosing between equally qualified workers, and one has citizenship and the right to stand up for himself or herself, and the other can be intimidated, who do you choose?
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you see, these are not modest academic concerns. let's take the example of wage theft. the national employment law project estimates that 68% of low-wage workers, many of them undocumented, experience pay violations, and we are not talking small violations. they accumulate annually to a loss of 15% of their income. that means employers steal $2600 a year from workers who only earn about $17,000. the gross exploitation certainly does not work for workers. but it also does not work for
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the economy as a whole. an estimation is that wage theft steals $64 million a week from employers' pockets or workers' pockets in new york city, los angeles, and chicago alone. workers need status to fight back against injustice on that scale. and we will all benefit, every worker will benefit when they finally have it. how much will we benefit? well, the congressional budget office has shown that economic benefits from the bipartisan senate immigration bill are so great that they would increase federal revenues by $459 billion between 2014 and 2023. now, $459 billion with a b.
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heck, $459 million would be a lot of money. but this estimate is 1000 times that. so how can we improve a lot of workers and the economy as a whole? well, the easiest and best way to end is to end the deportation crisis, for the house to call for a vote on the senate bill. that bill would pass overwhelmingly. unfortunately, john boehner and kevin mccarthy and the republican party seem to care more about the feelings of the tea party than about justice in america's workplaces and communities. one year ago last week, the senate did its part. their comprehensive bipartisan
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bill created a clear and achievable path to citizenship ensuring that our economy and social fabric would not be undermined by a permanent underclass of noncitizens without full rights. the bill strengthens the protections for all workers, and it divides a new type of employment-based visa system that would tie to real labor market needs and not the whims of manipulative employers. but over the last year, the house republican leadership has embarrassed itself before history. they have cheapened its constitutional responsibilities, and they have diminished millions of lives.
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especially as the clock rolled into 2014, republican pretensions to action were more especially as the clock rolled into 2014, republican pretensions to action were more and more transparent. while the country waited for leadership, it got game played. but even though republicans have failed to act, the core principles of comprehensive immigration reform are not going to go away. the legislation enacted by the senate last year is our guide, and we will remain steadfast in our support of its principles next week, next month, next year, for as long as it takes for me to pass a real bill that gives citizenship to our
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brothers and sisters. [applause] and in that regard, we renew our call for the administration to exercise its authority to uphold those principles by providing immediate, temporary relief and work authorization to all of those who would qualify for citizenship under the bipartisan senate bill. [applause] you see, we have a recent test of just how immediate the benefits of affirmative relief and work authorization can be for immigrant workers. 61% of deferred action for childhood arrivals, daca recipients surveyed said they had received a new job since adjusting their status.
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sadly, more than two thirds of those same newly documented people indicated that they knew someone who had been deported. the new economic opportunities for working people for of action would be considerable. and that positive energy can only be realized if the president asked boldly and if we -- acts boldly and if we stand together and if we act boldly, i believe that the president will act boldly, and that bold action, my brothers and sisters, will lift our economy while making our country more just and living up to the slogans that we say around the world. brothers and sisters, we have much work to do. i suggest we begin.
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thank you. [applause] >> thank you. we have a top priority, which has always been to recognize latinos in the nation, due to all of these enforcement only policies -- latino workers increased drastically in the last couple of years. we have the highest levels -- there is been a drastic decrease in hate crimes against latinos. a latina only makes $.55.
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[indiscernible] way to increase the work wage for our latina sisters. and this organization has been an example. i want to introduce the president ceo of the largest national hispanic symbol in the united states. in 2005, -- the nation's 50 million hispanic -- by
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strengthening the partnership between 300 communities. we also have the president and general counsel of -- five offices pursuing community appreciation in the united states. and we have the executive director of the national day laborer organizing network. they have been more strategic to develop leadership and organize day laborers. i would like to open one question.
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from your perspective, what have been the impact of how republicans -- how do you see the consequences? >> thank you. good morning, everyone. it is a rogue pleasure, and indeed, i feel very privileged to be up here on this panel because this panel has a number of wonderful leaders who have been not only leaders for us in the latino community but also on the immigration reform movements and i want to give a special recommendation to rich trumka. i appreciate the leadership you have demonstrated it is so important using a strong voice. and to see all of the new voices coming together is so important. i feel very, very privileged to be here.
