denounce the senate or saying things -- i love the senate. this is a wonderful institution. yeah, we have a few bumps in the road once in a while but that's what to be expected in a legislative process representing 300 million people in this country. but i.t. the friendships you form here, the alliances, the friendships, the working together. i've often said that as a progressive, i wanted to go this far this fast and the conservatives want to go this far this slow. but together, working together, you can make progress -- you can make progress. and that's what i think both senator grassley and i have worked together on, to try to make progress. but especially for the people of iowa. and so i thank him for his kind words. i thank you. i know we're not supposed to say this on the senate floor. we're always supposed to speak in the third person. but i never wanted to follow all the rules anyway, so i can speak

directly and say, thank you very much, chuck grassley, for friendship, for counsel, for working together through all these years. i'm going to miss that relationship and working on the senate floor, but i will be in iowa. i'll be working again with the harkin institute at the university. i'll be spending a lot of time on disability policy and advancing the cause of people with disabilities in some way, shape, or form -- i don't know exactly house, but in some way, in that way -- and i hope -- i just want to say this to my friend. i hope that at some time, since this is a nonpartisan institute, we have a great board of directors -- in fact, the former chair of the iowan republican party is on the board of the institute -- we want to keep it nonpartisan. i would like to ask my friend to come and speak at and be --

perhaps lead a discussion sometime at the institute at university. i would be honored if my friend would do that, if sometime down the road -- i don't know when. we can work it out. i think you would be well-received and i think young people at drake need to hear the conservative side of the story as well as the liberal side of the story. they need to have that kind of input. so i hope we can work that out. let me just say again that i know in the future that you and your wonderful wife barbara, a great, wonderful person, that you and barbara and ruth and i will maintain friendships and will maintain our connections as we move into the future, and any way that we can ever work together for the benefit of iowans, just let me know and i'll be glad to be your

lieutenant -- or something out there in the field out there in iowa sometime. but thank you so very much for so many years of counsel and friendship and working >> monday we will talk with republican tom p try and democrat carolyn mccarthy. he is retiring after more than three decades in office. he was elected in 1978. congresswoman mccarthy has served to nine terms in the house. she called on younger members of her party to move up the caucus letter saying leaders need to know when it is time to move on. here is a portion. we have a lot of talented younger members. it is not just mrs. pelosi. she has been a great leader.

he is good at raising money. that is not one of my fortes. i was never good at that. peopleed to bring young into the caucus to become hopefully the future leaders. one of the things i certainly believe with all my heart, you have to know when to leave. nancy does not feel this is the time. many of us thought she might stay for may be this coming year. hopefully turn the reins over to someone else. when i look around, is anybody ready to replace her? it is a hard job. i give her credit for what she has been able to do. it is time the leaders start looking at who is going to feel their spot. we are all replaceable.

there might be some bombed in the road but i believe it is time to see young people take our spot with new ways of doing things. i see nothing wrong with that. that is a normal progression. >> retiring congressional members with tom petri and carolyn mccarthy, monday at 8:00 on c-span. next, a look at the immigration population in u.s. states and the a discussion on keystone xl pipeline and the weekly addresses with president obama and bill cassidy. >> now a look at the u.s. immigration population. this is just over one hour.

geoff pacell with the senior demographer by hispanics. >> that's a little bit of the report you are seeing online. well, as host: jeff passel with the pew hispanic center joins us now, talking about a recent report put out about migration trends by hispanics, that is a little bit of the report you are seeing online. welcome. guest: thank you. host: before we talk about the specifics, give us a sense of who is covered but who does not get covered in this case. guest: well, from what i have been able to gather from looking at it, the biggest group covered are parents of u.s.-born children, so parents of u.s. citizens that a been in the country for five years or more. there is about 3.5 million for estimates. many have children who are 18 or older who may be eligible for legal admission, so that is about 3.5 million.

