back so that it swings in only one direction. that is not true either. we are making adjustments to the existing framework and in some result inmight similar sentences or in larger sentences. penalties andome extend the statutory maximum. this is not a reversal. this is made necessary by what we have seen in recent years and it has occurred to us in some instances, we over punish crime and that's not a good thing. this results not only in a waste of money but of human lives and we want to avoid that where we can. i was wondering if i can ask -- you have spoken about the important role congress plays on the top and in the bottom and, setting the top range and the

bottom range. can get tocongress the point where most of the senators and members of the penaltiese, certain are greater than necessary and thosedecide to build penalties, wouldn't it be those in theo do future but those who have already been sentenced? or may not depending on the case. predictably those that end in please rather than trials are the results of essentially a negotiation involving most charges and length of -- both charges and length of sentence in that you do not want to come in after the fact and decide that margin doesn't make sense anymore for -- anymore. >> it would not occur automatically, but it would have to occur in a subsequent

proceeding in -- with an article one sentencing judge. >> article three. >> that would be a big problem if we were talking about putting this authority with article one judges. that lodging the responsibility in the individual districts is important because they have the people who are familiar with the case and who have to put up with the consequences. part of it is very important and i spoke to the attorney general about this on friday and the deputy testifying here today that that is going to possibility. >> you were asked some questions about the men's component and this has been a concern of mine.

i've been very concerned about the over criminalization trend weerally in the sense that have so many federal crimes on the books that when we ask groups like the congressional research service who pays people to research things like this, when we ask how many crimes are on the book's, they cannot tell us. one of the things this does is identify the number of crimes that are out there. as we do that, i think we will find ourselves in a better problem.to address the not every crime on the book has been absence or inadequate provision. based on your understanding of it is not the crimes they are talking about. >> no. and it is ans rea

worthwhile endeavor. i would love to work with senator hatch going forward. as though it is an appropriate vehicle to follow and identify with those crimes are. some estimate over 30,000 essentially. as careful andbe analysis as possible of those crimes and the appropriate mens rea to apply that may not be there in applying the current legislation to this legislation. it is, however, something that should be in the near future of this congress to address. i would be happy to work with the congress in doing that.

having worked here, this hearing is evidence of the fact that members of congress can get along on both sides of the aisle and propose a bill together still. it's evident members of congress work past 5:00. bills that areg very well supported to an adding thatkage, element at this point may disrupt the ability to pass this legislation, which is likely hangs on a very thin precipice. >> it may pass without my support if we don't do something about mens rea because it is .ssential it could come into play in these matters as well.

to never learned underestimate you, senator hatch, and your ability in the senate. it's a significant issue the senators have highlighted and you are absolutely right to highlight that and i look forward to working with this congress on that issue. we appreciate everyone of you for being here. we're sorry it is so late and had to be at this particular time. i had to make it back from utah so i could be here. we want to thank each and everyone of you for your testimony. it has been very important to all of us appear. with that, we will recess until further notice. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> the houses in session at new eastern for general speeches. legislative business. on there several bills agenda including three that do with homeland security. ater we expect to work on

budget reconciliation package that would repeal sections of the health care law and defund planned parenthood. see the house live on c-span. the senate in at 10:00 a.m. they consider a judicial nomination for the eastern district of new york. later, senators vote on whether to move forward on a bill that would withhold funding spur cities that do not comply with federal immigration laws. find the senate live on c-span-2. ", landmarkesents cases," which explores 12 supreme court decisions including marbury versus madison, brown v. the board of education, miranda v. arizona, and roe v. wade. it features introductions and the impact of each case, written and published by

c-span in cooperation with cq press. "landmark cases" is available for $8.95 plus shipping. get your copy today at c-span.org/landmark cases. c-spancampaign long, takes you on the road to the white house. unfiltered access to the candidates at town hall meetings, news conferences, rallies and speeches. we're taking your comments on twitter, facebook and by phone. campaign eventry we cover is available on our website at c-span.org. >> the bipartisan group no labels recently hosted a conference in manchester, new hampshire, that included several of the candidates. among them democrat martin o'malley. he spoke for 25 minutes.

♪ thank you. we have governor o'malley all ready to go. he's in las vegas. i have the spectacular talk i want to provide for about 90 seconds. but i'm going to cut that short. but i do think these goals are important. and i would single out that 25 million jobs in 10 years. as i see a lot of these young people in these green t-shirts walking around. they're going to need those jobs. our country needs those jobs. we want problem solvers. we have problem solvers to help get those jobs. now, governor o'malley and i have things in common. we were both governors of big states beginning with m. ekthough in michigan,this we it's msu. we also headed our governors associations of our respective parties. we are both catholic. and he's running for president,

i'm not. that is where we part ways. but since he is ready to go and is wants, at the end of h remarks to take questions, so get ready because i will be coming to you for some questions from our first candidate for president who is appearing in front of this historic no labels convention. ladies and gentlemen, i present governor martin o'malley from the great state of maryland. [applause] governor o'malley: thank you very much. thank you. thanks veryler, much. one little correction by way of problem solving, as you can see from the backdrop i am not yet in las vegas. but i will be going to las vegas. i am talking to you from baltimore, maryland, land of the free and home of the brave turned it is a great honor to be able to talk with all of you at least in this way.

i am looking forward to the democratic party finally joining this game and having a debate about how we solve our nation's problems. it is a wonderful idea. both parties having debates. thankok, i want to senator lieberman, i want to thank governor engler and i'm especially want to acknowledge nancy jacobson whom i've known for several years and is the founder of the no labels moment. i thought it would share a few ideas before we go to question and answers. as i often say when i'm giving of this on by golly, presidential campaign is not only selecting a person to lead us forward, but also, we are on a search for answers. that sort of deeper understanding that we must achieve as a people that actually perceives the better actions we need to take as a country. the better actions that will

make our country stronger so we can give our children a future with more opportunity. so, let me do a couple things in the next few minutes before we open it up. i want to share with you first of all my take on what i believe are the theory of our -- where our nation is right now. to share with you a little bit about my experience, which is the experience of solving problems. then i want to talk about something i'm seeing in our country which is not only a yearning for new leadership at the emerging of a new way of governing, which i see coming at up and emanating out of our cities and towns and also coming attitudes and the perspective of the next generation of americans. let's begin, shall we? of living,re part self creating mystery called the united states of america. but the promise of the heart of that mystery is actually a very

real and concrete promise. that is a covenant among us in between is that says wherever you start in our country, you hard, but through your own work, your talent, you should be able to get ahead. call it the, an economy that works for all of us. the american dream. it is the actions that solve problems and address challenges in every generation so that we can include more of our people more fully in the economic success of our country. that is what it means to be an american. the truth of our times, the hard truth of our times that we must acknowledge, however, is this -- waye we have come a long since the wall street crash of 2008, a country still faces big challenges and big problems. president obama's leadership we are now creating jobs again as a country. and, of course, we are on the only species on the planet without full employment.

so there is no progress without jobs. so, our country is doing better. but the hard truth of our times is that 70% of us are earning the same or less today than we were 12 years ago. and that is not how our economy supposed to work. that is not how our country is supposed to work. there is a growing injustice in our country today, and this injustice is leading to income inequality like we have not seen for 100 years and declining opportunities for our kids. this problem will not solve itself. we need to solve it. we are americans. our economy is not money. it is people. it is all of our people. and so, we have to invite one another, democrats, independents, and republicans, to return to the table of democracy and solve these problems. not with words. but with actions. thexperience is the, not

experience so much of a experience ast my a mayor and governor is the experience of an executive, of a person who is forced to consensus after new consensus in order to get things done. what sort of things? tackling thebout worst violent crime problem of any city in america and achieving record reductions in violent crime, even as we achieved record reductions in incarceration rates. i'm talking about making our public schools number one in america. i am talking about making college more affordable by going four years in a row in a recession without a penny's increasing college tuition. the living wage. passing marriage equality in the dream act and passing the most comprehensive gun safety legislation of any state in america after the slaughter of the innocent in newtown. some of those -- none of those things was easy. they were all difficult.