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i wouldn't say related to the impact, rich articulated so perfectly how we conceive really the impact and it is an economic impact, a social impact, and what we will talk about today to is also the political impact, so the failure of the house republicans to act after years after the senate has passed a bill, and if they did not like the senate bill, they could have passed their own bill. if they did not like one bill, they could have passed several bills, but they made no effort and sat on their hands and did nothing. the impact of doing nothing and that failure of leadership has been wrong. the economic impact, the lost wages, lost salaries, and the exploitation of workers -- what we are also seeing is an overall loss of revenues to our roast a
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method product. we know, and i have the statistics to demonstrate, that passing immigration reform will actually add in boost our economy and reduce our deficit by nearly $1 trillion. to see that kind of failure of leadership's and action when we know that the country first and foremost would benefit tremendously from an economic standpoint is any feasible. the human and social cost to the failure to act in the impact of that is being directly, in particular of the latino community, workers in general, but for us it is family. what we see happening is a failure to reform our immigration system is that many of our families are still being torn apart, children are being separated from their parents and the cost in those committees when we see that happening, but
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the human impact and the pain and suffering that we see, the fear that we still have in this country for someone who has been contributing in their everyday going to work, making sure that they are intervening and living up to their potential, except for the ability to have that documentation, for us to see in this 21st-century that these people are still living in fear and in a shadows and vulnerable to exploitation and see their families suffering is also inexcusable, and that has been a human social impact that we see still today. and i guess i would just say that on the political impact, is one that i think the republicans underestimate in the minds of latino voters because what we see happening is the republicans deliberately turning their backs on not just our community but on moving our nation forward. we know that it is within their
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grasp, it is within their hands to create a permanent solution but they have closed the door to that, and have said that they are not going to take up immigration reform. that is such a lack of responsibility that it is astonishing to think about. what for us as voters, we have been marking and keeping track with the leadership of these folks on this panel, and particularly hector, would be national hispanic leadership agenda, we have report cards where we have been keeping track of what we believe is in the interest of us particularly in the interest of immigration, and one of the last their votes at
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the republicans in the house that taken was to repeal the deferred act -- the daca program. that is the last on record vote that they have here. republicans may have given up on a permanent solution. we will never give up. but i heard from rich is that the afl-cio will never give up on a permanent solution. we will fight for a permanent solution to this. we will make sure that everyone votes and the accountability lies at the feet of the house republicans and at speaker boehner. it is within their power to put something forward and they have utterly failed to do so. that will be remembered for a long time. [applause]
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>> the impact is devastating. this inaction on the community the economy, our families. beyond that i would say there are those who would attribute it this inaction to another example of partisan political gridlock. inaction on this is a different kind. what is at stake is the humanity of our nation. our failure to act is a mark on the success of our nation. it draws away from our reputation around the world and
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undercuts the principles on which this country was founded even if we have historically not adhered to those principles. this is not another instance of gridlock. this is the defining issue of injustice of our day. we have made great progress notably on the issue of marriage equality. we have not made any progress on this political issue. history will judge our nation and its leaders in how we react on this critical issue. will we demonstrate a belief in the abiding unifying and prevailing nature of our principles and values or will we continue to betray those
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principles and values? inaction comes from people. some of them have built their careers around the notion. they continue to support and immigration system that discriminates against immigrants primarily from mexico. the system says because you are from mexico you will wait 20 years to emigrate legally while others will only wait a year or two. can you imagine accepting that in another context? can you imagine a university saying that we have already admitted and not from your background so you will wait 20 years to be admitted to this
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university? it would not last one minute. we have leaders who build their political careers around a bedrock devotion to family values and they are nowhere to be seen as families are devastated and torn apart daily by our immigration system. have leaders who have argued in a election after election that they believe in the power of entrepreneurialism. they have failed to recognize the value of those who would travel great distances to come to this country to build a
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better future for themselves and their families. these believers have been demonizing and politicizing children who have engaged in that entrepreneurial endeavor. there is no question that this inaction is an assault on our values as a nation and the soul. there is an urgency that you've already heard about addressing this issue. we must act now. the devastation occurs daily. deportations continue at record paces. they are tarrying apart camp -- families and communities. martin luther king jr. gave a
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speech in the march on washington. we often focus on that speech. dr. king at the time was facing those who would argue for a more deliberate approach to solving the issue of civil rights for african-americans. he warned us 51 years ago to -- about the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. the urgency is now. we need old leadership, we need aggressive action. we need to ensure that our principles as a nation are vindicated through recognizing the need to address the injustice that occurs daily.
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[applause] >> i was thinking about talking about how broken immigration system is. it conventional wisdom says it is not just broken. it is fully unjust. it is unjust because it denies immigrants so much.
