result but equal chance for everybody. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. now look at immigration policy and refugees in the united states. speakers include a former cia , a syrian activist who was imprisoned during the arab spring, a muslim advisor to the trump presidency campaign, and the american civil liberties union's hit -- human rights director. it was part of a series of conversations at the new york library. this is one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. new york public library. i am the executive director of the ethics center who, along onh the carnegie council international affairs and the

globalization and international affairs program welcome you this afternoon to the session. we had an incredibly interesting conversation just before about the state of the nation and we are moving into some challenging territory. before we do that let me mention something. the day,e choice of today being april 1. when we announce this there were a few chuckles. perfectols' day is a day for conversation of this kind. as you will know, the role of we see in- fool as plays and medieval history is to speak truth to power. it is not just about speaking truth to the powerful but the power that can reside in ideas

and assumptions. challenge and a open and respectful way. i will explain to you one thing about our process. you notice here that there are two empty chairs. you inhairs belong to the audience. at least temporarily. joinprocess invites you to the table if you want to ask a question or make a comment. but yourmanent seat might want to come up and join the conversation. that is a chance in a democratic way to be part of what is being discussed in this this. all i would ask of you is that you be mindful of the fact that there are other people who would also like that chance. around after you ask your question. just go and if you do not someone will tap you on the shoulder.

i am not going to go through a lot of biographies, you can read more about them. i would like to introduce and have you welcome the panel as a whole. i will move around in the order in which they are sitting. chadwick more, and also [inaudible] join me in welcoming them. >> thank you and thanks to the ethics center for putting on this very important discussion that we are going to have on one of the most polarizing an important issues in politics in america today and that is immigration. we titled this session the problem of strangers which is quite an evocative title. we were a here on the phone and she pointed out it is

interesting that everyone on the panel is a stranger in one way or another to their respective communities. sana is a refugee from syria. and a strong progressive working notoriously communist institution such as exxon mobil i am a gay and conservative, constitutional conservative. i am a stepchild on the right although an appreciated and loved one and a priority -- a pariah in the gay community. i want to start off and talk domestic illegal immigration. there is something about we estimate 11 million undocumented workers in this country. most of us here are eight new

yorkers, undocumented workers are our friends, they are our neighbors and someone who spent my 20's working in restaurants and bars and factories and i was a cleaning lady in college, they were also my coworkers. nobody in this country, there are few people who are anti-immigration. you'd be hard-pressed to find some one who does not technology the written -- richness that immigrants into our culture, innovation to our economy, what we are talking about here is very different. address,s we like to we are talking from the southern border is how this affects our workers, how this affects wages, how this affects the labor market, who is the most negatively affected by this and who benefits? let's start with the news. we have this week jeff sessions, attorney general made an announcement on monday saying century cities and new york is a sanctuary city will lose

millions in federal money from the department of justice saying because of "cities and states that refused to help enforce immigration laws, our nation is less safe, failure to deport aliens who commit terminal offenses put whole communities at risk." also this week we have the first ever meeting of a conference for politicians and advocates from sanctuary cities who came together to discuss ways to protect illegal immigrants and their communities from deportation. or if you're on the right they came together to strategize. a speaker at that conference said that enforcing immigration laws in the wake of the doj is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. let's start there. is this racist? you worked on the trunk campaign. someone say that he is

wan on the issue. >> this is an issue of what exactly are you going to do to questionable labor supply. we have this gray area of labor in america. you talked about cleaning ladies and these other things, one of the challenges is there are legal -- people who have come here for a better way of life for a legal pathway to citizenship. there is other folks like we have an issue in a style him where someone will fly with the baby who has a u.s. passport down to mexico, hand of someone else and bring the baby back and what you have is another illegal worker coming in to the country. these folks are looking for a cash uplift. there has to be some sort of balance in between. secondarily in terms of the sanctuary cities problem we have got a percentage of illegal

immigrants that are tied to gangs like ms 13. committed heinous acts against american citizens, rape of children, murder of teenagers, domestic assaults, violent crime, rubbery. there has to be some sort of check and balance process to this. the way the trump administration is looking to engage this is a the way theynd of have started to engage at first which is a little wonky, a little cumbersome. the policy will find its way through. >> crime is what sessions mentioned and this is something that keeps coming up with this issue. who would like to respond? >> i am happy too. about what issue is this country is about. with,aming as you started there's no one against

