with afghans, and what role can afghans play to move past this? i'm not sure i see -- i always see a way forward when i look at what is going on there, because there is so much progress that has been made. all the statistics you hear from u.s. government officials are totally right about women educated, the availability of cell phones or whatnot, and the gdp per capita is gone up four or five times. i was in kabul in 2002. i remember driving around the city with these satellite phones, these little handheld things, out the window of a car trying to make a phone call. now our cleaning lady who does our laundry and cannot read or write has a cell phone. there is tremendous progress there, but it depends on a stable central government, and that government is incredibly weak right now.

even if they get a compromise out of this, and everyone certainly hopes they will, the enormity of the problems that have to be tackled within the government, it seems impossible when you have a leader whose mandate is going to be incredibly weak. if you have a clear leader, they are not going to emerge with a strong mandate. inside that government problems , need to be fixed, and the level of corruption -- kleptocracy is the word political scientists would use. i think it is completely accurate. where members of the government -- their families are involved in business enterprises and the enterprises thrive because they have protection from their family and the government. people will also say that their -- people often say every country has corruption. zero corruption is a fantasy. it doesn't exist. i grew up outside new york city and the people who picked up my garbage were not picking up with

open contracts, but the garbage got picked up, the cost to taxpayers was not that great, and when things got out of hand, the police cracked down on whoever was fixing this contract. in afghanistan, there is a contract to pick up garbage. it just doesn't get picked up. contract to build a road doesn't happen. it is just outright theft of state resources. you have senior government officials who are handing out contracts for major work, making sure their relatives and associates and networks get these contracts, and then the work doesn't get done. everybody just pockets the money. it is patronage at its worst because it is patronage that filters out to a very thin elite and not down. hall not like tammany where a beat cop got a piece of the action from boss tweed. boss tweed and his family gets it, nobody else does. with any kind of government who can tackle the problem, i don't

really know. had the same time, you have a at the samesh -- time, you have the talent and making a major push in the last few weeks. for most of the year, the taliban had not been doing well. the elections they had a not manage to disrupt. there was a little bit of violence, but not major violence. a little bit before the first-round. they did not kill the candidates for anything, which is quite remarkable. even more important in afghanistan, because there is an actual law that if a candidate dies before assuming office, you have to restart the entire process. if right now the candidate were to die, they would have to start the entire election again. that law was put in place because they do voter lists, and they were worried -- let's say you have 40 candidates in kabul. and they were worried that number 41 would try to kill 40 to move up the list. if you had to set up this law, which is good intention, but it

does create risks. you have the taliban making serious pushes. first down south wide parts of , the south, the north, eastern and central afghanistan, and the afghan security forces are finding themselves very hard-pressed. they are not crumbling. they are decent and they have gotten better. but they need western help. they cannot function on their own yet. even if they could, they'd still need a massive amount of money. and that is not money afghanistan has. if the west doesn't stay engaged, they will fold. i don't think there's any debate about that. on top of this, what little money afghanistan does have is withering, or being drained away by the election. the election, the vast uncertainty -- this year was going to be uncertain enough for most afghans. there is a great worry that everybody is disengaging western , combat troops are going home. that was driving the economy down already, and this has just destroyed it. the tax revenue and customs

revenue collected by the government is down so sharply that they are probably a month or two by most accounts from being able to pay civil servant salaries. some embassies are running out of money to pay rent, and especially towns like washington and in new york, they are going to have trouble if something doesn't turn around soon. this happened last year as well. they got help from the international community. i don't know if they will get it this time. into that whole kind of mess, it all comes down to basically 2 men who are back at it. they are both pretty reasonable people, and i would be the first to thank them both for saying it would let me back in. i'm eager to go back there and i want to go back there and keep reporting. it is a fascinating place. they, unfortunately, have supporters on either side who are far less reasonable. who, in a lot of places, you have perfect parallel conflicts. take example of northern

afghanistan. on one hand, dr. ghani's vice , abdulntial running mate rashid dostum, this warlord for lack of a better term, militia leader against the taliban, cia proxy. he has been put out to pasture just a little bit but still has armed men by most accounts he has been in this area not doing wonderfully well, not doing terrible, but just fair. then you have governor atta muhammed nur, around the same area as dostum. action.ants that

atta is not going to give it up. ghani has made it clear that he will fire atta, those 2 alone are pushing those guys to not compromise and if any of them compromise, one of them is going to lose. it is a zero-sum game. they're looking to step on each other's -- businesses, whatever you want to call it. how do you get these guys to compromise? when you have so many of the supporters saying do not compromise. you made promises to us, we need to keep our position, our power. i guess that is -- i guess i should be happy i don't have to make these decisions. i don't know what i would tell them if somebody at the white house called and said, "what would you do," i have no idea what i would do today. it is a difficult situation, and one of the effects of writing

news stories is the heisenberg principle -- the act of observing something changes it. by all accounts, i'm told that after the story i got thrown out over came out, president karzai told everybody to stop talking, shut up, i don't want to hear another line of this interim government nonsense. now, if those people are still planning to make a move, they are being awfully quiet about it. i don't know, but then again, i am over here in washington and not in kabul. it adds to more uncertainty because plan b is not there. plan b carried with a lot of risks. everybody who takes power says they are doing it to save democracy, but we have seen time and again that it is not the case. where we are now, you have 2 candidates who will not compromise. a government who says it is leaving our next week, as president karzai said, the u.s.,

which insists that this setup of doing an audit and a political deal that the candidates cannot make work is the only way forward. amid all of this, you have got 13 years in a country with nearly 30 million people, and a lot of them have glimpsed what a better life could be. but they are not there yet. if this doesn't work -- if we are at that inflection point, they're not going to get there. there is no way to make it work. even with this working it is going to be incredibly difficult. the country is poor, lacks any significant resource that can image it -- that can enrich it quickly. if a compromise isn't reached to move forward, you get dangerously close to the point where 13 years worth of work is very much at stake and very much at risk of just disappearing. i think on that note, i will