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this issue of kids came to my head. i could not thinking of just stop thinking about it. a cousin of mine is fleeing from violence. he is a minor who is being detained in nevada. it i remember the president's speech yesterday. i think this is not, it is time for us to demonstrate our moral outrage. it is unacceptable what is happening. if we want to advocate for
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workers rights and we want to do good for people in the workplace , if we want to do good for civil rights and do good at the ballot box in november, we must do the right thing. this debate has diluted for too long. it is almost unrecognizable. that has not changed. we are making the suffering of people incentivize. this is the time to demonstrate
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our moral outrage. the problem is the status quo is causing a lot of harm. it is causing a lot of suffering and hardship. the topic needs to be. there are cut -- politicians in congress that are holding undocumented people hostage. we have an unprecedented national security apparatus that is well-funded. we have a deportation machine that is enforcing the law. we have been fighting for the
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end of these programs. we have not been able to terminate this program. there is still hope. what choice do we have in these circumstances? we are taking this battle to state capitals. it we are taking it to city halls. many families are revolting. the pages turning. i think people will continue to.
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it is an example of how we have opened the torch for many. every time the jurisdiction, we are achieving. inaction we want to make sure that they get this. [applause] >> all the speakers before me
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have made clear how the failure to act by the republican leadership has had devastating effects on our communities. on families. families are split up. people are living in fear of being split up. they are not knowing if your loved one will come home at the end of the day. all of those things are happening to families. these are not just immigrant families. when those workers get cheated wage everybody suffers at the cost of delay. when workers are killed or injured on the job 150 of them die every day.
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they're more likely to be from latino families. they are more likely somebody who does not have the ability to stand up. sometimes we are against each other. sometimes racism and anti-immigrant feelings get carried away. we are less healthy and less productive because of what is going on. i mentioned earlier our economy suffers. one workers get cheated out of wages they can't spend. think about those workers that make $17,000 and they get cheated every single year.
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that hurts all of us. that hurts every american. the failure to act has been devastating. it presents challenge. every time we see that, we also see somebody be creative and we see courageous campaigns coming from communities who have the most to lose. we see courage. one of the positive things that has happened is we are seeing new leadership emerge.
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you're going to see something from courageous people standing up for a better country. they will fight for rights not just for undocumented workers but for everybody out there. that leadership has been bold and creative and inspiring. we see a new tactic. we are figuring out ways to get around the traps in the laws that have been set for them. the other byproduct is it has built partnerships that will never be broken again. the people on the stage right now, we bonded together. i can promise you that we will
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never be divided or separated again. there has been much devastation there are a few rays of sunshine. the leadership that has bubbled up is one of those. the new partnerships that have been forged and bonded together are another ray of sunshine. a for me, this is one of the most inspiring times of my life. i have been in labor for over 40 years. all of us coming together, to fight for fairness and justice. i have a devastating effect on this microphone. [laughter] i just want to say thanks to the people here.
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and to all of our other brothers and sisters that rise up every day and fight against injustice common men and common women who will never see the spotlight. every single day they are fighting to make this country a little bit better and just. it is an honor for us to be with them. [applause] thank you. >> it has been a long fight as you mentioned. you've been fighting for a very long time. one of the things we can do to break our broken immigration
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system is anything that makes you hopeful. >> we've always had a three-prong strategy. i think it's time for us to lean into those strategies. it is pretty clear that the house republicans leadership by refusing to acted on any sort of legislative reform does now give the president every opportunity to intervene and to step in and to create administrative relief. and we agree with the fact that he has authority to do something, and we are going to encourage him and call on him to be bold and to make sure that through this
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administrative authority that he has well within the legal authority that has been laid out, that he use that authority to provide albeit temporary, but relief for many who right now are in the shadows and are suffering and fearful of being separated from their families. and we want very much for the president to build on the support action for childhood ar rivals program and look at the parents of these children and understand that we have seen deportions at a staggering levels, up to 2 million individuals deported. and within that we have seen more than 277,000 parents of u.s. children have been deported since 2010. we believe that the president has an opportunity right now because of the failure of the republicans to act to now step
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up and intervene and make sure that we can end this separation of families, end this suffering of the children who are being torn from their parents, and to do the right thing economically by this country and make sure that we are taking advantage of these individuals who are working and contributing to this economy. so for us, we see a very important step for the president to be very bold and to build on the program and to really make sure that we are doing everything we can to the full extent of its authority to grant this kind of relief at this particular moment knowing that it is temporary but building on the doca program that really was something that we saw supported by the vast majority of the american public