and we did not get them done by running to our labeled corners. no. instead, we invited one another to come up with ideas to help us solve these problems. and that is the new way of leadership that i believe the people of our country are theiring of laall of leaders. one of the happy things i came home with after traveling around the country for a year before i was, before i made the decision to run for president was the realization that most people in our nation feel a lot better about how their cities are run today than they did 10 or 15 years ago. why is that? it is not because our cities are rolling in cash. we have not had a federal program and federal action for cities in decades. e reason why people are feeling better about how their cities are governed is because reneurial men and women

who take on that title of mayor and go to work every day to get things done. the're not afraid of information age. they know everybody can see and know things at the same time they do. so they do not obsessed with trying to maintain a time advantage that they know things before the public knows them. peres said, in this information age the people are smarter than their leaders and they no more than their leaders. so, what does this mean for us as states and as a country? i believe we need to embrace new technology, the internet, geographic information systems to make our state and federal governments performance measured entities, so that all of us as citizens controlling this enterprise can see whether we are doing any better this week than we were last week. most of our governments have been run under the tyranny of last year's budget. lots of department heads can

tell you what sort of budget they want for next year but very few of them can tell you specifically, at least at the state and federal levels, whether we are doing any better this week than we were last week. can more andey more. the nature of leadership has changed as i see it. wanthis is especially, i to talk to the young people there and the room. in the time that you have come of age, there has been a big shift in leadership it i'm going to hold something up. it used to be, it used to be leadershipship was, pyramid triangle, this of command and control where the leader needed to be at the top and have all information and things got done on the basis of because i said so. or worse, on the basis of ideology. but the nature of leadership has changed in the information age.

and the place for the leader to be now is in the center of that emerging truth. and circle of collaboration cooperation. and yes, dialogue and communication around problem-solving. asking one another every day, are the things we are doing working to achieve a better result or not? if they are, we should do more of it. if it's not, we should stop doing it and do less of it. so, that is the way that i have always governed. i think part of what has allowed me to do that is that i am of a different generation than some of my older, baby boomer brothers and sisters or parents. as fromask if an idea the left or the ride or democrat or republican, i ask whether it works. if it works, we do it. that is how we have been able to achieve some pretty nation leading results and get things

done before any political culture would tell you that it was popular. so, what does that mean for our country today? i believe that it means that we need to take action and have the guts to show people the things we are doing are actually working. we are a great people. we still have another 240 years of creative service ahead of us. that is why i have laid out 15 strategic goals to rebuild the truth of the american dream, so every family can get ahead, so that wages go up again with productivity and not down and so that a college degree is actually a gateway to a life of opportunity, not a trapdoor to a lifetime of debt. shoulders to the great challenge of climate change. leanask the create a 100% c electric energy grid by 2050 and create 5 million jobs along the way. let's be honest with one another. that is not about words.

it is about actions. in each of the goals i put forward -- things like national service to cut youth unemployment and half in the next three years. things like cutting the deaths from gun violence in half and the next 10 years. all of these have date attached to them. why? because the difference between a deadline.a goal is a these problems will not solve themselves. we need to solve them. know labels,ou, for having me with you this morning in this way and i look forward to your questions and more importantly, i look forward to your answers. and i need your help. thanks a lot. [applause] >> if you were here, you would be in the center of that knowledge. right in this stage that is all

around, all sides. the first question coming from a lady. i saw hand go up over there. let's start with you, ma'am. >> hi, i'm jessica from manchester. my question to you is rather specific. what would your energy policy look like as present? and do you think we should utilize our national resources to create jobs and grow the economy while also working on solar and wind power? governor o'malley: well, sure. let me say this. i have put forward -- i am the only candidate in my party, or i should say, i can safely say i'm the only candidate in either party -- to put forward a plan to move us to a 100% clean electric energy grid by 2050. we did not land a man on the moon with an all of the above strategy. we landed a man on the moon

because we face up a huge engineering challenge. we were intentional about the choices that we make. so, this is what -- and i, pl ease go on my website. it is jon huntsman.com. just kidding. it is actually martin o'malley.com. a prettyve put specific proposal out there among some of the leading actions to move us to that clean electric energy grid, i believe we need to stop subsidizing fossil fuel extraction and instead enact long -- [applause] enact long-term investor credits for solar and for wind. i believe that we need to embrace clean technology and energy conservation technology. moreed to see through

investments and affordable housing, the advent of a new type of housing that is net zero in energy use. they can bring forward a whole andeara of clean design clean architecture in terms of our environment. i believe we need to make the investments and a clean energy grid that wil enable us to movel the natural resources renewable resources that we have fro places wherem wind is abundant in places where energy is heavily used. what does that mean? oil of of drilling for the chesapeake bay on the east coast of the united states, we should be laying the vertebrae and the power lines so that we can create wind off the east coast were so many of our people live. in the heart of american cities, where unemployment is actually higher now in many, many cities that it was eight years ago, we need to throw ourselves into a whole program of trading,

workforce training, and retrofitting of old buildings in order to reduce energy consumption. if we do all of these things, and if we invest more rather than less in development cleaner, greener technologies like the next generation of safer nuclear, we can get to 100% clean electric grid by 2050. but it is not going to happen by itself. and it is not going to happen by embracing the stelzer. every job is important. we need to be intentional about those that might have to transition in this clean economy, but we are not going to get there without solving this problem and moving forward in intentional ways and that is what i intend to do as president. [applause] >> all right,. governor. you can see in the room we have all these green shirts, all these problems solvers, but we have a super hero is going to ask the next question. it is problem solver man.

he's ready to go. >> hello. governor o'malley, how you doing? you hear me? governor o'malley: problem solver man, do you have a theme song? >> i don't, but i'm in spandex. i have some advice for -- you are going to las vegas tonight? governor o'malley: yeah, i'm going in about an hour. somem going to give you advice my grandma gave me when i turned 21 and went to las vegas.don't gamble . be careful. but i guess my main question for you is, governor, you talked a lot about how you would be by a partisan president. within your first 100 days of office, which bipartisan restaurant would you take john boehner to? or whoever? [laughter] governor o'malley: i did not know that restaurants were partisan. and alcohol were

decidedly nonpartisan. me, problemet solver man. >> there is a question in there somewhere. governor o'malley: let me answer the call of your question that is in there somewhere. this is what i have learned as mayor and as a governor. you have to call the legislature all the time. and you have to make sure that you relate and talk to people like people. in other words, i think it was to tocqueville who said that one of the unique things about america is the strength of our soft ties, our ability to hold different political views but still be able to relate to one another as human beings. one of the sad by products if we are not careful of it of this information age is that we can program our phones, we can program rtv's, we can program

the strings of news we receive them so that we only talk to people who think most exactly like us. and there is a danger in that. some of the things we got done in maryland, we only got done with republican votes. and i believe that part of the reason that happened was because we were very intentional about having, about having nonpartisan, bipartisan pizza night at the governor mansion, making sure we broke bread and treated people decently. and invited people to, you know, a holliday at the house and all sorts of other things regardless of party label. not for some republican votes, i would not have been able to repeal the death penalty. something that took us three tries. i would not have been able to pass marriage equality. again, something that took us