there is another roughly 300,000 or so who are an extension of what was called daca, deferred deportation, young people brought here before age 16, and they have to have graduated from high school or be enrolled in school. there is already a group of about 700,000 people who qualify under the order in 2012. there is another probably 400,000 to 500,000 that might qualify. they have lifted that age limits, you had to be age 30 or under, and they have moved the date forward, so basically at this point you have to have been in the country for five years, so you could have come in 2007, 2008, or 2009 and qualified. host: for those who meet those qualifications, what do they

get? guest: basically they get a work permit, the fear of deportation is removed, they get to stay in the country, and they get to travel outside the country and come back. those are the main things they get. host: because you said demography, when it comes to those here, they do not travel much as it is? guest: no. do not travel much as it is/ guest: no. anyou are heare as unauthorized immigrant and you cannothe country, you come back in, so some have been here for 15, 20, 25 years and have not gone back to see their parents or siblings back in her home country because they cannot leave the country. host: you think the new provision will embolden people to come out of the light, or are they going to be suspicious to start off with? interestingis an

question, and there have been several different versions of things like this in the past. the experience has been when we look at how many people come forward versus the populations that we think are in the country , not everybody does. and 75% ofetween 50% the people seem to come forward. partly there is an expense involved, but also i think there is a fear and a suspicion that what these people have to do is go to the federal government and an i have been here in illegal status for the last five years and tell them who they are and where they live and there is a fear involved. host: this provision at the president is providing could be taken away at any moment? guest: i'm not a legal scholar, but presumably yes. presumably the order could be lifted at any point. ist: as far as the process

concerned, what generally happens now once this action goes into place? are there papers to sign, questionnaires to fill out? guest: i really do not know, but the largest x of this seem fairly daunting to me because we are talking about close to 4 million people who might apply. they are spread out around the country. they have to provide some documentation to support the notion that they have been here for five years or more. often that is not easy for them to do, and then there will be a fee, and then the government has to decide if the papers and the application is valid, so there is an entire process that the people will have to go through. you: do you know, because study these things, the people working currently under this provision, they get a work permit, does that mean they are still paying taxes?

guest: it is interesting -- the studies we have done in other people have looked at is that a majority of the unauthorized immigrants, first of all, a large majority are working, and a majority of the ones who are working seem to already be paying taxes. be -- and some of the unauthorized immigrants have valid social security numbers, for instance, because they came here on temporary visas and stayed past the expiration date of the visa. socialf people are using security numbers that belong to other people and are having social security and other taxes withheld from their pay. rk permitmably, a wo would allow the unauthorized immigrants to change jobs more easily and to work and pay taxes. i have not seen the regulations on this, but there seems to be

an idea behind this that if you owe back taxes, you have to pay them. just to your experience, if somebody does follow disqualifications, do they receive health care or any other type of benefits that a u.s. citizen would? guest: from what i know they would not. a lot of those benefits and programs are not open to legal immigrants, either. most of the social service ms requireogra being a u.s. citizen or having been a legal immigrant for five years or more. passell talking about demographics when it comes to migration here in the united states. if you have questions about the process, (202) 585-3880 for democrats, (202) 585-3881 for republicans, (202) 585-3882 for

independents. we've set aside a line for those who are undocumented and you want to get a perspective, (202) 585-3883. new study from you taking a look at changes in population, it highlights where people who are undocumented are going. talk about the states they are going to. what states are seeing growth no? guest: the context here is that since 2009, the total number of unauthorized immigrants in this country has really not changed. there are some coming and some leaving, but they have been balanced. about one million below the peak level, we have estimated, about 11.2 million. inused to be over 12 million 2007. underneath that, there are some states where the numbers seem to be going up and some where they are going down. the states where they are going up or mostly in the east.

virginia, maryland, new jersey, pennsylvania, soy cluster in the mid-atlantic. and florida after having lost a huge number between 2007 and 2009 has seen the numbers start to go back up. a bigthe western states, group of states out in the mountain west in california that have seen their numbers go down somewhat over the last three years. host: is that unusual for border-type states? guest: the whole thing is unusual because between 1990 and 2007, the numbers more than tripled. they went from 3.5 million to 12 million, and every state had their numbers go up. california,es like they went up more slowly, but everywhere they went up, so what has happened since 2007 is really something we have not seen before. what is behind this is the patterns from mexico.

what is driving the decrease is the fact that the number of unauthorized mexicans coming has plummeted in the last decade or so, and we have actually seen the mexican unauthorized population go down steadily , we lost007 and 2009 about 600,000 unauthorized mexicans. since 2009, we have lost roughly another half a million. host: why is that? guest: there is a lot going on. the main demographic feature is that there are more leaving then coming. -- leaving than coming. there are always people leaving and coming. it has been a turnover throughout this period, but after the recession started, we saw a huge flow back to mexico.