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that includes republicans. and i think that for us the other prong of our strategy is to pursue an electoral strategy. we need to make sure that our community is fully educated more voters that they are able to register and to go to the polls and mobilize those who go to the polls because for us it is important for us to weigh in as a community and to hold these elected officials accountable. and that becomes another key important part of our strategy. without that accountability and without us exercising our own voices of -- we are not going to be able to achieve our full potential. so for us it is really making sure that we are pursuing a strong and bold administrative action and encouraging the president and calling on the president to act within his legal authority to build on the
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doca program and to look at the scope of individuals who would have qualified under the senate bill and think about how he can get as many of those individuals within some administrative temporary relief and that on our community we need to make sure that all of us understand that we have a responsibility to weigh in and we make sure that we are part of this democratic process so we need to make sure that we are registering the vote, that we're educated voters, and on election day we are voting and holding elected officials accountable. that's our strategy. >> hector, what makes me hopeful is that house leadership does not reflect this country. it is absolutely clear that through their action on this critical issue they are simply ca pit lating to an increase lating thin slice of america that is fearful of demographic
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change, that reflects a faithlessness in the importance of our values as a nation, that is exploited by others to foment racism and distaupia. the truth is that this country increasingly, a wide, wide majority support action to address this issue of injustice. and we see across the country, as pablo has indicated, states and localities, are taking actions to ensure that they limit their complicity in the ongoing dems stration of importation. that is encouraging. it is 100% clear that we now must look to the president to take actions consistent with the authority that he and his predecessors have exercised throughout time to ensure that our immigration enforcement does not result in devastation and injustice. a few years ago the administration announced the very hopeful policy of
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prosecutorial discretion, that that hopeful -- but that hopeful policy resulted in little change. we need the president and the secretary to take action to ensure that the rank and file in ice and department of homeland security actually follow a rational, principled policy of prosecutorial discretion. and we need the president to take bold action consistent with his authority to grant relief to all of the immigrants who have been here, contributed, raising families, ensuring that our communities thrive, and have been waiting for the legislature to act on reasonable progressive immigration reform. at the same time, we will be emboldened as we see across the country, as all of the speakers have alluded, leaders step forward across the community to ensure that this deportation
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scheme end and that there is relief for our country in the form of immigration reform legislation. we need the the president to act, we need the congress next year that will better reflect its constituency by expressing support from principled and progressive policies. >> i got very excited with those speeches and i forgot the question. >> what's next? >> what's next? i think that for too long almost 15 years we have let those here in washington seek to determine what is good for our community. and we are talking about citizenship everywhere. and citizenship is about
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requiring people speak for themselves. the way they talk about immigration debate, for example, when they refer to the fields, that the fruits are rottening on the trees. why? well the way affected communities show their bleeding hands when they speak the truth. that's exactly the way ford for our organization. we are going to make sure that those voices come. we're going to make sure that this immigration debate make sense again and that places that are suffering and people in the center of the debate, that's the way forward for us. we will focus on the president. we will no longer accept the promise of legislation to be used as a bargaining chip for legislation.
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it hasn't worked out so far. so yesterday in his speech from our standpoint the president was admitting that he was essentially wrong and that that strategy has been wrong, that he -- that his enforcement first approach is essentially -- hasn't been i believe to persuade the right wing republicans to support immigration reform. so that was the difference between his speech yesterday and other speeches of the past. so we are going to make sure that he is doing the right thing and we're going to stand with him not because he says the right thing. we're going to stand with him when he does the right thing. that is the way forward for us.
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>> first of all, the afl-cio is in this fight for the long haul. we're not going to quit until we're absolutely victorious in all of this. so there are several things that we are going to do. the first is we're going to continue working at the to pass comprehensive immigration reform that is truly as a pathway to citizenship for all our brothers and sisters and truly does protect all workers. so in the coming months and whatever it takes we will be gearing up to pass that legislation and to defeat bad pieces of legislation that mass crade as comprehensive immigration reform. all the while we will be looking for ways to protect brothers and sisters at the state and at the local level. anything we can get done there to protect them, to help them we'll continue to do that. the second thing what everybody
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else has talked about we'll work to end deportation, then to insist on a more humane enforcement strategy. we will work to promote old bold executive action in the weeks and months coming up. and the third thing we will be doing is assisting with the naturalization of nearly 9 million community members who are currently eligible for citizenship. last saturday in this very room it was a hub of activities came here for help with processing their citizenship and their doca processing. we helped them. we are turning our local union halls around the country into ways to help those citizens and get them a path so that they have a voice in the political arena so that they have an everyday voice on the job, and
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we're all better off for that. so ensuring first we'll continue to fight for immigration reform, we will continue to educate our members and the general public about the effects of a broken immigration system and what can be achieved, and then we will continue to mobilize them to get bills passed to defeat bad bills and to unelect people who have been obstructionists and turned their backs on the needs of americans across this country every single day. >> thank you. thank you.
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i thank the people who have put this together. we're going to bring some workers voices to continue this conversation. wipt to thank you all -- i want to thank you all to continue this fight. there will be a quick change and we will continue this conversation.