stop blathering on and open up to questions. >> thank you. that is perfect timing. you are fitting the model of newsmakers. i know as a fellow journalist that we don't -- we like to report news, not to make it, and i would say for my 40 years as a foreign correspondent and now teaching at gw, matthew, i greatly respect how you are handling the public side of your work, even though you much prefer to be behind the computer. we used to say behind the typewriter. but thank you for coming, and the floor is open. please identify yourself and the organization you are with and ask your question. yes, please? one minute. i know we have a good setup here. i was looking for a hand-held mic -- >> from georgetown university. i was also in afghanistan for 16

months. i appreciate the fact that even though you painted a grim picture of what is happening in afghanistan, that there is a lot of progress, like you just mentioned, is going on. my question to you is, even though, let's say the situation becomes unstable, don't you think afghan people are different now because the young people, there is a media, a free press, young people who are very educated and they are going towards democratic transition? it is going to be different, they are to stand up for themselves. i would like to get your view on that. >> that is a very good point, and in the cities that is absolutely true. that is the promise of this election, this year, that you are giving people the space. young people -- when we say "young," we are talking people into their 20's and 30's as well -- who want to build a better country. even these guys i have known for years are operating like you would imagine an american

political operative to operate. [ringtone] that is an awesome ring tone. even to the point where you're getting on an airplane to write about the candidates, they try to spin you on what you should and shouldn't write about, and the person you are not to write about sits down next to you and talk for a while. they're not that great at managing it. you have this younger generation, but that is an urban phenomenon. that hopefully will grow and change. that is how cultures and society change. but right now it is pretty small. if you have a situation that is destabilized, where you have armed groups on each side of the political divide, plus the taliban, coming in, i don't know if the critical mass behind

those people is there to sustain them saying no. in rural afghanistan you don't have that set of people yet. you are not there were you have villagers who know much more than what they have on their back. they are peasants in the truest sense of the work, people without disposable income, without education. you have whole provinces where the male literacy rates are in the teens. female rates are probably in the low single digits. that is not an environment that will engender moderation i fear. ,you have to avoid factions within the government. i think that is why they would be so desperate to avoid -- including some of those actors, because they have to know that you look around, people who would be leading any kind of fight are incredibly wealthy. they've had a great 13 years. they have houses in dubai,

fighting dogs. they have done well. any kind of conflict will destroy what they have got, will kill their source of wealth and power. they are desperate to avoid it but they know that if their guy loses, they will lose it anyway, so why not fight for it? that is a dangerous situation to be in. and that is the hardest thing about afghanistan right now, and observing it -- and writing about it for foreigners and the rest of the world, that you have that split between a scenario that is pretty optimistic, a scenario that could go pretty well, and one that is fairly pessimistic and grim. there's not a lot of middle ground there. that can be confusing to explain to people. go this way, not bad. go this way, terrible. sort of bad, sort of terrible, in the middle.

>> do you view what has happened to you, and the reaction in the u.s. and around the world, do you view your situation as exceptional, or do you think this is precedent for what is likely to happen to reporters in the future, not only foreign reporters, but treatment of the press within afghanistan itself? >> given the evidence, we have to view it as exceptional right now. if passed reform is the best indicator of future performance, the respect for the freedom of the press and the government has been tremendous. it is one of the real achievements of the last 13 years. they have -- i think 120 newspapers, 37 television channels, a diversity of opinions. more important, you have government officials who are willing to shut down the really nasty parts of the free press. for example, when a very pashtun nationalist tv station had

pashtun general on saying that only pashtuns should be here, really supremacist stuff, karzai fired the guy. you can say that on tv if you want but you are not going to keep your job. i know that a tv channel that was trying to recruit staff and advertisers from one of its rivals by claiming its rival was funded by jews, they head went over there and said "we want a competitive press but we do not want that kind of thing. cut it out." you have a competitive press in many ways. but then you have what happened to me. this isn't the first time we have had run-ins with the palace. we've written a lot of stores they haven't liked, especially before the election. president karzai is really good at handling the press, too. i remember a year and a half ago we did a story on this slush fund that the cia had been

paying for, dropping off bags of cash at the palace for, god, it must be over a decade now. that was used to pay off parliamentarians, warlords. karzai, not only did he not deny it, he had is full press conference -- i had this great english exchange with him that included, "if all this is for good things, why not do it on the books?" he smiled and laughed and said that is really for the state department. he said "if the state department , wants to give me cash, i will take that, too." for the most part they are good at handling bad press. but when i look back on this story, it highlighted a power struggle within the inner circle of the government and it is hard to come down on people you off and worked trusted

with for years. some of the closest people to you in the country. i provided a convenient external target to direct all that anger, so they threw me out. i think the danger here is that once you kind of get a sense of how weak a class of people are, you realize that we can do more of this. the safety and our ability to do our jobs depends a lot on the willingness of people in power to play along with that. to bow to public opinion or pressure that we should be allowed to do it. but when they don't want us to do it, we don't really have a lot of options. even if we wanted to fight to defend ourselves, there are not that many of us -- a few dozen at most. if we put up a fight we will last about 10 minutes. some of my colleagues are not in great shape. that is the danger here, that the government, whoever takes power next, will be nice for a while. it is an easy gimme, it makes them look democratic.