very few mexicans now are coming. there are a lot of things underneath that. the enforcement at the border substantially, and we know that it is a lot more expensive to hire someone to help you get in. it is more dangerous because of the enforcement along the border -- they have to go through more remote areas, and it is physically more challenging. it is dangerous in northern mexico with the violence, and the mexican economy has been doing reasonably well. demographer i have to look at that. the number of mexicans in the prime migration ages, which are roughly 16 to 24 has been going down as a result of the large fertility drop in mexico over the last couple of years, so all of these things are sort of working in the same direction so

that there are many fewer people coming. to ask you why idaho, why nebraska, so let's take some calls about that. first in tennessee on our democrat line, you are up with jeff passel of the pewcenter. caller: hi. actually it is independent. i do not know how i got on the democrats line. mr. passel, it would be interesting to know if the population and the other countries are going down. do you have any idea about that? guest: the populations -- the populations in latin american countries are still growing, but they are growing much more havey than they historically. , thexico right now fertility rate is about 2.2 per woman, which is only a little bit higher than the u.s., which

2.1, and only a little bit above what we call replacement level. the projections for mexico show the population in mexico will stop growing probably in 30 years or 40 years. if the current trends continue. so it is a different demographic situation. about 20 years ago in mexico, the number of earths each year was less than the number the year before, so not only is the fertility rate going down, but the number of births each year is decreasing. slowingimately leads to and stopping of population growth. richard,e is charlotte, north carolina, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i consider myself a pragmatic

republican, and i think the president's speech, which i listened to quite carefully the other nine, is a pragmatic action. it came to mind that it is a little bit like the emancipation proclamation. maybe that is why republicans hated because it is going to give him a big boost in credibility. and the previous caller mentioned the words humanity and compassion. that is just how i felt when i listened to him. pragmatism,rms of an interesting word, when we look at the unauthorized population, because the inflows have gone way down so we are not getting very many new unauthorized immigrants, we have that this group of 11

million people is more and more established in the country. of the unauthorized immigrants have been in the u.s. for 10 years, so they have put down roots. they have children. that is the group that the president has offered this protection to. and the children are u.s. citizens, so it is a very -- it is a group that is established here and has been working here and are parts of communities, so in that regard, it is in some ways a pragmatic approach to this. connecticut,rom independent line, your next full stop go ahead. caller: yes, i have a question for jeffrey there. how is it illegal, getting these, getting you summary else's social security number,

how are they so getting away with it? well, i am not an from how the verification system works, but in order to have a mostyou have to have -- jobs that are not in the underground economy you need a social security number, but we don't have a national id system or a system that is 100% names,e at validating social security numbers, and such, and so a lot of people are able to use these, mostly the employers often don't have an incentive -- the employers want workers, they want hard workers, and they don't have a strong quiz people about the ability of their social security numbers.

are overzealous in doing this or selectively do it, they can face some difficulties as while. -- as well. it is in some ways in everybody's interest to hire these workers. facts he putthe out there as far as unauthorized immigrants is their share of the labor force. by 2012, 10 percent in nevada where the president spoke yesterday, 9% in california, almost 9% in texas. tell us what these numbers mean. what are trends showing as far as them going up or down? 5% of when we say about the workforce are unauthorized immigrants, veterans late into about 8 million people. -- that translates into about 8 million people. he numbers have basically leveled off since 2007. 8 million in 2007 and have not really changed much.

unemployment among unauthorized immigrants has gone up, but unemployment has gone up by everybody. in servicend to work sector jobs more frequently than others, construction is a big employer of unauthorized atigrants, and when we look the representation, they are working in mostly the same kinds of jobs that legal immigrants and u.s. citizens work in, but are more some that attractive to them. basically the kind of jobs where you don't necessarily need credentials, you don't necessarily need licensing. in a job isce

usually the criteria. host: if they get the status, they may be go after jobs higher than what they are currently making? guest: again you are asking about the future, so it'll really know. the syrians from the early 1990's, there were about 1.6 got legalople who status under the immigration reform and control act, and the did findhen that there was some job mobility, so people did go get different jobs once they got legal status, and they saw about a increase in their wages apparently -- saw about a 6% increase in their wages apparently due to being legal, able to shop around for other jobs. kentucky,hi. hi. caller: things have changed on