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>> good morning, everybody. this is real to me. i'm an immigrant myself and all my life i have been working on immigrant workers rights. and there are very few shoes that really come close to this issue's importance for myself.
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that's because i believe making progress is the future of our country. our country was built by immigrants, continues to be built by immigrants that basically have changed -- the faces may have changed, the accents may have changed, but we continue to be a nation that was built by immigrants. in this second panel we're going to try to do two important things. first, to lay out facts about the crisis for immigrant workers. and second, we're going to share some stories that may help illustrate how this crisis is affecting real people in our communities every day.
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we are likely to have two workers with us a construction worker and maintenance worker from new jersey. he was fired for organizing a union with his quork coworkers when they tried to improve condition of their job. the president of international labor union has joined us today. thank you for being here. also we have the former farm worker, here for workers rights. she crossed the border from mexico with her siblings at the age of 15.
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she worked for years on farms picking tomatos where she survived sexual assault. she has become an activist for farm workers rights. thank you for being with us. we are also going to hear from two experts who will share data on the scope of discrimination and exploitation faced by workers. hector sanchez, my brother he works to build unity among latinos around the country.
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as you already know the president and general council is also going to talk about this subject. so before we get into our panel i want to briefly share a story with you. before i came into this job i used to work in orange county, california. the orange county that you know is different from the tv show. the housewives of orange county, you know, the ladies who don't go to work, they have
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a swimming pool in their living room and they sip cocktails all day long. that's not the orange county that i knew. the orange county that i experienced is 100% undocumented workers who worked with their hands every day. so i just want to remind you you show up in the morning to work and there's a group that stands on the sidewalk and the sidewalks come in and they dump the trucks on the belt. it's not repsychibles but people where everything including road kill, waste.
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so their job is for eight hours a day to line up by the sides of the chute with bare hands, go through the trash to find recycleables and pull those things out. they do that on a daley basis but they have no rights like we know like the rest of us because they are unable to speak up at their job. what happened was a few years back the company called and 100% were deported and unions were very fearful of that happening again. so what happened was we worked with churches and community organizations and we put tremendous pressure on the company not to do that again. after about a year the workers voted to join a union.
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there was a list. there was one thing they used to tell us every day they want to get rid of. when they show up for their shift the first thing they have to do is go and schedule themselves for a bath room break on the board and you have to put the time that you have to take care of yourself. you get one cup of water and you're working outside in the california heat. you get one break a day. so you have to take care. so as a movement, we don't care about extras. what are we for? so we rolled up our sleeves and went to the union. their family -- they have family health care now.
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they get paid vacations. they get everything that they pay for. that's what immigration reform means. we want to help rebuild the country that we love. so with that, i am going to turn it over to hector to talk about the issues. >> thank you. it's such an honor to be sitting with you on the panel. the commitment that the labor movement has for immigrant workers and immigrant leaders in the nation we're so proud to be sitting right here next to you. you already covered a little
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bit of what i wanted to cover. i will save the time for our sisters and our brothers to say what they see on the ground. i will make a couple of comments. 11 million workers undocumented workers in the most powerful, richest nation in the world is not a mistake. it is public policy. and we need to change the national dialogue from that perspective. it seems like we keep defending ourselves every time to prove that we are not here to steal jobs that we are not bringing diseases, that we are not x, y, and z. we have become a hypocritical nation that we have to recognize that we have an addiction in vast sectors of
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our economy that choose to exploit people and labor, workers that you can use and throw away when you are in recession, workers that you can violate constantly their labor rights, human rights, and civil rights with no voice on the ground. and the question is who benefits from having workers with no voice? who benefits? not the workers. so it's time to change the conversation to really look at the structure of elements of who is benefit from having a broken immigration system. i remember being in one convention and there were a number of clergy and the immigrant voices. i was going to use my usual response to say, you know what, the usual elements of why immigration reform is so important, which we need to do. but i changed that element to
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make it a little bit more realistic. i say when you believe in something, do what we do in the labor movement. voice it. so i asked for the immigrant voices in the nation to boycott any vegetables that have been touched by immigrant hands, stop living in houses that have been built by immigrant hands. and then we will see the feelings. but when we recognize the contributions that faceless, the daily images of these hard-working people, we need to make sure that we fix this broken system. very few people i think understand the reality of a lot of these workers. like you say it is just the horrible reality. i remember a recent delegation that we had to some of the
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field workers, who were organizing about the workers in north carolina. we were talking about the reality that is we found on these little children in the fields and the impact of pest sides, seeing these workers with their hands with tobacco nicotine, and the impact that it has and the working conditions that it has on workers living in really chicken houses. when we saw the president talking about it we saw a number of people just crying. they couldn't believe this reality. and when i used to doport work in the developing nations that was the kind of reality that we were confronted with, the different thing that is we are facing in our pockets of the economy, with this reality. and like many people say we don't really see them, we don't
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really want to understand. i spoke about the condition of latino workers in the nation and how these two elements have a very interesting negative impact on our communities. on the one hand for over a decade you have groups having a horrible time. we started profiling people who look like many in this room regardless of whether they are immigrant or not. and they keep moving to all kind of crazy ideas so there are people who can check the legal status of our kids. that has an impact on the quality of life that we have as a community. on the other hand, if we act
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the legislation that president obama has had for the last year reaching the highest levels of deportation is really create negative elements for the entire community. so from that perspective, what are the long-term implications of all these policies and the quality of life of latinos on unemployment, in poverty, in the quality of the -- and the future of our children? what does it mean that our children are living behind, what are the implications for our community? thank you. >> write down your questions and we will take the questions. so what can you add to the picture that hector gave?