three ties and we were only able to do because of republican votes. [applause] and researched the priority bills that i put in as governor, i was happy to see that 75% of and we only do a dozen every session, 75% received bipartisan support and the majority republican support in one house or the other. to stay focused on the goals that unite us and the principles that unite us. i believe in the dignity and responsibility to address the common good we share. >> thank you governor. essentially more pizza parties in congress. it's not thatley: simple. sometimes it does come down to just treating people like

human beings and picking up the phone and calling members and asking their perspective, knowing what their wives names are, owing what they do in life, knowing who their kids are. you have to treat them like people. >> we have 10 minutes left. let's see if we can get another question in. how about we do lightning round? very good. my name is ken mason and i'm a resident of new hampshire. i made the mistake of going on youtube and looking at the 1992 presidential debates. what i saw was the exact same issues that are being brought up this year. it tells me that nothing effective is happening in more washington.s in you are a person of great

influence. i think that's great. what i'm asking you today is what will you do to unlock that gridlock, regardless of whether you are elected president or not? [applause] governor o'malley: i believe all of us have a responsibility to stay at the table, not to check out, not to assume that big money has taken over politics, not to assume the outcome is determined before we have the conversation. that is what i intend to do. that is what i've done all my life. solution to the gridlock that we see now. i would push back on you a debt, i think it is worse now than it was in 1992. whenffered a huge setback our country was nearly plunged into a second great depression.

this is what i believe, talking to young people, i rarely find among people under 30, young americans that deny climate change is real or think we shouldn't come together to do something about it. i really find young americans who want to bash immigrants. [applause] people thatd young want to deny rights to gay couples and their children. that tells me we are moving and a better direction and a more connected, generous place. i intend to continue to speak to that place and call forward the good energy of our next generation. lightning round has resulted in a lightning bolt taking me off stage. we want to thank you from baltimore, maryland for your willingness to be here. you are the first, but you want be the last and thank you for taking questions and for your candor.

ladies and gentlemen, governor martin o'malley. thank you. [applause] all caps and long, c-span takes you on the road to the white house. at town hall meetings, rallies, and speeches. we are taking your comments on twitter, facebook, and by phone. every campaign event we cover is on our website at c-span.org. president obama has promised to veto the defense programs bill passed by congress earlier this month. pentagon operations and military pay. senator john mccain and representative mac thornberry, the chairman of the senate and house armed services committees will talk about the pending veto. live at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two.

coming up next, a discussion on the syrian refugee crisis. followed by washington journal at 7:00, live with your calls and this morning's headlines. recent estimates have nearly 4 million people displaced as a result of the ongoing war in syria. officials from the state department and the commissioner for refugees were part of a discussion that focus on the humanitarian challenges and the will responses so far. . the bipartisan policy center in washington, d.c. >> walking to the partisan by -- bipartisan policy center, and together with theresa brown for the immigration task force, we are pleased to welcome you to today's event on the refugee crisis in syria, europe, and the u.s. response.

a few new stories may frame our discussion a little bit. with russian backing, the syrian government renewed an offensive and aleppo that caused another 70,000 syrians to leave and causing new wave of refugees entering neighboring countries that are already hosting many refugees, including lebanon, jordan, iraq, kurdistan, and turkey. the kurdish prime minister responded to this and angela accept and we cannot understanding like give us money and they stand turkey, turkey is not a concentration camp and for those of you that noticed a chill in the air, the new york times reports about the challenges facing refugees traveling to europe with winter coming. of refugees and migrants, not just from syria but across the middle east and other regions trying to enter europe, and with the u.s. grappling with the response, it

feels like the conversation is often boiled down to two extremes between imperatives of giving humanitarian aid to those in need and the security challenges of letting people who we don't know into our country. since we're the bipartisan policy center, we would like to explore all choices and binary choices, we want to bring a conversation together to explore humanitarian security imperatives and dealing with the refugee crisis and thinking about how we need to balance the needs. we havethat discussion, christian roberts, the national editor of politico. she directs the toy 16 presidential race and help sky approach to large stories. she reported on wall street and economics from new york and miami and defensive foreign

policy before moving to newsroom leadership. holds masters degrees from georgetown university and columbia as well as a bachelors from these he's very on george washington. i would like to invite kristen to come to sage. -- the stage. kristen: this is a very important conversation, i want to thank everybody for joining us here. syria isart by saying not the only country in the world generating refugees. million in the world. the united states takes the largest proportion. the case for the 4 million syrian refugees is different. we are going to talk about how to balance the security and humanitarian dimension of this the crisis. we have an excellent panel. , the start with larry

senior resettlement officer for the united states high commissioner for refugees. me, the bureau of population refugees and migration. at the end, the director of advocacy for the lutheran refugee service. of the program of extremism at the george wehington university, and have the senior fellow of the german marshall fund. i think the right place to start is by getting an idea of the scope of this crisis. larry, can you help us understand the magnitude? this isou mentioned certainly one of the times for displacement,l all-time high since world war ii. 60 million people displaced, of those, 60 million refugees at this point -- 16 million

refugees, a quarter of which are the 4.1 million syrians. we are seeing the international community dealing with the biggest crisis of refugees in decades depending on how you look at it. they could be since world war ii. it is such an enormous catastrophe of humanitarian issues. it comes at a time where we are resettlementarge emergencies whether that is in central african republic, yemen, central america, sudan, it is already coming at a time when the system has been extremely taxed. there are dimensions i think we have seen with the syrian crisis with 7.6 million displaced as

all, you are looking at situation where half of a country's population is either displaced or refugees. an even larger number are needing some sort of international assistance with over 12 million. one of the things for us if we talk about the numbers, they become almost unimaginably big. you lose people in the numbers because you keep seeing so many. i think there has been an unprecedented and good international response whether it's their funding. i think we will talk later about resettlement and humanitarian movements. it is still an emergency. i think for myself i have been in refugee work for a while, going back to the vietnamese era. have a curvecies

to them come up they sort of begin to slack off at some point. we are on the third year and there is no slacking. what we see is a metamorphosis of this emergency, changing into different layers, more refugees from different locations and different causes spilling into neighboring countries like with iraq where we have seen 3 million internally displaced. is a huge emergency and finally, coupled with what we have seen in the last two months, people migrating into europe. anotheror europe, it is unprecedented since world war ii kind of emergency. i don't know if i said the word big and large enough. , whetherhat all of us it is international organizations, countries, and refugees, we are in the midst of

something that has really been beyond what most of us had ever experienced kristin:. can you talk about how this compared to other crises? unique, refugee flow is one thing to know about the syrians is since the beginning of the conflict, the u.s. has only welcomed about 1900 syrians. with soe huge number many worldwide, we really have not opened the doors in the u.s. yet to syrians arriving here. some of the other refugee crises that we have responded to such as kosovo. the response of bringing individuals to the u.s. is more immediate. theywe resettle people, had fresh trauma, violence they had just experienced. many of the syrians now are being told that they are being

told -- it could be three or four years. a highlyre seeing is traumatized population, almost all syrian families have experienced a death, a husband, a brother, a child. but they are not able to find that immediate protection they need. that is one big difference. a comparison would be to central america, where we have heard interviews of young men leading -- leaving syria who said my choice was stay here or die or get on a boat and face the possibility of death there. with central american children being interviewed, we also hear the same story. i can stay here, they staff at ds of a gang or try to find safety maybe in costa rica or mexico. the choice is the same. death in my home country where possible death on the journey to safety.