but when they start getting stories about things they have done wrong and things that people in government are doing wrong, they have seen how easy it is just to get rid of somebody, and for the foreign press -- they have seen -- it always struck me as odd that you would want to keep me there to question the because then it is a story every day. throw me out, you get a few days of bad press. then it is done. they have seen a now and it is a real risk of going forward. we will have to see what happens. i think dr. ghani and dr. abdullah are committed to the idea of a free press. >> [indiscernible] maybe this is a completely naïve question, but if you found out you were being expelled by the news media, why didn't you just ignore them? >> that is not a naïve question. we were absolutely going to ignore them. we were thinking about it. we had a long debate about that

-- all through the night. first we didn't know, so what do we do? we had -- i will start i will start packing in case. we were supposed to interview the president on friday. this is the first time we have interviewed him in years. he finally said ok. that obviously got canceled. this poor senior editor was getting on a plane, actually coming from d.c., when this whole thing broke. that i was not allowed to leave the country. by the time she landed, i was being thrown out of the country, and when she got to kabul, they canceled the interview on her, so it was really a waste for her. we sat there debating what do we do. that night because we had the senior editor in town we were , having dinner with ambassadors and officials and we were trying to organize this dinner party and manage possibly being thrown out of the country, what are they going to do, are they going

to arrest you? and in the middle of the dinner party, pickup trucks full of police show up with civilian officials at the door. i run into the house to try to stay low in case they were there to arrest me. my colleagues go outside and they give us this expulsion order -- they couldn't even spell my name right. i don't read pashto, but i'm told it is filled with grammatical mistakes in that language, too. it was from the attorney general's office. , ok, every bit of , even our advisors had said there is nothing lawful about this. maybe we should just ignore it. why don't we stay and see what happens? one of the good things about this story is we have good sources in government and we also had senior western officials at dinner with us there, who advised us that if you do stay, our understanding is that they're going to throw you in jail and they will try you on some variation of

sedition -- there are a bunch of national security laws they can try you under. given how casually the government and attorney general had broken their own laws to issue the expulsion order, we figured it was best not to risk to go to trial when we are dealing with an administration that at this point did not seem willing to respect its own laws, and that it was best to fight it from the outside. >> retired from georgetown university. i want to know, over your years of reporting on afghanistan, was there a point when it was more hopeful, more "progressive," than it has been moving downward? >> absolutely, especially in 2002. i got there a few months after -- the taliban were mostly being wrapped up and pushed out and it

was incredibly hopeful. there was a point when the sight of an american bomber overhead was a good thing. that meant they were chasing away to people who are making your life miserable. that went on for a while. even as late as 2008, 2009, people were pretty optimistic. groups of them. i think even now, as another member of the audience pointed out, there is still a tremendous amount of optimism kind of built up there. people who want something better and think that the possibility of something better could happen. but on top of that, from 2009 onwards, as the surge came in, you had in some parts of the country tremendous spikes in violence brought on by fighting, basically. when before, the taliban were in control, it was not much violence because there was uncontested control. you had it contested by both the coalition and afghan forces. so you had this tremendous rise of violence and casualties. on top of which, another part of the surge was to clean up

the government. one of the byproducts of cleaning up the government was you start looking into all the dysfunction and corruption in the government and people like me start finding out more about it. because we did not have the tools to investigate the government, but when the drug enforcement agency and the fbi are training the afghan government on wiretaps, we find the details on things we did not necessarily know. that created a perception among a lot of afghans, too, that things aren't very good. things are really bad, our government is totally corrupt. they know that but they didn't know the details, and now they had the details. you have gotten to this point where -- i don't want to -- a schizophrenic approach, but you have people with 2 minds where people are hopeful for the future and they think things can happen and you can't live in a moderate country where people are free to do as they please as

long as you don't inflict it on others. but at the same time, the country where people look around and see a lot of violence, where everybody has been touched by this war, where jobs are drying up, there was a massive economic -- essentially 13 years of massive stimulus spending going away. there's a lot of apprehension for the future because of that. on top of that, this goes back to the question also of young people and the forward thinking, that you have had this great edifice of people pushing for rights of women and minority groups and personal civil rights in the last 13 years. now, the edifice that supported that, the western rights community, is being pulled back, simply because of the west pulls back people get pulled , back. there is a critical mass of afghans to sustain this push? i don't know. because you have the old guard inside the government pushing

back. saying maybe some of these rights aren't that great, maybe we can push back. are women going to be able to do what they've done in big cities, go to work, do things? it is going to depend partly are depend it is going to partly on where you are in afghanistan. you go to northern afghanistan or western afghanistan, women have jobs, they are getting ice cream, families are out at night, totally fine. it seems like a city in central asia. go to kandahar, you barely see women on the streets, and if you do, they are in burqas. i don't think i have seen a woman publicly in kandahar who was not in a burqa. a lot of the optimism depends on where you are in afghanistan at any given time. >> [indiscernible] i wanted to ask you, both candidates, do you think they are going to affect the final

results and if there is a possibility of a kind of coup d'état? also, what is next for you? if you could come back to afghanistan to report, or what they have told you? >> i don't know if they would want to accept a final result that doesn't have them winning. throughout this process, western and afghan officials involved say that when the candidates talk about legitimate outcomes, they seem to mean winning, that each side seems to think that the only legitimate outcome is their victory. that is a dangerous place to be in, and i am not quite sure -- the abdullah guys have made clear they don't believe the audit is at all valid. they are pulling out again for the 13th time -- for the 13 upteenth time. they're not coming back into it.

if they don't win, are they willing to accept it? i don't know. the ghani camp has had the luxury of being ahead, of being the presumed winner for so long, that they have not had to state anything loudly, but you get the impression that if something were to be reversed, they would see this as the international community robbing them of the election. both sides see it that way. no matter what happens, the u.s. is going to be blamed for this. by the people who are unhappy, which is going to be most everyone. a lot of the u.n. people admit that part of their job is to take the shots. given the level of international commitment that will be there for a while, it is not a great thing when everybody is saying the foreigners screwed this up. the foreigners have not helped, but everybody has created problems there. it is not a unique one set of actors that has messed things up. as for me, we are hoping that the candidates are being straightforward. we believe they were when they said they would let me back in. we will certainly go back there and see what happens. i had a colleague who was thrown out of pakistan last year, and i was chased out of there a few years ago when i was at the "journal," less officially.