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>> i think you all got a copy of this report released just this past week that demonstrates that by the government's own statistics the impact of the deportation is on the latino community. the government's own statistics in 2013, 97% of those who were deported were from the latin american region. 97%. with the 2 million deportations that have occurred since 2009, that is a devastating impact on the latino workforce across this country. what it means is up to 2 million workers removed from the community, up to 2 million family members taken away from their family, their families left without the ability to economically support themselves
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as they had before. what we have seen and our experience representing workers in lawsuits across the country in recent years on behalf of farmworkers, hotel workers, restaurant workers, day labebrors janitors, car washers, is that there is an exploitation epidemic across this country where there are employers who believe that because their workers don't have full legal protection that they should have, that they can be exploited. and in fact workers have been denied their wages, safe working conditions. they have been denied breaks, they have been denied benefits they have been denied even workers compensation for injuries received on the job. and this is all permitted because of our broken immigration system. this is not a problem only for
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immigration and policy it is a problem for our economy. as i think we will hear in a few minutes. these workers so many of whom are being deported, are the backbone of our economy today. if you look at the major areas, the major industries that really provide the support for this nation, support for example for our social security system on which so many elderly rely in this country, those industries are dominated by latino immigrant workers ranging from construction to agriculture to all of the major service occupations in this country. these folks that we are deporting and in doing so not only devastate thirg families but harming the economy introducing yet another element of disruption, another element of exploitation because with each deportedation we should
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make no mistake employers conclude that they can exploit those like the ones who have been deported. so these industries so bedrock and so important are being devastated. these workers are being devastated. our economy as a nation is being devastated. every time we engage in the kind of practices that our documented in this report. we must undertake to ensure that the informal economy becomes a formal economy. that the exploitation is replaced by an agenda of support for every workers. by an agenda that ensures that those who are the backbone of our economy are provided the rights and justice to which they are entitled. what we hope is that, the situation has become so dire that the leaders in our communities for years and years
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more and more are stepping forward knowing that they have the support of the broader community to ensure that this exploitation ends and that our economy is put on a right footing. [applause] >> so with that in mind we will hear a couple workers stories directly from workers who have suffered from this. and so we will start with daniel. please tell a little bit about the conditions you faced on the job and the treatment you received as an immigrant worker.
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>> good morning, brothers and sisters. my story today is about the ten years that i worked for bengmin h. realty company. we worked for benjamin realty company for ten years. during that time we were exploited, we were abused by
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our employer. we were abused by poor working conditions and dangerous working conditions. during that time we were looking for an organization to help represent us as a group of workers. during that -- and then we were able to find local 55 labor union. they advised us and they helped us see our own rights in the workplace. all of the workers signed cards for the union to represent us as workers.
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the employer of the company told us that we shouldn't be organizing as workers. he started to attack us with immigration threats. before we started organizing the employer never cared about our immigration status. in the workplace we were from all over all different nationalities, argentinia, colombia gault malla. -- gat malla.
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during the time we were working we suffered all kinds of conditions. toxic conditions and with toxic materials. i mentioned we worked under the conditions without any protections and it wasn't until we started organizing that the employer suddenly cared about our immigration status. and i and several coworkers were fired because of our organizing. we were fighting for many years to exercise our rights in the
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workplace. it was very painful for the employer to attack us for being immigrants. he treated us as though we were recycleable and we could just be used because we were immigrant workers. and it affected our families, too. the owner, the employer sent us a letter and kicked us out of our employer housing with just three days' notice.
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this was devastating for us and for our families and our children because we never expected anything that grave that offensive by the employer. after a few weeks of a lot of hard work we were able to get an election and we won. now we are just waiting, hoping we can get a collective agreement.