though there are differences on scale and what's happening in syria, we see similarities in levels of trauma as well as desperation to find safety among all refugee populations. kristin: is it possible to talk about the demographics of the people you are seeing coming out of the refugee crises? larry: the demographics as far as gender, it is a 50-50 split if you look through each of the countries, turkey, lebanon, iran, jordan, and egypt. age, looking at what we have about a 50-50 split, 50% would be 18 and under and 50% over. there is a relatively small number of elderly. that would be people my age and older.

out about 3% are making it as refugees. that is a bit of a difference in population. i would say in the sense that we see a lot of women and children is common to many refugee situations. the migration that is happening to europe is more male, younger, partly because it's risky. i would think some of the motivation for people to move is running out of resources in the host countries. job of say unprecedented receiving refugees if you go to lebanon and see that one out of three people we are approaching is a refugee. proportionally if we put that in the u.s. though be the u.s. hosting 100 million people and having the children be in

,chools and using resources public resources, etc.. some ofthe fact that the countries are not signatories in the convention, they have maintained generally open borders although at the moment you see borders closing. as borders close and options close, people go on the move. i also go to a thing on demographics is, you saw people that were relatively well off. people middle and had resources when they left, and they have gone through those resources. i think the situation is changing and the level of desperation is changing as time goes on. is international community growing only at 4%. that means food ration cut by world food program, other kinds of educational supplements. the experience of kids in schools. were is also that curve and

are seeing changes in the way the population looks. certain people heading out because they are running out of options. undern: what is your view refugees coming to the united states is at similar? what about the security implications? can you talk about the countries in europe who are taking many of thosefugees, what numbers are, and the burden it brings? i could start with larry again. larry: we have had a resettlement of about 30 countries involved, and movement as big as the united states, to my favorite liechtenstein which has pledged places. just to give you an idea. also other countries outside of the region who have made opportunities available.

that is on one side, resettlement, of course there is a much larger number of the people directly leading into europe at this point. we have seen arrivals of 6000 people per day. over 500,000 asylum applications filed in europe since the start. the countries bearing the brunt andront -- taking a good responsibility would be countries like germany, sweden, you see countries such as norway taking.,

, we have seen a response from many countries. i think there are still once we hope would do more. there will also be an inter-european plan that has been put in place by the european union. at the same time, we have seen certain countries putting up fences, some of my colleagues have described a new iron curtain coming down. to stop the flow of refugees. you mentioned germany, they promised to take hundreds of thousands of refugees, but then germany has been criticized by some members of the press for that bringing a threat to german culture. hungarian officials are talking about the threat of terrorism related to this. is this a fair concern? no, it is a fair concern in the sense that security is important, the sense that integration is important. ,ut to view the refugee flow willy of security, you hear there are terrorists embedded and extremists embedded

, i think that is a mistake. it is a major issue of integration and inclusion of whether or not the europe of the future, particularly the new europe, countries that you mentioned, central and east european countries, will they be open and are they going to integrate? populations that frankly don't look like them or may not have the same religion. in addition to the humanitarian questions that up and raised, of security cap -- challenges that are present. i don't want to say silver linings in this, but one of the positive outcomes could be that europe is now grappling with and will decide whether it is open to immigration or whether it is closed. we have seen leadership from germany and france and other countries. we have also seen a rise in far right movements and far right

political parties. grabbing more and more seats like in switzerland, most recently, and we have seen violence against, you mentioned germany. their elected official in munich was stabbed cousin of her -- because of her views on immigration. wehink we're seeing a lot of actions, a lot of negative reactions. happy that europe is grappling with these issues and could emerge unified. they could emerge in a position to speak with one voice. croatia,een romania, who initially sort of wanted to they are talking about it as opposed to the other countries like hungary. who are just putting up barbed fences.

the positive outcome in this sense is framing the issue. i think from a security point of view, the debate gets very heated and politicized. we have seen statements not just from hungarian officials but other political forces that try to exploit the conservatives about the terrorist threat in europe but it is not necessarily linked to the refugee crisis. i think if we looked at the itts, i am not saying doesn't exist completely because anecdotally we can find examples. we have such large numbers. it is statistically impossible that everybody will not be linked to, you cannot at least find one or two people linked to terrorism. if we look at the numbers and events of the last few years, we did not see that. u.s., we justthe included as a center of study

the 17 individuals arrested in the u.s.. not one of them is a refugee. the people arrested for the last year and a half, with links to isis, 40% of them are converts born in the u.s.. the vast majority are people who are born and bred in the u.s.. you have a few from some alley dissent of refugee background -- if youn background, but look at europe more or less, if you look at the attacks perpetrated in europe with a syrian like for the last two years, all of them have been perpetrated by people who have long lived in europe or are of europe with no links to syria who have not gone the fight there is foreign fighters. so far we have seen is a and aown terrorism threat

lot of western countries and not so much importing terrorism from syrian refugees. we have seen a few cases here and there and i think most of them have to be decided by courts. , othera case in italy refugees, talking about coming from libya with a couple of cases from bulgaria and the czech republic. we will see a second what the evidence says but we are talking anecdotal. if we look at the big numbers, the 5000 individuals went gone most are second or third generation european citizens or a large number of converts depending on the country. really, the link is disproven by facts. kristin: let's stick with this because there are many officials who are attempting to cite things as fact. one such fact goes to the demographic question that a large number of the people who

are coming from syria into of, forre primarily men lack of a better description, fighting age. is that something you attributed to the difficulty of the journey? you sure that you? we do see the majority are men, half of them are women, it tends to the younger people. it is a difficult journey. even more if you take the southern route from libya to tunisia. obviously, that is why younger people are taking the trip and all the people do not. younger people, for obvious attempt. the fact that they are military age goes with that and i understand the concern. i am not saying because of the that wee recent past,

have not seen a terrorist threat coming from people who come as refugees, they should not be disregarded. it is difficult to triage the thousands of people that come in every day.. it is very clear that some of these people have been fighting and are involved in the conflict. the stories can range from people who, we have seen many examples of people who were involved in terrorist groups are supposedly coming to europe as simple traders. in many cases you had people who were fighting and for one reason or another became disillusioned and left. have people who have been pictured with machine guns who and themon -- come in european media has lots of pictures like that. but you cannot really blame certain individuals from a

certain part of syria, it doesn't make him a terrorist. at the same time it would be naive box check for what is possible. larry: it is a humanitarian and security challenge. there is a propaganda war going on. our own recent report from the homeland security committee on foreign fighters points to isis out there on social media, talking about embedding their people in these refugee clothes. if we accept what they are saying as the truth, let's take a closer look. let's really think about this and not just fall into what i view as isis propaganda. of course it's in their interest to make europe not want to take these refugees, a fuels the

narrative of the west doesn't want to, stay away. theset of accept conventional thoughts as a given but it really does require when you are making major policy decisions to allocate resources with large parts of europe. we do have to dig and understand what is happening. >> i think another thing that is often lost, a lot of the agencies are dealing with this, any military activity is something that we are interested in. there are mandatory conscription's into the syrian army so there is a lot of talk about terrorist organizations, we are on guard because some of these people may have been in the syrian military as well. but if they work, they avoided it because there's lots of ways

to not be in the syrian military. is perhaps the deal he -- of people dealing with the issue being naive, people are not looking for people are not looking for issues. in interviewing cases, particularly when you get to resettlement which is highly individualized, or asylum when you spend a lot of time with the individual, this is going to be a big part of every interview. particularly if you are a male. and there is country of origin information, there are resources you go to. there are experts who follow these issues. and when things are unclear, i would say the process stops until they are clear. we also cover the caribbean and other regions. we have some syrians that have been in the caribbean. i see all the submissions coming