the subject matter. being a veteran, i was kind of concerned a little bit -- he started out on how congress should respond on the immigrants, and the thing is that congress is letting itself become irrelevant in my eyes by executive action. it looks to me like they could kind of do something in regards to limiting the president's ability to use this thing or remove it altogether. maybe i can ask you a question law,is whole senseless passed with 5 million immigrants already in this country. what kind of impact do you think this will have on the upcoming elections for the democratic side? um -- what we have seen in this is that have large

immigrant populations, mainly hear latinos and asian, tend to favor democrats by about 2-1. this executive action presumably would find support in those communities. we find the country somewhat divided on support for the idea of this, the polling predates the announcement, so it does not seem to be a big factor. an -- immigration is important issue within the hispanic population, but it rarely shows up -- in fact it never shows up as the most important issue. it is usually about fourth or fifth in terms of relevance to the hispanic community, which is

about where it falls in the general population. showsso what your chart here, mexicans the largest sector of on document and workers and illegal immigrants here, i'm interested in -- and 75% in texas, 68% california, but going back to idaho, 83%, and if you're to north and south carolina, 62%. why the states and why is this happening? seen somel, idaho has growth in its unauthorized population, and it is one of the states where the kinds of jobs and the migration streams have really been concentrated among mexicans. groupns are the largest here, but they have been the major group and driving the population growth between 1990 and 2007 in a lot of these

states. the history of this goes back really to the early 1990's when california had a very, there he bad recession, and a lot of people left california and went to other states will stop among the ones that left were some unauthorized immigrants. they found jobs in construction, variouspacking, in manufacturing kinds of jobs, and they went to where they could find jobs. that really established some communities and places like georgia and north carolina, iowa, nebraska, kansas, and over the next 15 years, the migration stream started to bypass california and go directly to these places. e growth in these communities was driven by the availability of jobs, in particular the housing boom

through a lot of unauthorized migrants to many of these places. host: jeff passel is running a to talk about the demographics and migration patterns for those here illegally in the united states was up he is with the pew hispanic center. again, if you want to ask them questions, (202) 585-3880 for (202) 585-3881 for republicans, (202) 585-3882 for independents, and if you are here undocumented, (202) 585-3883. alex is next a good one in, alex. thanks for calling. what is your question? caller: i have two comments in one question. number one, if immigrants to become legal in a sense that they get a green card or citizenship, they will increase our budget deficit because many of them are low-paid, and any taxes they pay will be very low,

and they will probably get more back from the federal government in terms of various benefits such as food stamps, the medicaid, etc., etc. so, you know, the whole proposed immigration reform, the reform form of punishment. those who came here illegally should never be allowed to collect on any federal benefits or anything else. from a humane standpoint, you do not want to deport them, but you have to punish people for breaking the law. these people are not being punished effectively for this. being a legal is its own punishment. number two, people here coming here illegally mostly concentrate in professions that pay low wages to begin with, and they drive down wages for people who work in those areas legally, so it is a double

whammy for those who do not have a college degree. -- third issue is host: you put two out there. we will let our guest respond to those. of -- well, in terms number one is these are people who are already here and already working so they are already getting paid and they are already, most of them, paying some sort of taxes. legal immigrants are not generally entitled to food stamps or medicaid. they have to be in the country for a significant amount of time before they can qualify, and for a lot of these programs, they have to become u.s. citizens, so this program gives people a work authorization, but it does not put them on a path to a green

card, and having a green card does not entitle you to receive food stamps or medicare -- medicaid in most places. host: you also chart the unauthorized immigrants as a share of all immigrants living in states across the united states was up you provide a map showing some of those things. one of the most interesting -- what are the most interesting trends we are finding? guest: well, in a lot of the unauthorized immigrants are the highest are the places where they nearly settled in the last 15 years, so places in the southeast 30 years ago have almost no immigrants. the immigrants populations in tennessee, alabama, georgia, north carolina have grown substantially, and a lot of that growth is driven by, has been driven by unauthorized

so we see this band of states across the southern part of the country where unauthorized immigration has been driving this. of the places where the reactions have been the toongest politically immigration and unauthorized immigration, often in those , the immigrant population is in fact largely unauthorized and largely mexican. nationally that is not true. nationally, unauthorized immigrants are a little bit over a quarter of all immigrants living in the country, but a lot of the southeastern states, they are up to close to half. host: here is pam from kentucky, democrats line. hi. caller: hi . i am retired from state employees, and i work for a am awareprogram, and i