my colleague who was thrown out of pakistan, one thing that makes it hard there is the level of mistrust and conspiracy theory among the pakistani public that when the news media or government officials call you a spy, it can be harder to recover from that and work safely in pakistan again. in afghanistan, that has not been the case. the palace, i think they call it evil -- the evil "new york times," they called me a spy in and said i was engaged in espionage. the reaction as far as we can tell has mostly been scorn. it is like on social media, it is split between crazies on either side. 98% of the people were mocking the palace and 2% were repeating it. that is probably a good sign. i will probably work there safely again. look, i would love to go back. after six years there, to be missing this kind of final event drives you nuts.

but we will see what happens. >> any regrets about the article? >> not one bit. it's a bummer to get thrown out of a country for a story that ran on page seven but it happens. we are very grateful for you taking the time. you could will be resting at home with your family but you chose to come down here and we are very appreciative. we have a tradition where we present to honored guests and distinguished guests, the traditional national press club mug. i believe president karzai spoke here some years ago in if you go into his office, maybe there is one there but if not, you have this on your own and we thank you so much and we wish you all the best for the future. >> thank you. [applause] that i sawo report

that in president karzai's office but they canceled that on us. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> on the next "washington journal," we will discuss the u.s. response to the militant group isis with the former fbi special agent who was with the george washington university homeland security policy institute. after that, we will continue our look at political campaigning leading up to this fall's election. our guests are political strategists. they will discuss how campaigns manager crisis. "washington journal" is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. to tell you events

about today beginning with an american political science association panel on nsa surveillance programs. that is that 10:15 a.m. eastern. for2:30 p.m., the center the study of islam and democracy hosts a forum on the militant group isis and radicalization. later, the cato institute looks at public opinion and war and you can see that at 2 p.m. eastern. >> this weekend on the c-span networks, friday night on c-span, native american history. coversrday, live all-day from the national book festival science pavilion. saturday evening from tbc scotland, debate on scotland's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union with england. "q&a.", c-span2 friday at 8 p.m., in

with former congressman ron paul. on saturday come all-day live coverage of the national book festival from the history and biography pavilions. speakers, interviews, and viewer collins and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern, afterwards with william burroughs. american history tv on c-span3 friday, a nasa documentary about the 1969 apollo 11 moon landing. war,day on the civil general william tecumseh sherman's atlantic campaign and the support -- and the supreme court case of bush versus gore. binder television schedule at www.c-span.org and let us know about the programs you are watching by calling us or find us on twitter or e-mail us. conversation and

like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. up next, to members of the national association of immigration judges call for their courts to be expanded and have more independence from the justice department. from the national press club, this is one hour. >> i want to thank everyone for coming today. my name is jamie horwitz, member of the national press club and the newsmaker committee. on behalf of the club and committee, i want to thank you for joining us for this very special newsmaker, an unprecedented newsmaker. we will hear from two federal immigration judges this morning. before i introduce our guest, i want to take care of a little housekeeping. we have usual rules. for this particular newsmaker we have unusual rules. the usual are to questions each.

our guests will speak for less than 10 minutes each and then we will open it up for questions for 30 or 40 minutes and members of the press club and any credentialed journalists may ask questions. we ask that you identify yourself and any news organization and will recognize you if you have a question. the unusual rules -- i should say that our guests, although both are federal judges, they are here in the capacity as leaders of the national association of immigration judges, affiliate of the national federation of affiliates and technical engineers, the union that represents not just immigration judges but other judges like administrative judges in d.c. and social security judges and others in the private sector. so if you quote our guest today, you should reference the fact that they were here as leaders at the national association of immigration judges.

also, what would i newsmaker be on an issue related to the law if we did not have a legal disclaimer? you should know they are participating solely as officers and are not representing the vi justice or the executive office for immigration review, the views they might express or their own, which we will perform after consultation of the membership of the naiha. so now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about our guest today.these two women hold the p offices in the national association of immigration judges. they have held those fort 12 years.

in that capacity they regularly speak to colleagues that are immigration judges throughout the united states. denise noonan slaven has spent 20 years as a judge and works as a krome detention center in miami. prior to that served as a prosecutor for ins. she worked for the department of justice. the criminal division bringing to justice nazi war criminals in the united states. dano lee marks is a 27 year judge raised in san francisco. prior to that an attorney where she specialized in immigration and where she also was the lead counsel in the landmark supreme court case that set the applicable standards for asylum cases. so first, we will hear from judge marks. >> welcome, everyone. hang onto your hats because today the judge and i will take

you on a whirlwind two were -- tour of an alternate legal universe. you may think you recognize the terrain but the normal laws basic to everyday events do not seem to function as they do in other places as we expect them to. i am talking about looking through the looking glass world of immigration courts. experienced lawyers are surprised to encounter many of the things i will tell you about today. most members of the public do not have a clue about the realities of the world. when they do come face to face with the laws, they are often dismayed. any fan of a crime drama and recite the miranda warnings given when someone is arrested. you have the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford 1, 1 will be appointed for you. not true and immigration courts. there is no right to appointed counsel.