to the u.s. and a great deal of time is spent exploring peoples -- what did you do, what was your military history, what was your situation. what intersections did you have with the conflict? was it a combatant or a supporter, etc.? so one of the things i would love to dispel is the idea that -- that there is a big split between those who are concerned about security and of those who are concerned about humanitarian agency. everyone in the humanitarian field knows that if you don't have security, you will lose confidence in the system. and the general public in countries will lose confidence. and i think that is something we can't afford. that is why governments are on the lookout and looking at these issues. i can tell you there is extensive paperwork on

individuals that we have ways of looking into cases. the other thing i would say is like most systems of security, it depends on multiple layers. there is never a single layer. there's not a single layer when you get on the airplane. there's not a single layer when you cross the border. any kind of security approach is a multilayer approach. and there has to be a dovetailing of humanitarian issues that we are looking at as well as the security. and i think everybody that i have worked with is committed to making those things work together. >> can you make that a fuller picture. ? how many agencies are involved when you're doing a security check on a particular refugee? >> we are often the first stop or many refugees dealing with host countries, particularly in

turkey where the government takes on a bigger role. in syria, we have contact with other governments ongoing, so if there are security issues. governments will often be reporting most back to us. does a limit that government can say to us because there's issues of sources and information flows. at the same time we work with , experts in the field and we write papers on specific issues. and we have quite a lengthy paper of particular triggers that might come up in cases that move cases over to those who would do more extensive interviewing in cases that might be put on hold. all countries have a security process. the u.s. is not alone on this. everybody does tend to be multilayered. the two things i would just say in general that they divide between my metrics so taking

, things like fingerprints -- and one thing unique in the syrian situation is this the first refugee emergency where we have such a high level of metrics. we have over 1.6 million syrians with iris scans -- virtually all of the registered population in lebanon, jordan, egypt and iraq. in turkey, the government is in charge of that. they are taking fingerprints. we have never had that kind of level of biometrics, along with digital photographs that are part of the system. that's a new element. knowing the consistency of identity is one key element, being able to go back for five years and say that's the same person. i have been asked by a number of journalists why we haven't always done that? i always say, why didn't i have

a memory stick that could hold 50 gigabytes 10 years ago? it's a matter of of the technology being able to operate in a field location in a reliable fashion. our turnaround time with an iris scan at this point is three seconds. it's not the full answer, but it layer and to get across that there are layers people have to get through. >> can you talk about the security process? >> refugees who are resettling in the united states are subject to the highest level of security checks. no category of traveler receives a higher category of security checks. it includes the participation of a number of u.s. government agencies. the federal bureau of investigation and a number of other agencies. as larry was saying, it is true that people who work on

humanitarian programs are not completely separated from the people who work on the security side because we are very aware if an individual refugee came through the program and committed an act of terrorism, it could threaten the entire refugee resettlement program. because the american people have been so welcoming to refugees over the years, we over to them -- oh it to them to make sure these refugee program is as free as possible from people who have a known intent or reason to do harm in the united states. >> it looked like you wanted to say something when we were talking about being aware of the security problems. >> i would just after what has been said here. kelly said exactly what i was eager to say which is that , refugees receive more scrutiny than anyone else coming to the u.s.

that's not something that is widely known. i think it is assumed that because the u.s. leads the world in resettling refugees, that it is an act of compassion, an act of humanitarian goodwill, and separate from concerns about national security. as kelly just explained, it is really an interwoven process that does involve multiple security checks. it is important to point out that the process of vetting someone currently takes 18 months. we are not talking about a quick run the iris scan, run the fingerprint check, and you are on a plane in a week. 18 months to go through the background check and vetting process. that is something to think about. if we are undertaking resettlement as a humanitarian act, we want to make sure the system has integrity, but it does need to be balanced as well with not allowing a family to

languish in a camp or allowing a a family with medical concerns to wait even longer than 18 months to finish the process. we do need to strike that balance between keeping our homeland safe and completing the humanitarian purpose of refugee settlements. >> let's talk about the u.s. response in particular. r 2016, the u.s. promised to settle 10,000 refugees. is that enough? >> my organization thinks it is woefully inadequate. 4.1 million syrian refugees worldwide and in the united states, they are pledging to accept 10,000 syrians in the coming fiscal year. if lebanon is currently hosting the equivalent of 100 million,

if they were in the u.s. it , would be 100 million refugees from syria. we are talking about you can see 10,000. the difference of what countries in the region are taking on and what the united states is pledging. a reasonable exercise of burden sharing would suggest 10,000 year in united states is just not enough. one reason i say that so confidently is the united states is very proud of the leadership role we play in humanitarian relief. for years, the u.s. has welcomed more refugees than any other nation worldwide. it is something our government takes very seriously. there is absolutely not the case when it comes to syrians. we are lagging behind. we are seeing europe grapple with these issues. we are seeing the region really strain to keep up with the demand that they are facing. to do our part, we would need to

resettle many, many more syrians. agencies like mine that resettle refugees are calling on the united states to resettle 100,000 syrians this year. we think that's a much more responsible number when it comes to foreign-policy concerns and when it comes to humanitarian assistance. let's keep the process secure, but let's also step up and do our part to welcome this highly traumatized population into our community. >> what you think as a group and individual obviously think the disconnect is due to -- the disconnect between the history of welcoming refugees and the unwillingness to welcome these refugees? >> that's a great question. the agencies that resettle refugees work together under an umbrella known as refugee council usa. one of the biggest factors seems

to be political will. we know where there's a will, there's a way. after the wars in southeast asia, the u.s. resettle 111,000 vietnamese and we double that number in 1980. we can do this as a country. we can resettle a large number of refugees safely. and now, americans are proud of the role we played with the vietnamese boat people. it is something often pointed to as a bright spot in u.s. history. we're not seeing the same level of political will when it comes to the syrian refugees. we would not be talking about 10,000 if we really were responding on par to how we responded to the vietnamese situation. >> could i jump in here? obviously i disagree with that. ,britney is right. the united states is proud of

our refugee resettlement program that has admitted more than 3 million refugees since we are 1975. the largest refugee settlement in the world. last year, we brought in nearly 70,000 refugees from several different processing locations from all corners of the world. our resettlement program is very different from the other 29 or 30 companies that do resettlement. even countries that have large programs like australia and canada may in a given year interviewed 10 or 12 locations and bring in a relatively small number of refugees. britney mentioned earlier that it takes 18 months to vet a refugee to come to the united states. we are not spending 18 months doing security checks. one of the reasons we say 18 to 24 months for a refugee to come to the united states is that we will accept a referral of any nationality in any location at any time. at any given time, we've got something like a quarter million

people who are turning to the system somewhere or they are just applying and coming to a plane on the united states. that said, we are not the fastest program in the world. it's a large ship that takes a long time to turn. since we have admitted more than 2007, 126,000 refugees. if you look back to 2007, we brought in about 1600 iraqi refugees that year. in 2008, we brought in 12,000. after that, we were bringing in close to 20,000 for many years in a row. the program is just now gearing up. it's just ramping up. this morning, i checked and we have received almost 20,000 referrals, so we are in the process of vetting those and getting them ready for dhs interviews. we will have a huge number of interviews and i think we will get to 10,000, but the notion we can get to 100,000 refugees when we don't have nearly the capacity to send referrals for