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i have suffered a lot personally for having worked so hard for that employer. and we were exposed to things like asbestos for many years. and me, myself i actually removed asbestos with my own hands without any protections. when we used to ask for protection to do this work the employer would say that we could be fired or he would let us go for the day, that we didn't need the protection.
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we worked 24/7 each week. and we did not receive overtime pay. thanks to the laborors local 55 , thanks to them our case is now being reviewed by immigration to see if we can get visas. for being mistreated as workers. thank you. >> thank you daniel for your courage and for the work you do. and thank you to your union who
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is fighting. that fight is the right fight. can you tell us your story as an immigrant workers and what happened. >> thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here and share my story. and i thank the people for this conference to invite us and to share my own experience. as a farm worker myself, i came here to share my own experience that i have been through because just like what all the families said, those are the real things that are happening around. and we had to share what we have been through so in order to really make more awareness. because this is really happening. so just to start with the story . as he mentioned before, i came
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here at the age of 15 in this country. and i came as an undocumented. so as you can imagine i ended up working in the farms. and basically traveling migrating as a farm worker, working in different crops, picking fruits and vegetables. and very interesting but you know, i found a lot of things working. for example, i worked in ohio, south carolina florida picking apples picking oranges strawberries, and a lot of other vegetable. but like what you heard, a lot of people say that there's a lot of abuse going on around. for example, myself, i went through a lot of swall harassment, -- sexual
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harassment, sexual assault. it was so horrible, imagine 15 years old came to this country and living in very bad conditions and then get molested. and it just felt so horrible because -- it's hard -- imagine how many children are around the field. i was only 15. i did not know anything about this country. i saw workers and this -- came in and molested me. and i felt so horrible. but i had to hide it because i was full of fear.
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the next day i went to work. i started telling everybody what happened. i wanted to speak -- i didn't tell anybody what happened. i did not even tell my siblings. nobody ever knew my secret. until now that i am speaking. i am speaking to you. but nobody knew. and that's how a lot of people go through. they don't tell their stories. they don't tell what they went through. they don't tell their abuses because they have a lot of fear. for me it was really hard. that happened in ohio. that happened in north carolina. that happened in new york. that happened in florida. i mean everywhere i go it happened. it's not easy. so it is really bad.
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and today it is still happening. so for that reason not just because we're talking about the immigration issue a lot of things, a lot of things going on with the workers. that's why i became an activist. right now i am working in new york state fighting for workers rights. through that i found a lot of things happening. and just like what my other workers said, the fear of speaking. a lot of abuse is going on with the wages. and just for any conditions, being living conditions. living conditions are really, really bad, too. but people will not speak up. if they have a family they are
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willing to do a lot of things. so after for a decade working for an activist i have seen so much, so many things. and for that reason i am still there fighting for that, fighting for the justice because it's not fair what is going on. so much, so much that we have seen. for example, i can say that in new york state in western new york where i live it has been just so horrible. i think it has been -- a lot of people say that probably that's one of the second place, from arizona. imagine there are so many migrant families who have been migrating from new york to florida or from south carolina to michigan and new york and rote tating all the time, for over 25 years that i have been living in new york state. and about five years ago families of migrant workers
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have been decreasing so much because it was tough to be so scared so afraid because ice or police like we say just because they see your face and they stop you for no reason. they find a lot of excuses, because this is not working just because they saw your face. my brother was stopped. he is a citizen and he was stopped three times with ice asking for citizenship. and he denied to answer because he has the right to answer because he knows of course. a lot of other people are so afraid of speaking up who they are and what's going on. and people -- right now we have lost so many families in new york state. and families have been through this, going to visit families. families have been apart fighting and crying, the kids who have seen their parents
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being arrested. so i think for that reason i mean like everybody says, we have to keep on fighting for this because it is not fair. i am here to really support and fight for and supported. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for your courage and thank you for just for your support. i know it's hard. but we have to stand up so millions of others can be seen. you go to work to provide, working the farms. a lot of us take for granted because we think food comes from workers.
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but -- so thank you so much. we also want to thank the workers across the country. we are running really out of time. so we can take two questions if there are two questions. >> i am from new york.