because removal proceedings are civil in nature. one has the privilege of having an attorney's help if he can pay , or if he is fortunate enough to find a willing volunteer. this is true, even though all respondents have the burden of proof. that is the legal obligation to prove they are able to remain in the united states or qualify for benefits under complicated immigration laws. the last fiscal year, only 40% were unrepresented, a figure that froze to 85% if only detained dockets are considered. as you look around our courtrooms, you see the immigration judges are doing so many things that we look like the guy behind the curtain in the wizard of oz. instead of a court reporter, judges and immigration courts operate digital audio recorders to create the formal record. most of us do not have bailiffs

or clerks to maintain security, and we mark and archive the evidence we receive by ourselves. last year 83% of the cases we heard require the use of a foreign language interpreter. and one of more than 200 exceed different languages. even more difficult, immigration judges have to decide a witness's credibility, usually without the testimony of any other witnesses to the event or cooperating documentation, because to paraphrase a higher court, people rarely are able to present a note from the persecutor explaining why they have been targeted. and we must make these decisions by placing the stories in a context and culture that is literally or into us. -- foreign to us. even more complicated is the fact that we deal with cases that are often ineffective death penalty cases.

situations where if the person is reboot -- removed from the united states they may be killed upon returning to their country. even when the cases do not involve a claim to asylum, we often hear cases of longtime lawful terminate residence. -- permanent residents, some of whom came to the united states as children children facing , permanent exile to the united states because of crime such as minor as repeated petty-fest. -- petty theft. since there is no statute of limitations on the convictions that cause people to come before us in the four rooms can be decades old. our immigration walls often times the hands of the judges hearing the k -- case. add to this picture the fact that there are only 227 field of migration judges located around the country.

handling of dockets that currently exceeds 375,000 pending cases. although that averages more than one thousand five hundred cases per judge, because caseloads are not evenly distributed, judges like me have hundreds more. i personally have over 2400 pending cases. it takes about 15 months for the first arraignment type hearing in my courtroom. after that anywhere from three and a half to four years before the merits hearing is held. so by now you are asking, how could this come to pass? we have the answer. it is because the immigration court's are the forgotten that -- forgotten stepchild. our role is to serve as a neutral court but paradoxically we are served in a law enforcement agency.

because we have been left to the mercy of the political winds that constantly buffet immigration issues, we have been resource starved for decades. the financial needs of the immigration court simply have not been made that the work we do preserves and requires. -- deserves and requires. one point 7 billion is currently inadequate and the strain is showing. we have a budget that is 1.7% of the low-budget is clearly inadequate and the strain is showing. due to the crisis caused by the surge of unaccompanied children, serious focus has been placed on the immigration courts recently. unfortunately the picture revealed is not a pretty one, despite the many accomplishments and the remarkable amount and quality of work being done by immigration judges and staff. more row in the courts is at an all-time low. -- morale in the courts is at

an all-time low. we acknowledge our dockets all the task ahead looms ahead on the horizon for us. we acknowledge our dockets all too often proved true that adage that justice delayed is justice denied. there is a solution, but it will not be quick and will not be cheap. fast, inexpensive approaches have been tried and failed so many times it seems absurd to ignore futility. the structural flaws that have allowed the crisis to impact immigration court so adversely. we must establish an independent immigration court under article one of the constitution. we need an independent court system that stands on its own to provide transparency to the american public as to what we do, how fast we do it, and what the funding needs are in order to meet the task. immigration law enforcement must stand on its own and not be allowed to overshadow or control

the immigration judicial process as it has in years past. the results of that approach are clearly reflected and apparent in the immigration courts today. history has told us we should expect surges just like the past flows from central america or cuba or haiti or china, just to mention a few. to be efficient and operate economically, to guarantee

fairness, our immigration courts need to be independent, both from the prosecutors and the respondents who come before us. in order to withstand the political firestorms which surely will continue in the future, we need the protection of judicial independence, which all other courts rely upon. we predict the improvement will not only enhance due process and ensure all those who come before us are treated fairly but will also prove to be financially cost-effective. when there is a concern that due process is being denied, class action lawsuits are filed. there is economy in timeliness. when cases moved through a court system without undue processing delays, outcomes are more accurate and the cost of competitive reconsideration disappears. it is cheaper to resolve these

cases that the trial court immigration level, rather than clogging the appellate courts. our current system makes the expensive outcomes almost inevitable and the cost for more -- it cost far more than it would cost to invest properly in immigration trial courts in the first instance. we urged a clear common sense solution of doing things right the first time. we are at the creation of an independent court under article one. the time for this has come. >> good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. judge marks has taken you through the looking glass with an overview of the court system and how it differs in many ways. i am sure you will find it curiouser and curiouser as i give you specific examples of how our courts and law

enforcement agency causes problems solved by establishing immigration courts under article one of the constitution. although the law considers us to be administrative judges, our agency considers us to be attorneys representing the united states government. we are being asked to serve two masters of the same time with different priorities. a judge is supposed to be independent and fair our operators. how can we expect to do this if we are an attorney representing one of the parties before us cap go the conflict is inherent in being asked to serve two masters and is seen in many ways. one is the lack of contempt authorities with the attorneys. while there is a way to sanction

private attorneys for the court, 18 years ago congress recognized this was unfair and inadequate. they passed legislation to hold any attorney by the department or appearing before them in contempt. the department of justice has failed to enact regulations out allowed judges to exercise contempt of authority. based on the arguments the attorneys cannot be sanctioned by other attorneys from the department of justice. one fundamental role is x partake contact, communication with the judge is not allowed. basically because it is not fair. however, communication about cases between supervising judges of the immigration courts and

supervising attorney are commonplace because we have a common client, the u.s. government. in some cases this x partake contact can to the discipline a -- lead to the discipline of a judge. in one case there was a complaint and it led to the suspension of the judge. the private attorneys and respondents were never informed about the complaint or disciplinary action. another area where judges are called upon to act inconsistently in the role of judges is in the area of

recusal. in a normal court one of the parties may asked to excuse himself or herself if the judge that has a personal conflict. however, the department of justice has imposed itself as an additional party in this process. since the department views them as attorneys, they believe they