100,000 refugees is just not possible. >> to your question, it can be a number of things. it can be our political cycle. we have both parties running around, no one wants to take a risk on higher numbers. whatever the case, i think what this has exposed is whether or not countries are open to receiving refugees. obviously, we are. we made that decision generations ago. the debate at the national level in this country are not about do we or do we not, it's how many, how do we do it, the implementation, the resources and so forth. what we are seeing in europe is a conversation that is several steps behind. you have heads of state saying

things like we will take the christian refugees but we won't take the muslim refugees. this is 2015 and you have people talking like that at the national level, so this has exposed a deep conversation that europe, particularly eastern europe and central europe, have not yet resolved. it's not absent in the rest of your. there are certainly problems there as we talked about earlier, but that's an important piece. our orientation is open and there are countries in europe whose orientation is not open. >> larry, you wanted to jump in. larry: we are looking at this point for 400,000 probably in the next four or five years. my answer would the we would like the u.s. to do more because we would like all the countries to do more.

i would say that of the 20,000 we have made referrals to the u.s., it is true and it does put it at an earlier stage in the u.s. process. the other general ask is we are looking at ways to streamline processes, are there ways to do things better? are there other avenues by which people can move? there may be detection protection opportunities that could be provided through other means rather than purely resettlement. i think that there are efficiencies to be made. if you look at the u.s., the narrative is a bit strange. resettle refugees are some time seeing as a greater danger and there have been 30,000 u.s. visas issued to syria. many of them were in the u.s. already. they were all expatriates.

those were not refugees. it's not like syrians are not here. there is a syrian community, there is migration. migration happens to the u.s. whether it's non-immigration coming through school, visitors or people migrating through immigrant visas, etc. i think , the syrian crisis really put something out in front, which is that we have to be more creative. we have to build up the capacity to be able to make the kind of referrals that would yield 400,000 people. it's a big lift. we have done these things in the past, but it does take time. my hope is we can maintain a really positive trajectory which for the u.s. would be five times more syrians being admitted next year. that's certainly the goal we want to work with the u.s. on

and see where we take it. we did see the same thing that with the iraqi program. it seemed like it would stop the program in its tracks, but i do think it has to be the political will. not just the u.s. political will, but everybody's will. and we have to get past this narrative that there's something fundamentally worse about syrian refugees than everyone else. i think that these problems can be worked through. they are not insurmountable issues. they are doable and it's a matter of getting the pieces in place and the resources in place to do them. every country, we are running into this. i've looked at the referral versus departure numbers. i would say other than sweden and a couple of other countries, the gap is unacceptable from the time we get cases to arrival.

right? are they doing >> the swedes are known for their speed. the numbers are not ever going to be comparable to the u.s. or canada or australia. the swedes are also receiving a lot of spontaneous arrivals. so they probably do see a time for themselves of having a viable resettlement process is an option so they probably don't have to make their way to the border of sweden to make an assignment act location. -- asylum application. that's one of the main reasons to do resettlement. 90% are not meant to be resettle. even at 10%, it is the give and the outlet for the most vulnerable to show there some tangible support that countries in the region are hosting these fantastically large numbers. it's one thing to put money into a program and it's another to take people. i think both of those have to part of the international response.

if it's just one or the other, i do not want to say paying your way out of the problem, but it has to be more than just putting money out there. that's why people are migrating irregularly because they don't have other legal options to move. >> larry talked about resources and political will. the other thing that we have to acknowledge is that there are budget realities. there has to be political will not just on the part of the administration but on the part of congress to fund a resettlement program. the u.s. refugee resettlement program is an extremely expensive endeavor. my bureau at the state department spent about $400 million last year admitting 70,000 refugees. we are going to need more to bring in 85,000. the department of health and human services office of refugee resettlement also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on our program. we at least in the state

department -- we have a limited amount of money to fund resettlement and humanitarian assistance. the more refugees we resettle, the less money we have for humanitarian assistance. it can impact a far greater number of people in the region. it is one thing for refugees to be calling for 100,000 syrians, which obviously we are not going to make the entire program syrians, but you have to have a program of 200,000 to accommodate that. we need significantly more money than we are getting now. i'm not sure many of us have confidence we're going to get that money from congress. >> i completely agree with kelly's that congress has a role point to play here. it would not be responsible to accept refugees without the resources that they need to adjust to life in the u.s., to become acclimated, to learn a new language. so that's right. there has to be a commensurate level of financial support to go along with the political will.

i don't want to leave the audience with the perception though that refugees are just sucking up resources. that is not the case. most of the refugees we help resettle become self-sufficient very, very quickly. that is one of the department of state's goals -- that individuals who are resettle to the u.s. become both financially self-sufficient as well as able to live independently. we know communities are made richer who resettle refugees. they gain in resources from refugees who open businesses, who contribute to the economy of their community, and the amount of time refugees are eligible for public assistance is very limited. there is an eight month window where a refugee receives cash assistance. after that, they are expected to become completely self-sufficient. there is an outlay of resources

at the beginning of the process , but the country as a whole benefits from resettling refugees. >> i'm anxious to get to the audience q&a, but there's one i want to focus on when talking about political will. there are two words that did not come out of any of your mouths -- one is prejudice and one is fear. how are fear and prejudice in congress or among officials and politicians in particular affecting the u.s. approach here? any of you? >> i mentioned the isis propaganda. people see this stuff and we are already self-conscious in the united states about not being able to measure up to isis, the so-called amazing isis social media presence, which i don't think is all that amazing. we sort of recycled conversations in this country when it comes to fear mongering and particularly when it comes

to the middle east. it is driven by prejudice, it is driven by racism, it is driven by fear of islam and jihad and so forth. it also raises the issue when related to the sweden question of leadership. but we are not seeing is that kind of leadership. it may be a political election cycle, but we will still allocate resources for this in -- enormous humanitarian crisis. we are not seeing that. i'm disappointed that i'm not seeing this in our country at the level i think we should, but more importantly we're not , seeing it in europe. you are not seeing it in the kind of numbers that we should be. what you are seeing in europe, last week -- and this was mentioned in the opening -- let's shift a check over to turkey and say keep your

refugees or build bigger walls is basically what the eu council ended up with. let's hope in december when they meet again, they can come up with something more creative and something that actually says europe has leadership and we will set aside resources and actually tackle this issue head on as opposed to hiding behind fear and prejudice and misinformation. >> just a quick side thing about isis messaging and our own week counter messaging, trying to see the bright side, this could be potentially something that could undermine the isis narrative. people are voting with their feet and moving out of isis-controlled territory. isis has issued a lot of communiques and videos denouncing people who leave the so-called islamic state, accusing them of blasphemy because they leave the entity they think they have established.

it is something we're not really exploiting from a counter narrative perspective. people who live there want to leave. yes you have a few individuals , in the west who want to go and live there, but aside from that, the majority of people do not want to live under isis-controlled territory. so we are missing the opportunity for a counter messaging point of view. some of the messages, particularly in europe, the most xena phobic parts of europe are problematic and enduring as far as the narrative there is a big difference between the european experience with muslim immigration and the american experience with muslim immigration. two very different demographics. there are unquestionably some

tensions in europe that do exist. they get exploited by certain forces, but i think some of them are undeniable. they do drive some the debates there. but in the u.s., i don't really see the tensions. terrorism is kind of the tip of the iceberg. it's more about cultural cleavages that do exist. in europe, they do exist. i said, they are exploited. it is a bit puzzling in a way, the position in the u.s. compared to the european ones, but i think it is more puzzling to see the american one. >> just one quick comment. we do have tensions in this country, but we also have mechanisms, just a real force what you are saying -- to reinforce what you're saying. we have community mechanisms and resilient mechanisms to try to work out those issues and tensions. we have controls over violence and far right extremist parties and extremist groups. in europe, we are not seeing that.