of this order. assistance programs are already burdened, and they will place a huge burden on those that are already overwhelmed. i heard what he just said about a green card does not qualify them for public assistance, but what he is not saying is that when these people come over here and they have children in the united states, those children soome legal citizens, and that actually will make them eligible to draw those programs. i also worked on the eligibility therts, the 327264, and average hispanic-latino family children,y has 5.5 where the average other families is 2.2, 2.5, and these people

come over here and they are actually drawing our programs. they are drawing from our housing programs and medicaid and food stamps. they are repopulating here in the united states. they know that if they have children, they will have a better chance of getting legalization. i worked in the health services program, and i seen it every day, these people coming in and getting birth certificates for their children. host: thanks, caller. guest: the program, what the president announced is a program .or u.s. citizens the children are u.s. citizens, and the children, yes, as u.s. citizens are eligible for benefits. the parents are not. the parents are immigrants, unauthorized immigrants in this case. the fertility rate

among unauthorized immigrants is a little bit higher than the average in the u.s. what we see as the rituall fertility rate is about three per woman for the unauthorized, and about two for the citizen. k-12 students in school, obviously these are the people the president targeted most. 7% of the, and about students in k-12 nationally are children of unauthorized immigrants. are actually4% unauthorized themselves. 5.5% are u.s. citizens here and bew up o part of the country. host: the president made the

decision in washington, but how do states have to handle these kinds of actions by the president? is a little, this outside of my area of expertise, -- the states can decide who is eligible for the various programs, and some states have decided to offer some form of benefits to somerants, legal and unauthorized. the states then have to pay for it themselves because the federal government does not support medicaid for immigrants. host: illegal immigrants, we have shared a line for you to share your thoughts and perspectives. that is (202) 585-3883. we have a caller living in georgia.

caller: hello, go ahead. i would like to make a comment, probably a question, pertaining to illegal immigrants. some of us when we come here, we do not come here because we heard that america is a wonderful country. we come here because we want a better life for our children and our family. community that was not easy. the difference between going back there and here, it is much better for us here in america to take care of our kids and our family. so it is not that we come here and want to private america of what is theirs, it is just that we would like to be a partaker, and we would like that in a legal and lawful way to be here in america. so for health benefits, we all know that immigrants cannot get anything, and if we have kids, it is the kids' legal right to

receive it. way -- what if they should go visit a country and people treat them aggressively because they are not from there? they would not feel good. sometimes they need to put themselves in an immigrant's situation and see what it would look like and have some compassion and show love for others. host: can i ask you a couple of questions? caller: sure. host: what country are you from? caller: i am from jamaica. host: how long have you been in this country illegally? caller: several years. host: have you tried to go through the paperwork and become legal? caller: no. i have not tried. host: why is that? caller: because i have learned about the system. the main thing i've tried to do is to get a tax id so that i can pay tax, but otherwise i have

not tried. to thisto get married person that i thought really loved me, but this is another system where sometimes americans, they take advantage of people who try to be legalized in a more lawful way. host: when it comes to children, did you bring children to the country with you or did you have them here? caller: i had them here. i did not bring any here. host: that is georgia who lives in georgia giving us her perspective. mr. passel? guest: well, the immigration system is very complicated, and immigrants wethe admit as legal immigrants, the vast majority are admitted because of their relationships to people in the country. their relatives, spouses, children, in some cases brothers, in some cases parents

-- those are small categories -- you are here. we admit people as refugees, we admit about 50% based on their jobs and credentials -- about 15% based on their jobs and credentials, so for most of the unauthorized immigrants in the there is no visa that they can attain to get a green card, and there really is no line for them to wait in because the system selects people largely based on relationships, so if they are not married to somebody that is here or the child of someone who is here, there is no way to get in. the caller -- there is probably no visa that she could qualify

for under the current system. host: from pennsylvania, here is john. go ahead, please. caller: hi. mr. passel, i do have a question for you and i have a few comments that i have to make. immigrant that came from africa, a country called zambia. i worked really hard to get my legal status. i am now a u.s. citizen by naturalization for stop i just came back actually from outside the u.s. and i traveled, and i found out that africa is now the fastest-growing middle-class continent in the world, and china, which is one of the fastest of all nations that is growing it in on ugly, has growinged -- economically, has penetrated africa, and america has been trying to do and to the african