should make the call as to whether a judge refuses himself or herself. so for example, a judge cannot continue to participate in the case at the department finds a potential conflict, even if the parties are aware of the potential and have stated they see no need for the judge to recuse. in a recent case a judge was ordered to recuse herself from all cases involving a specific nationality, even though she saw no conflict of interest him and none had been raised by the party and the department of

justice conceded there was no actual conflict. this is not the independent case-by-case type of adjudication that expected by judges. the recent docket changes are another example of how we are serving two masters and not necessarily serving the public

in the most efficient way. there is no other court that would turn the docket on its head at the request of one party , but the immigration court is flipping the docket by moving cases of newly arrived children to the front of the docket at the demand of the department of homeland security. in some cases it may make sense to hear the cases early, certainly not in all of them. if the child is coming here to be with parents who are already

in the courts docket, it does not make sense to hear the child's case first. it makes more sense to hear the parents case first, whether then send them to the back of our mind 15 or 18 months out when the child cases heard. the system would be better served if the decision of whether or not to prioritize cases is made on a case-by-case basis at the request of the party at the judge discretion in the way that most makes sense. this is not an amusement park where you can fast pass approval proceedings. another example is how removing the immigration courts and creating an independent agency to determine the courts under article one would assist the public is just think concern without alleged misconduct. >> we will now open it up to questions. if you could identify your self and news organization and if you have a question for particular judge, if you could let us know. >> [inaudible] they are protected somehow -- how will this affect their rights? >> you are referring to the 2008 trafficking the dems act, which does bring u.s.

law more into conformity with international law come up but domestic law and international law have long recognized children are different. they are a vulnerable population that need special protections. the immigration courts, judges do take steps to assure those cases are handled appropriately. we have to make sure there are guardians. we have to make sure children are given more time, but the association has come out and stated we believe it is a mistake to bring these cases to the front -- front of the docket because they by their nature need more time. you need more time in order to

gain the trust and confidence of a child who is been a scary situation when they come to court. they need to be reunited with family members and responsible adults who can help them locate counsel. our association very strongly encourages measures that would help encourage attorney representation. attorneys make our system better, people who know what the right are are able to work through the system more quickly, more effectively and becomes a positive for both the prosecution and those who are appearing before the courts. because the courts are better prepared and ready to go. we believe the traditional protections should remain or be enhanced. >> [inaudible] can you go over the difference in evidence and how different it is from the regular procedure. the question of evidence, please.

>> evidence in immigration court proceedings is different. for example, immigration court proceedings, hearsay is admisable. the weight to be given to hearsay evidence is different. obviously a witness who is seen something directly is given more weight than someone who has heard something from somebody else. generally speaking the evidence rules are little bit looser and immigration courts and federal immigration courts. i wanted to make one other point about children's cases brought up with respect to the trafficking victims protection relief act. there is a lesson to be learned in history here. the lesson is this, at one point the courts decided to try to streamline the immigration court process to reduce the number of cases and make them go much quicker.

they streamlined them by changing the process by which the immigration reviews cases to make them go much quicker. the result was we had a huge crisis in the federal courts at that point. more and more cases were going to the federal orts. probably were a lot of different reasons. many thought they were getting during best due process so they took the appeal of their. as a result we had huge funding problems. the u.s. attorney's office had to devote more and more resources to these. the same problem happens if you try to streamline the children

of the border, and that is the less due process of the lower levels, it will translate to appeals and overwhelmed the higher levels. did you want to say anything else on evidence? >> [indiscernible] >> one of the most disturbing features, to me, of the immigration system that we have a brother-sister relationship with the u.s. department of homeland security. they have regular meetings where from time to time individual cases are discussed and that filters down to action taken against an immigration judge. it certainly has a chilling effect on immigration judges if they feel the department of homeland security will file a complaint against them. that complaint because of the current system goes hand-in-hand because of the lack of complaint process, the private attorney on the same pace may never know a complaint was filed by the department of homeland security about how we work conduct in the case. >> another aspect of interference is there are very blury lines sometime between process and actual rights being

affected. there are times when the department of justice will implement a decision they believe is simply procedural him and they are not trying to control the outcome, but the judge in the case feels like it will have an unintended consequence and have a detrimental effect. that is where we feel it is simpler and cleaner to take us out of a law enforcement agencies of the judges are making the administrative decisions because they sometimes impact the substance. >> [inaudible] the governor recently reported between 1996 and 2012, about 2 million immigrants were be allowed to be freed before hearing. only 800,000 people showed up. does that affect the impact of an aggression courts and what do you as a cause of it. >> statistics in the immigration

court arena are extremely difficult to parse out and it plied -- apply to the partial reliance -- reality. under the computer terms, i believe in the old days, garbage in and garbage out. you get statistics you get based on the information. our system of data keeping is not up to par i believe. it is antiquated. i am skeptical because i am not sure they are complete or accurate. again, this is not just the department of justice. it is not intentional. it is a factor that cases are

extremely complicated and depending on how you define that outcome you can say the person was present were not present or there was a decision or not a decision. that is difficult to really know whether people will really failed to appear or not. one people i have seen highlighted who looks at the legal decisions made in 1996 that were designed in order to help enhance appearance rate and that has not been a way to test whether current law really does allow that. our changes of address really being noted in the system so that we have an accurate address for them? are there notices of of appearance being delivered to people? are they knowingly ignoring the notices or are they uninformed? there are many questions raised by the figures that need much further investigation. >> go ahead.

>> i was wondering if you could comment on what impact do have seen sending out more councils and lawyers across the u.s. to help out, in case -- they expanded it over the summer, they provide more legal aid to the children. wonder if you see an impact to that? >> i believe you are referring to the president and mission of americorps 100 we go -- lawyers and legal assistants -- have you seen anything in miami?