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thank you for speaking everyone. i just want to make a couple of remarks and lead to a larger question. so in this hall of labor and we've been talking a lot about what is the state of immigrant status today and where to go. i appreciate your comments from the earlier panel about gradualism and martin luther king and kind of a movement to fight for -- these are civil rights we're talking about and we really need to be talking about it as these issues. your story was so compelling. i think that's kind of like why i'm here you gave me the courage to be up here so thank you. anyway, because of your remarks on gradualism, i think it's really important with us being in the hall of labor, we really need to be taking to the streets, we need to be reviving the movements that caesar
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chaves brought forward with the great boy cothses. going marching on washington. i don't know that we're going to win the civil rights in congress or even with obama who by the way record deportations is greater than republican george bush ever did. we need to hold democrats accountable just as well as republicans. >> so your question. >> how can we revive the struggle for civil rights for immigrant labor? because as has been displayed immigrant rights are so crucial and without immigrants we wouldn't have the country that we have today. thank you. >> thank you. so just like you mentioned this is a movement and movements don't have dates. they move on. that's why they are called movements. so there is no calendar is going to stop that.
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we pass immigration tomorrow, that doesn't mean the movement stops because we have to empower workers on a daily basis to fight for themselves. that's why we're doing this today, is not to say that this is over -- we are here. we're never going to go away until we get justice served. so anybody want to ask a question? >> i think there are two things that everyone here needs to really take home and work. number one is we need to make sure these stories are told. there are far too many people across this country including some on capitol hill who are willfully or not willfully conscious of what's happening, not conscious of the exploitation or the damage again in some cases they don't
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want to know but in other cases it is not a story that's told in its full scope by the media. it's not a story that is fully told even on the internet. we need to get these stories out. and second, as has been conveyed here as well, we need to make sure that everyone understands we have a common community interest in solving this problem. this is not an issue that is solely to the immigrant community or solely to labor or to the immigrant community. it's an issue that should be of paramount importance to every person across the country. with respect to what we talk about here we need to recognize and understand and have everyone else understand that every deportation emboldens exploitation. and every exploitation engenders disrespect for workers across the country. and every disrespect for workers -- [applause] -- encourages the outcomes we've seen, unprecedented
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levels oiven come disparity. the kind of outcomes that have presented serious, serious threats in history to nations like ours. we must recognize that it all comes together and we all have to come together with leaders like the ones we've heard from today and get the story out. [applause] >> so it's impossible to capture all the workers just from two stories but these are examples of what are happening to workers on a daily basis and will tell you about the workers in kansas and those struggling in hotels and toiling in restaurants. from day laberors to cab drivers. so there are a lot of stories
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to tell, a lot of stories to tell. and there are in this country we dearly need to do so. so the labor movement here, we are staying with you, fighting with you, and get what you rightfully deserve as a country. so i just want to close with this. we may one day go forth without fear, organizing our work places without fear, raising our kids with hope in peace, and giving the count -- rebuilding the country we love. we chose to come to this country. we love this country.
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and we hope that the this country loves us back. with that thank you so much for being here. thank you to our wonderful panel. and our fight goes ofpblet thank you. [applause] >> up next, q&a with howard university interim president wayne a.i. frederick. and live at 7:00 your calls and comments on "washington journal." today a look at the israeli palestinian conflict including the future of palestine's unity government. the stalled peace process. and the recent death of three kidnapped israeli teens. the wilson center hosts that
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starting at 4:00 p.m. eastern. >> the internet content should remain free especially from the f.c.c. regulation. but as susan crawford has said it's like confusing the conversation for the sidewalk. of course we want it to be free and unregulated. they have always made sure that the communications pathways stay open. so today we have a regulated phone system or the vestages of a regulated phone system. the f.c.c. doesn't regulate what i say to you but they do make sure that the communications pathway is open, affordable, nondiscriminatory and there for everybody to use. >> it's crucial to think about whether those platforms remain open the way they have historicically. the internet has grown up as a network where anyone can communicate, anyone can get on line. a teeny little company can get access to the network and become in some cases like google or facebook a huge
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business. and it's vital that that not change as the internet evolves. >> more opinions on the internet policy and the flow and speed of web traffic tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span 2. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> this week on q&a, our guest is dr. wayne a.i. frederick who talks to us about the challenges facing the school as well as his life and career as a cancer surgeon. >> dr. wayne a.i. frederick why do they call howard the mecca? >> they call it the mecca for several reasons. it has been a place that has drawn people from all over the
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world and has been a source of great education but also as a service. so those people who have come from all over the world to gain knowledge and get an education have then gone out around changed the world around them. so it's like going to the mecca where you can come and really know your spirit, your soul, expand your mind and the possibilities of the world around you and go out and change the world. so we feel it's akin to a mecca. >> what were the circumstances that you became interim? >> my predecessor decided that he was going to step down and i was in the position of provost which is considered the number two position. so i was asked to fill in on an interim basis. >> where are you from originally? >> i was born in trinidad and tobago, many, many miles away from here. howard had a very great reputation in trinidad, many physicians and so on that i interacted with while i was growing up were trained at howard university, so

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