economy, and they are feeling. president obama brings up legalizing immigrants. i have two sites on that. i agree because i know that america is a country of immigrants and we need more tax benefitsor and social security benefits will stop i mean, i am 35. by the time i reach 60 commodity or even think i will qualify for social security because we are going through it so fast. short, what do you think this country is going to be in five years, since you are illegal immigrants are leaving the usa, because we have painted the picture to immigrants that this is the lacie can come and have a dream, be educated, but china has proved that america is not a place where you can do that. host: john, thank you. guest: it is interesting that

the foreign born isolation here has continued to grow, has continued to grow because we are continuing to get large numbers of legal immigrants. the country continues to be attractive to people around the one of the demographic features of the u.s. as compared to a lot of other developed countries, japan being a prime example, and germany, they have very low fertility rates. casespopulations in some are starting to decrease, and e structure is very heavily tilted toward the old. the immigrants to the united have really had an impact on our age structure and demographic structure so that we

are still growing. we are growing more slowly than we have, but the population is growing. an aging population, but are helping to maintain the structure of the labor force and keep it growing. the long runolve social security problem. the immigrants themselves, as the caller pointed out, eventually get old, so it does not solve that imbalance there in social security, but in the short run it tends to help. the united states moving forward is likely to continue growing. the white non-hispanic majority population has not grown recently, and the growth is the immigrants heavy

populations, the latinos, the asians. host: here is eddie from stafford, virginia, democrats line. caller: hey, good morning, hey, "washington journal." great show this morning. i want to let united support the president was the action -- the president's action. we have undocumented people and are not going anywhere, and in action is not going to solve the problem. going forward, i think the burden is going to be on the republicans to act on this now, and the reason why i say that is don't take action on this, then you know the problem is going to continue to expand. any thought of d fording folks, especially parents, we are going to have a huge orphan problem. there are a lot of systemic things that will come from this if we do not continue to advance the immigration reform.

guest: the immigration system is not very smooth functioning that way. of people whot would like to come here. people who would like to come legally. of reforms that people have talked about that .eem to be widely supported whether those will actually get past is something i guess we will have to see. is behind aest report that takes a look at migration trends, especially when it comes to undocumented workers here in the united states, where they are coming from, where they live, where states are seeing increases and decreases. assel of the pew has been a center -- of the pew hispanic center. what country are we going to see

more of these trends happening, what states are you more interested in looking at? these, what we call new destination states in the southeast and in the , are places that have been dynamic and that we have seen the immigrants driving growth. i think it is going to be interesting to see if this and demographic projections -- some of it is easy, but a lot of it is hard, and immigration is really the hardest to project. underneath it all, the economy is really what drives, what attracts the immigrants, so for a strongif we see rebound in the housing market, we may see a lot more immigrants , i love more demand for immigrant labor because that was a big driver of growth in the

first half of the 2000's. host: you can see increases of other people coming from other countries into this country illegally? guest: that is an interesting question. enforcement at this point along the border seems to be working pretty well. the number of mexicans being caught at the border is at a 40-year low. some of that is a lack of demand here, but some of it is people deciding not to come because it is so difficult to get in. at the point where the economy bounces back and starts generating the demand, then we will have to see whether the enforcement is working or not. host: manassas, virginia, cordelia is up next, she edifies her self here illegally. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: fine, thank you. go ahead, you are on. caller: ok.

tomain purpose is for coming decide to speak on this line is a way for me to try to help the , the congress or the people that make decisions, so that they can the illegal aliens, that they call. 21st off, i have been here years now, soon-to-be to be 22 years in the country. i came here as a medical doctor by training, and i trained in moscow, and i am from nigeria. so it is not only mexicans. we have educated people who are in this mess. case -- i came here illegally. i got my visa in moscow and i came here so that i can go through the residency program and be able to work your as a

medical doctor, but when i came here, i found out that is very difficult, so i had to do all kind of audit jobs just to survive, and even in africa -- i was in nigeria, and nigeria is a very good country, but when i was there after my training, they were paying me $50 a month, and i could not maintain anything, i could not help people, i cannot help my parents , who did everything to raise me, susan's i had a visa already a moscow, -- so since i had visa already in moscow, i thought i could come here and prove myself and help my family, who did everything to put me through school. but when i came here, it is a different ballgame, so then i tried my best to get my green card and everything, but my papers are on hold at the immigration office. it is there, it is sitting there, i think they call it