>> i have to say in this goes to the previous question, one thing that really affects its whether someone is accentuated or not. some one who has an attorney tends to appear at support hearings. that reason is especially because of the concern for vulnerable population which we consider to be children and mentally incompetent individuals. we do not endorse for illegal or presentation for those populations. i think it is essential for children to have representation. that will result in reduced significantly the problem. >> what would be the justice department's argument about having an independent immigration courts? >> the justice department today has not taken an official position.

the executive director of the executive office for immigration review can speak for himself, but i believe he has said until you see an actual bill or proposal, it is difficult to comment. it is hard to imagine exactly what arguments would be made against. i suppose one would be what the department of justice want to admit they are less than stellar in the court? i doubt they would want to say that. there has been the concern that this might be an expensive transition. we believe there is tremendous expense in the dysfunctional system we have now. the considerations being made at congress now are in essence throwing good money after bad and expecting a different result. we believe the system needs to be reformed.

it cost less as you go up on higher levels of appeal. >> i would say most organizations that have looked at this and every organization has looked at this and endorsed the idea including the american bar association, american judicature society. national association of women judges. american immigration lawyers association has come in support of an independent agency court. i think the main thing we have heard is money. if your gas tank has a leak, and you keep filling up with gas or fix it first? that is what we need to do, fix the system so we can retain judges, respond to these types of crises in the future. >> you talk about separation and independent court system. what will it take for this to happen?

an act of congress? given your are ready victim to political whim, is this wishful thinking in the fact that there may not be affected and this will be very expensive shift. >> creation of an independent court under article one would definitely take a act of congress to do that. but we feel the time is right. this is the kind of immigration reform which would be positive to everyone from every political spectrum. it is more efficient enforcement

to have a resource court, a court whose results are not challenged in successions. in certainly allays the fear due process is being compromised as we work more quickly. advocates for immigrants like the idea as well. we have not heard anyone say it is a bad idea. it is just common sense. >> i just want to add, our court has been the victim of a lot of political winds house within the department of justice. there was a report by the office of inspector general and professional responsibility.

during this time there was a scandal with the firings of u.s. attorneys, the same thing going on with immigration judges. they are being appointed with very few or little qualifications. some of the best we have came in that era. we got a lot of people who came through political basis. we were not protected in the current structure from political whims. i think if we are outside as an independent agency, more transparent, that will be less likely to happen. >> who am i speaking to? >> [inaudible] i get my figures from the transactional records access clearinghouse.

they have been fans for years and do a lot of work gathering statistics from the department of justice on the immigration courts. they track the caseload by city. the highest it has ever been. the immigration court not at the highest level. at one point an all-time high of 272 immigration judges across the country. now we're down to 243. in my remarks i said 227 field immigration judges because with all due respect to the managers and supervisors some of them have no dockets at all and some have a very reduced docket. >> what is the budget for the whole idea? >> we believe the proper size

would be to at least double. that was recommended in the bill that passed the senate in this spring of 2013. another way to look at it would eat perhaps one immigration judge for every 600 pending matters. if you calculate it and not way, those figures would allow them to come to trial because there is open space within 12 months. we feel the doctors should not control when cases are heard. in other words, i should not have to say, i am sorry, you are ready to go tomorrow but my first appointment is three years from now and that is what i have to say. >> regarding the request for asylum, how many do you feel

have been granted in the past couple years percentagewise? >> how many have been what? >> asylum request. >> it is very hard for me to get out of seeing what i see individually. those trends are tracked and tracked and the best way to know what the percentages are. it has fluctuated over time. one thing i am aware of is juvenile cases, -- never mind, not an accurate figure. sorry. i think there has overall been a decline over time. one of the problems looking at caseload for us is the issue that it is not just whether you call it a particular thing to determine what the complexity

is. some cases are more complex than others. asylum cases can be more complex than other related cases. even within the realm of asylum cases, depending on the basis for which people are applying for protection, cases can become more complicated and consuming. the current surge is on gang related cases among the most complex of all for legal reasons that i will not bore you with today. >> [inaudible] >> yes. we can do. >> can you give background on that? >> at this time, we have no firm commitments that we have been

speaking with staff and members of congress. political winds are difficult to protect. we are doing our best but it is helpful to have things we are getting today. we've been preaching to the legal and academic communities for years. it is helpful when a general audience can understand the basics and understand the importance. we are often a hidden tribunal people do not focus on. this has captured the american public's attention and that has been helpful to us. >> user the current cases should not be pulled from the docket. what is the situation? are they now in the front of the docket and do you believe they are getting the legal systems required or what they need?

>> i have to say this process is in the infancy. one message -- i am proud to be an immigration judge and proud of my colleagues and one think we believe in is due process and fundamental fairness. even if they are placed at the beginning of the docket, i think judges will do what they can to make sure they have every opportunity to obtain legal representation. it is their right to be able to do so. and to prepare it as fully and as possible so they can have a fair hearing. as of this moment i cannot tell you across the country, need are being represented. i know the legal community is scrambling and are very grateful for the efforts being made. the judge will tell you we prefer to have someone represented in the court rather than do it alone. especially in an immigration

court. one special duty and immigration judge has is to advise them of not only the charges against them and advise them if there is any application they can make to stay in the united states. this gets complicated and children's case. there is a lot of relief other than asylum. they may be a victim of trafficking, special immigrant visa. if they are neglected or abandoned or abused by parents and that is why they are here illegally because they have no one to take care of them and are fleeing the country for that reason. there are different applications to them. visa for someone who is juvenile and needs to be declared independent court. those applications have to take place outside.