in europe, you sort of have a runaway train at the highest levels. i think that is something that is an issue. just to be clear -- not all of europe, but in certain parts of europe, you are seeing it as part of the national discourse and you are seeing national leaders get in on the side of issues that i think is appalling to have national leadership voice some of those views. >> we have heard in the u.s. some members of congress, some state and local officials expressed fear about welcoming the syrian refugee population . to go back to the words that you mentioned, those expressions don't mention fear or prejudice. it's usually security and terrorism that are the talking points that are driving some of the conversation in the u.s. i do want to point out though that my organization as well as

council usa partners have been overwhelmed with a positive response from the american people. our phones ring every day with offers of how can i help? i would like to welcome a syrian family into my home. where can i donate money? there is an outpouring of sympathy and a desire among many americans to help. much of that was awakened after the photograph of the young child whose body washed ashore in greece. it has not abated. we continue to be impressed with the outpouring of generosity and welcomes that many americans are demonstrating in response to this. want to point out that we may be hearing some politicians and there is a debate to be had about the security of the refugee resettlement program, but there is also a very genuine

desire to help. >> let's have some questions. wait for the microphone, please. >> my question is for kelly about things the u.s. can do to streamline the program. there was an article in the new york times recently that noted that in lebanon, they cannot go to lebanon because there's a rule that says u.s. officials have to sleep at the embassy. but there's no room for them, so we have not had any face to face intervenes for a long time. one bottleneck.

another that i have been told about is one of the hurdles you have to clear is proving you are a refugee and i have heard advocates say if you are from syria and you can prove you are syrian, you are a refugee given how bad things are in the country. what do you think of those issues in general? >> it's not a dhs policy that dhs officers have to stay on the compound. it is the embassy security officer who has made that rule. we don't want to blame that on the department of homeland security. unfortunately, we see those sorts of challenges and any places. we brought in last year 71 nationalities from close to 100 locations. we are operating in some pretty remote and sometimes dangerous parts of the world. for almost a year, we were unable to get people into baghdad and had to shut down our direct application process.

we had challenges not getting officers into other locations because of boko haram violence and targeting people into sudan. the challenges because of the places that were facing challenges like that. your question about whether dhs could determine whether it's a prima fascia refugee -- i think that something dhs would have to respond to. but i know that they are looking at a variety of ways for streamlining processing. >> we had a major improvement with security checks over the summer that consolidates some of

our security checks which range we don't have to wait at the very end for a final of one of the checks. see as weat we will move through fy 16 that processing times will come down. let's go to the side of the room in the third row. >> i am in the middle of this refugee flow. i would like to make three brief remarks. as the structure is concerned it is not just syrians. there are substantial numbers of others, pakistanis, afghanistan he's. it is broader than just syrians. primarily young males

but a great number of young families. so some of them are still able to pay for the taxi driver. remark, i disagree with this remark that europe should come with a better answer in the year. this should definitely not the a european problem. it is a global problem. the third remark as far as this balance between the humanitarian and security approach is true. there should be a certain balance meeting, we haven't closed the border. we are letting the refugees in.

accommodate and process 1500 people per day but not more. soon, tens of thousands of people on our border. 10 of them through the border crossings. as i said, soaos. far, austria, germany can process that. but as i said this is a temporary solution. we cannot accommodate more than 10,000 people in slovenia. this is an issue that requires much broader answer. not just my country or countries in the direction of refugees but europe and the international community as a whole. >> right behind you. >> thank you. i'm glad the panel acknowledged nativism and xenophobia.

that it plays in this crisis. i don't think in the united states at least those attitudes are evenly dispersed across both political parties. what can the president of the united states do under his existing executive authority as opposed to what additional authority would he need from congress in order to do more than he's doing? >> specifically in terms of refugee resettlement? it is a requirement in the refugee act of 1980 that the administration consult with congress prior to issuing a determination for the upcoming year. this year secretary kerry did consult with the house and senate judiciary committees before the president issued the determination that allows us to admit up to 85,000 refugees if at some point in the year it looks as though we might have the capacity to exceed 85,000, the president would need to send a cabinet level official to congress and consult with them.

explaining my believe the number should be higher. back to resources. to go even higher than that requires additional resources and we would need additional resources from congress for that. >> let's stay right here and i will go back to the other side of the room. >> thank you. i am a congressional reporter. immigration reporter. i just wrote a book on the 1965 act. there is a civil right here we cannot discriminate against race, creed, national origin. i don't think that exists in other countries. they do have the right if they don't want to have muslims in hungary, they have the right to say that. i don't know if they have a civil rights law.

immigration is not a civil right. what i wanted to ask was, refugees here get a green card after a year, so it is an immigration issue. is that true in europe? are we talking about refugees as being permanent or is there a temporary status in europe? why isn't there pressure on saudi arabia and other arab countries to take in these refugees? >> there is a requirement if you become a european union member you sign on to a set of core principles. one of those is rejection of xenophobia. it is not as if now -- there are other questions about whether it conflicts with national constitutions. if you're a member of the european union you sign on to a set of core principles. i can't answer the second question but the third question on saudi arabia, there is a

simple reason why -- we have asked them to do more but i don't think we should because what saudi arabia is doing is fueling the wars in part in the middle east. you want partners that you can trust and partners who will actually want a resolution and will not -- saudi arabia is bombing entire shiite villages in yemen. you think they are going to care about refugee flows going into europe? i don't think so. >> on the second question, for those who are being resettled who actually resettlement programs, yes, they would move toward gaining permanent citizenship. every country has a different timeline and different program.

the german program and the austrian program do not necessarily come with at guaranty. -- with that guaranty. the german government could design for example to have a process, when people move now it is not with the assurance they will be able to move toward citizenship. the rights given under most humanitarian mission programs are virtually parallel to what

refugees get other than this sort of pathway to citizenship. those applying directly into asylum programs, would, in almost all the countries in europe are signatories at the refugee convention they have implementing legislation of that convention so once people move from asylum there are procedures . they vary widely and how you become a citizen from ones that look like the u.s. to the swiss which is a different kind of process where you have to apply to your local community and have a book opened on you and people vote on whether you become a citizen. it is consistent with their national policy that refugees would be part of. >> one in the back and we will come to the front. >> thank you. my question is for everybody on the panel. you spoke about many of the security aspects which are insured in the u.s.. we and germany are experiencing many problems at the moment. police officers do not and cannot register all the refugees that are flooding into germany and they say this openly in newspapers. some refugees are currently

refusing to give their fingerprints when they are being registered. many iraqi's or turkish citizens pertained to be syrians that can simply buy a passport or in greece there was an article in foreign policy. they just pretend they are from syria. how can we cope with these problems and ensure that those immigrants comply with our rules and that people -- and they are not people just strive for economic wealth? >> it is a -- the homeland security task force report that just came out last month spoke to a piece of what you are saying. we need to do a better job, the u.s. does, of sharing lists we've not yet shared with our european partners including interpol. that is a nice thing that has been exposed. maybe now people will work on sharing that information.