pending. every time i go, my case is pending. host: how many years have you been trying to do this process? caller: i have been tried to do this program because everything was ok i think in 1997 or somewhere around there. actually, the whole process, at the end of 2001, president clinton said everyone should apply, i did every thing i could to get some money come i got some lawyers, i played to the group that clinton did that time. host: and you are still waiting? caller: i am still waiting. mother, it my have lost my father, i have not been able to go home. do not come here come it is very difficult. cordelia, we appreciate your perspective. data we have shows

undocumented immigrants have been here long time, and i suspect that story is not that , unique. 60% of the unauthorized immigrants have been in the country 10 years or more. and they recognize their problem. a couple of callers have mentioned, the immigrant callers -- the history of immigration in the united states is people coming to make a better life for themselves and their children, and that seems to be why the unauthorized immigrants, as well. and we can infer that in a lot of ways, but unauthorized immigrants are actually more likely to be working in the labor force then natives because work,re coming here for unauthorizedf the men between 18 and 64 are in the nativeorce, whereas the

population, it is about 80%. natives have alternatives to being in the labor force, and the unauthorized immigrants do not. host: coming up next in west virginia, republican line, hi. caller: good morning. cordelia's call really shed some light. first of all, shame on both parties, republicans, democrats, it is not matter. supporta group that has from the catholic church, support from the politicians, they have special privileges, they get to do things that no other citizen does. if i took jeffrey's social security card and i started paying taxes on income of the fbi would pick me up, take me to jail, and lock me up. there are four things that will fix this problem long-term, and theirs somebody opens up mind about these facts, do not confuse the fact, i have artie

made up my mind -- number one, we must lock down the borders was up number two, we have to simplify the process of immigration. number three, we have to have a simple flat tax. a flat tax commodity not care how much you may, if you make a dollars an hour, you pay 10% of it. a simplified tax code with a national id is going to stop this problem because if you don't have a national id, it has to match your social security information. they can use dna, figure prints committee number of ways to do this. number of countries in the world protect them more, but shame on the politicians for thatg this the football they have. you have got to have courage to do something. guest: um -- has -- it enforcement isnot perfect, but there somewhere around three times to

five times as many border agents as there were 20 years ago. there is a lot more barriers put up, there is a lot of high-tech devices along the border, so we into lot of resources preventing unauthorized entry. it obviously does not work completely, but it has been improved substantially. often overlooked phenomenon between,hat somewhere n how you counto it, somewhere between 40 million and 50 million entries into the u.s. are done legally every year. borders, but ahe lot by air. touristse come here as

, people come here on short-term business visas for conferences. the numbers are really staggering in terms of tens of millions of people coming every year. that is because of our place in the world economy, among other things, and people want to come visit, people come here for professional reasons. somewhere around 40% or perhaps even more of the unauthorized immigrants here came here so the and stayed, ability to track those people has been improved, but we don't track people. we can determine whether people have left or not, and that is something that homeland security i believe is working -- has been working on for at least 15 years or 20 years, and again no system is perfect, but the vast

majority of the people that come leave. it is because of the very large somers that we get spillover into the unauthorized population. host: we will hear perspective of another undocumented worker from indianapolis, indiana. jorge, good morning. caller: good morning. host: how did you come to the united states? united i came to the states in 1980 in a row boat. , i was 17,34 years and actually i did the american dream. i own mile business, my home, you know. i thought i was an american citizen. never really hang out in the hispanic communities, so i got married come i got my life, i went on with my life, and now i have disability, but i have a

situation now. i broke the law a few years ago, and now i do not know what is going to happen to me. people who come to the country, and we have thousands -- and deportation, but what is going to happen? again, i am an observer more than a student, but the large number of immigrants in the complexity of the laws create -- evidently create a lot of -- a difficult system, and again, just to place some of this -- put some numbers on it, there are 11 million unauthorized immigrants, but there are almost 30 million legal immigrants in this

country. u.s. of them have become citizens, but about 11 million or 12 million have not, so that there is roughly the same number in theanent residents u.s. who are not u.s. citizens as there are unauthorized immigrants, and there is a lot of paperwork, there is a lot of bureaucracy, there is a lot of regulation involved in this that people have to deal with. host: on our democrat line, arnold from the bronzeville, braufels,rom new texas. hi. caller: the reason people come here is because there is work for them, even though it is low-paying work in hard work, there is no americans that will do this kind of work. i just do not see somebody from