they have to be made to the department of homeland security or documented. so we cannot do that as judges. if someone appears to be a deserving candidate, very important to have an attorney. >> are you feeling any pressure to adjudicate or process the cases of those children at the previous question referred to? are you seeing any sort of pressure to accelerate the cases ? some lawyers say they feel the administration is trying to send a message when they say the majority of children will be returned. are you as judges when you are faced with them, do you feel pressure to process much quicker ? how does all of this end? if this is not addressed, what is the scenario a year from now or five years from now? >> i can honestly say in the 27 years i have never been told what the ultimate outcome should be in the case. however, there are subtle

pressures when you know you're supposed to do the case as quickly as possible. you would not be in an immigration judge if you were not kind of an overachiever who wants to get an a on the assignment. there is pressure to do things more quickly and that is difficult. i think what is ironic is it often takes a personal toll on immigration judges. we are very concerned that of artifacts of the bad structure will be a tsunami of retirements of immigration judges retiring at the earliest possible opportunity rather than working long into the careers because it is a high stress job. most people would laugh.

they would say why do judges need a union? they have no idea the working issues are extremely stressful. there was a study done seven years ago that found we were as stressed as prison wardens and hospital doctors, not by the complexity of the cases, the heart wrenching nature of the term attic stories we hear because we signed up for that, but because of the lack of workplace support we get. that is a big concern we have and you will lose experienced

judges that are at the peak of productivity if they are not forthcoming. >> [inaudible] there is no transparency. you work for those in the system. would you anticipate opening that up to an independent agency, and how do you pay for that ultimately and is there an ultimate cost to you guys for creating the new agency? >> you put your finger on some of them. i tried to list some of the issues we have. the computer system we have was chosen by the department of justice. i think there was very little input for what would be accessible. we do have conflict for how accessible it should be and how public the information should be from time to time. we need a system where it is easy access to the information. we have some cases that by their nature are to be kept private.

that is the same with respect to a state court. so we do need that type of system. the computers -- our system recently, major funding issues. all of our computers crashed recently. our main frame, the main generators crashed and for six weeks we could not get data. if you were calling in from the outside we could not post new cases. everyone had to be personally called. i was never given an explanation as to why that happened. you do not usually see that in a regular court system. when they call the number to find out, there was no information there about what was going on. i cannot give you a money figure but i can tell you it is better

to spend the money now and fix it now and better to put in a structure where the judges will have more and they will have input for how the agency is set up and how the agency is run as opposed to having it run by an agency that has a law-enforcement mentality. >> that is why we call ourselves the legal cinderella's. we do not believe that the department of justice is advocating for our needs. it is true when people look at an article one court for us, we need more money spent on the process, that is undeniable. the question is, will we have judges who have been in the system that are running the court system who believe in a traditional model of transparency in terms of where that money goes and how it is being spent and to not have us be at the mercy of the

prosecutors. one thing we have never been able to get contempt of authority even though it was legislated by congress in 1996 is the department of homeland security does not want other government attorneys to be levying those sanctions. so the economic inefficiencies in the system because we do not have the authority that we need to run things the right way. >> we only have time for two or three more questions. >> you mentioned the cost and effect analysis and also mentioned you received no commitments but are their champions in congress who are emerging? >> we have been lobbying in part for a cost analysis that we feel congress has done the proper studies and in part that would

have to be an organization that can get access to internal information for how the system currently works. as to the champion, we're working hard and hope they will announce there are champions real soon. we feel we have been making progress. we do feel the situation has shed light on a court that if we pulled a bunch of you a couple of months ago you would not have known we existed or when not been able to explain what we do. that is part of what our job has been and we're waiting for champions to come forward. >> what is the difference between children from mexico and children from other parts of the world? can you talk about the

congressional efforts to do away with the distinction? >> we cannot comment on pending legislation and there is pending legislation on that. that is because of judicial ethics. you need to understand we walk the fine line of making sure we do not violate traditional ethics where we prejudge a case that might come before us. i can tell you the mexican and canadian children if they were to come to the border would be subject to expedited removal. that rather than being screened into the system, they could be removed without having a hearing before an immigration judge. the way it currently stands, they are the only two countries the immigration judges believed there are concerns with expedited removal system. we have lumped those within a series of provisions under the law that are in essence bypasses to the immigration system.

again, america is a country of laws. it seems only fair that people have the right to tell their story at least once to an immigration judge. while we will not comment on pending legislation, not in favor of stipulated removal or expansions of the law that end up putting a larger class of individuals with a five past the court rather than come through the courts and allow the individual judges to hear individual facts and make an appropriate case-by-case determination. >> is the u.s. government in violation of the 14th amendment when they expedite the removal of children with the canadians and mexicans outside of the court system?

>> we cannot comment. we are not allowed to make rulings that are not in the case and controversy in front of us, and that is a legal question that the -- would not be within the root -- legal jurisdiction of the court but a higher court. >> i want to thank everyone for coming, and if you will allow me to make one quick commercial. this afternoon we will have another newsmaker is matthew rosenberg, the new york times reporter who was recently rescued from afghanistan. from those of you who came today and are watching on c-span, thank you. [applause] >> in a few moments, look at today's headlines plus your calls live on "washington journal,"

the american, political science association hosts a discussion on nsa surveillance programs. of center for the study islam and democracy looks at the militant group isis and radicalization at 12:30 p.m. eastern. at 2 p.m., the cato institute focuses on public opinion and war. . .

washington journal is next. good morning, a live view of the u.s. capitol. two issues could set the stage for a preelection showdown between congress and the white house. administration officials confirmed a "new york times" story that the president may is your view an international accord on climate change without the consent of congress. today a "washington post" headline, political parties to see what the president will do on immigration, his action, according to the post could change the course of the mid term elections. while we are 68- days to the midterm elections there is renewed speculation on a fame yeare