maybe that will alleviate concern i think you mentioned. beyond that. >> i think it is important for people to know the refugee convention itself does have many provisions. what the responsibilities are for refugees to comply with national law. it is an issue of having the mechanisms in place, the opportunities. there are requirements that a

person seeking asylum -- their obligations on the states, on the asylum-seekers. to the extent in any given country i think it is a matter of having procedures in place. opportunities. there is an international -- something that are allowed. detaining esop -- a silence -- detaining asylum seekers. the things -- there are things about applying the national law. in some cases, requirements might be the same as what is required of other nationals. each country passes different implementing. as an international standard, refugees and asylum-seekers can be asked to apply with reasonable standards for registration, status determination. from the u.n. perspective, there are mechanisms that could be put in place and that refugees should be given access to. the question is make sure they have access to procedures. sometimes we see many procedures that are good on paper but refugees don't end up having true access to those. >> i think your question highlights the fact that we are talking about apples and oranges. the focus has been on the resettlement program which is a

program whereby we send officials out in an orderly process, work with the u.n., select and decide who will come to the united states. we have the luxury of doing security checks before we allow someone to come across the border. you are dealing with a different influx in europe so that's why it is harder for us to compare and give advice in terms of what germany is facing. >> here, please. >> allison campbell from interviews. i wondered if you could give us

any visibility into levels of support for turkey. i understand that turkey is being offered support if the refugees back up there for any length of time or released into new registration centers increase in other places. can you give us visibility into increased levels of u.s. support in the region? somewhat related question about provision of humanitarian information to refugees. we in our organization and perhaps some others, speaking to refugees, giving them information they need is actually a window to build trust and draw information out of those populations to make narratives more visible and understand who they are. >> what was the question on your second? >> any suspected increase in resources from usg in the region? to what extent does prm and unh see -- >> on the first question because i am the deputy director of our resettlement program i don't have a lot of granularity into where the four $.5 billion the u.s. government has provided to

support refugees in the region, i don't know how much of that is going to turkey. in terms of messaging to refugees, one of the things that we know is a possible vulnerability in our program, because it takes a long time to process refugees are

resettlement there are people out there who can try to take advantage of that and try to exploit refugees by saying things like, i can make your case go faster if you pay me to do xyz. that is one of the things we're trying to make sure refugees throughout the process have a better idea of where their case is, how much longer it will take. that's something we're working out on the resettlement side. >> obviously counseling -- if you're involved in any protections engagement with the refugee when they're coming to you with particular problems and you are going to be trying to resolve that, there's a number of layers. if you are talking about

migration side of things, obviously -- resettlement is not driven largely by people walking into our office and saying i want resettlement. it is through networks, partners identifying vulnerable individuals. a lot of work would be to refer people back to some of those frontline agencies. i think as we see in europe as what develops related to some of the proposals related to enter european settlement, who will qualify, what are some of the factors that will be relevant in that, i think capacity is being put in place. when people are in reception standards and others, they have the ability to extract information that would guide in the decisions as to whether there will be eligible for relocation. two where is it consistent with national policies of the countries putting up places, there is a scheme to allocate settlement places to various countries. i think we are at the front end of that. we're much more involved with the life-saving, making sure that there is -- even the people crossing the mediterranean, this is not a warm time to take a mediterranean trip. you see people arriving in very overcrowded reception centers. particularly in greece, trying to work with the government. i would say we are --

resettlement is something you do when you have a more stable platform in order to do that work. counseling is going to be part of it in one of the counseling things has to be, even in this resettlement program, you are still telling 90% of people that is not going to happen and you are going to have to work out what is the appropriate response to give us that other 90% and if you don't have the resources to deal with the other 90% in an effective way, you're going to continue to have spontaneous migration and people trying to seek affection other ways. i think that long-term challenge we have on top of resettlement. >> next question. you were just raising your hand. in the back over here please. >> icm see serves as a processing partner in turkey and lebanon.

i wanted to follow-up on one thing. you have identified one of the roadblocks which kelly explained further about -- in lebanon. no one is talked about a big frustration the u.s. government in turkey, they have just passed in the last year or so and asylum law. it has taken eleanor's amount. -- taken and a norma's amount. -- and enormous amount. they needed some training and capacity building on a host of things which u.s. government has been supplying. that goes to everything from

sensitivity in interviewing lgbt's syrians as well as at the very basic. it is culturally inappropriate apparently for the turkish people to ask in their words personal questions. once we get this referral from them, we have had to go back to the drawing board, both the u.s. icmc partner as well as unhcr. it speaks to their ability to show the cases we are getting as this begins may or may not be the strongest but it -- but as they are getting their feet wet and staffed up, we're beginning to see a breakthrough. >> did you have a question? just a comment. there is one of the back. >> heather stewart from the association of international educators. you speak to 90% of people will

not be resettled. one question that i have is, is there a way to recommend people that are identified that are in college or university or have an education that would be helpful within the global community at large? we are seeing large numbers of people that will be displaced for many years if not decades. how can we make sure that we don't have a generation of people that aren't getting the higher education they will need and who should be getting it to either a cyst were they are going or return back to syria or other nations? >> i would say this is one of the areas where we are asking for innovative approaches. i think it boils down to a couple of issues. one would be identifying some of the people who might benefit

from a scholarship kind of approach to who would pay for it. the third as we get back to the same security and clearance processes that involve refugees. you are still going to have to get clearances and let people and other countries. usually a basic requirement for most individuals is that you can return back to the country of origin. there have been in the past and i would say in my working experienced the largest was in the 1980's were some african refugees, there were a number of mechanisms in place that south africans who found themselves outside the country were able to access international college and university level education post secondary kind of education. that was driven in large part i private foundation money. in some cases in europe some countries are looking at some sort of small scholarship programs. i think there is a cohort that this might be addressed to.

resettlement expenses, education is not cheap either. i think it is a good thing to pursue. i would not discourage anybody about -- of a philanthropic bend to find ways to move this forward. be aware of what some of the technical issues that would still have to be overcome. >> one last question. we will go right over here. >> allison ficus from the feta foundation. it's been said that we can't just throw money at turkey in order to solve the refugee crisis. i was wondering what role turkey should play in this crisis

and what can europe and the united states due to help turkey who is experienced one of the largest influx of syrian refugees? >> the refugee camps in turkey are already past capacity. my point was not that we should not give turkey or the european -- should not give money to turkey to deal with stuff. that cannot be the response. that should not be europe's response, let's just write a check to turkey. that was the point i was trying

to make. turkey needs help. you have to navigate, you have to be true to what the principles of the european union call for. angela merkel, going to turkey at a time when elections are coming up. it is being viewed and propagandized as support for a certain political party which has not been the greatest on

human rights and other freedoms. that raises questions. it's almost like countries are complicating the conversation. turkey is an important piece of this but it's not the only piece. you can't rely on fixing the refugee crisis by fixing turkey. what about syria, iraq, yemen? the domino effect is enormous. we have a role to play to help turkey but turkey has a role to play to help turkey too. >> thank you. we have final comments now. >> i'm teresa brown am a director of the immigration policy project. join me in thanking our guests. [applause] >> and our wonderful moderator, kristin roberts. as you can see, this is not a black and white issue. this is a complex issue that's going to require complex response from the united nations -- from the united states, private sector, public sector, ngos.

we hope we have given you a sense of the scale. maybe you leave with more questions that did not get answered. that is ok. thank you for joining us today. have a good day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >>. washington journal is next. at noon, the house goebbels and. on the bill -- the house gavels in . former secretary of state hillary clinton is set to testify before the house benghazi committee. washington journal will get an idea of what to expect from the hearing.

a discussion on the 2016 presidential race. we are joined by jon huntsman who currently cochairs the bipartisan group "no labels." ♪ theretoday in the senate, is a plan procedural bill addressing so-called sanctuary clinton ishillary scheduled to appear before the select committee on benghazi. jim webb expected to announce today that he will run as an independent. you can see that live at c-span.org. gallup has a new poll out on gun ownership. a new poll suggestg