immigration, it is not about rejecting immigration as a concept. it is the question of whether this country is truthful to its founding, the way this country werted and over the years have never been perfect. we had the darkest time where ships were turned around not accepting people during world war ii, the jewish refugees. i think people in the crowd know those stories, the cheney's -- chinese exclusion act at the turn of the 20th century. overall this was a country that was built on immigrants, immigration. who werepen to people facing persecution and looking for safe haven and opportunity. the way that it is being addressed particularly during the political campaign and i am not siding with one side or another. observer, someone

who has not voted yet, i am a green card holder, hopefully i will be a citizen and hopefully nothing changes that will impact my eligibility to become a citizen. what is interesting is it was more about fear mongering, it is about driven by those people who are coming to take our jobs, this people who are refugees who and if you look at the facts and that is a challenge is to stick to the facts. as we are told by even the national security experts is banning people from those six no basis with

regard to making this country more secure. is going to make this

worse off. it is about how people relate to each other. on that fundamental basis as you , they are all know part of this nation. dreamers.t the how can you think about taking out people who were born here or brought here when they were very young and say now we going to deport all of you. >> the crime thing is interesting. this is something that the right pulls out. we had a case of an immigrant raping a young girl. i look at this as it is the same way that pro-abortion advocates look at reef and insist, it is validate exception to the larger role. where there is going to be

criminals in any population. the vast majority of people who come here illegally are peaceful workers but i think the argument on the right would be more effective. up onto of the points you made. i realize that my perspective is a bit more of an international one having worked mostly overseas and national security issues but two of the main points that i appreciate is this idea that what is behind some of the rhetoric we are hearing, especially with the band from these particular countries. as a progressive i will self identify as one of the liberals on this panel. , my ideologylogy is what this country was founded on, we should be accepting, we are founded on a country of refugees and that is where my ideology is. my pragmatic side says and want to face everything in fact. when you have a policy that

every major national -- the vast over theof leaders past two decades chimed in about every reason why banning people from these countries is not going to help our national security, it is exit going to harm it, you have to ask them why are you, what is the basis behind what you are doing and i want to give one other example. andbalance between security humanitarian efforts and privacy and security, all these things are going to be excessively complicated. of the laptop ban that happen. as soon as i heard that one i knew based on my past work experience that is targeted and focused, i have to assume that intelligence that was collected and found on an analysis of the fact that had there been an actual threat, how do we mitigate that. just the ban on bringing laptop

computers from a few together country. the point,at back to i see something like that and i think that is going to make a lot of people angry but that is something that there is no doubt that was based on actual intelligence that said there is a threat, there are people who are creating bombs they know how to put in laptops that is totally separate from when you have a president say with no actual reasoning or backing to it, i am banning all immigrants from these particular countries because they are exporters of terrorism despite every national security leader from the past giving a litany of reasons why that would harm us more than help us. that is when i say that is where your ideology and fear mongering and rhetoric took over. onsit of actual policy based what is helpful for this country. >> most people do not know that obama banned all immigrants from iraq for six months.

>> it is a different situation, i am glad you brought that up. that was in response to an actual incident, you had two ,entlemen from iraq that had they were found sending money back to al qaeda. potentially al qaeda supporters. he looked at a specific set in say we're -- said we are going to put a pause on new refugees from iraq until we sort this out which, by the way, actually refugees did continue to come in during that time. that was something that was done in response to something very specific. whether i agree or disagree, at least it was a reasoning behind it. as opposed to i do not like these seven countries, i am putting in an all-out ban without explaining what my intelligence behind it was. it was not the same situation. it and i have my

own personal issues with the band. card folks whoen had been vetted. on the opposite side we have varying protocols of how we look at people, we have protocols that have not been updated since the 1960's, you have six of those countries that do not have functioning governments, you have the fact that i can go overseas and by a syrian passport for 2000 euros and pretend i am an asylum secret -- seeker. you top it off at the joint terrorism task force going on -- looking at stuff is going on in the middle of the united states and running into isis recruiters who are trying to build cells. the public is the evaluation process was they want to look at how we can stop this. a lot of that goes back to wait to be sharing better information across different aspects of the

security apparatus that has to tie into the police apparatus. a four months embargo after which they were going to reevaluate it and look at additional refugee accounts being allowed into the country. and the trump perspective even from that campaign when i was working there has been how do we make syrian safe for syrians in syria? how do we do things in tandem around syriarnment that are encroached inside of the multitude layer of different conflicts are going on to figure out a way forward that is not going to lead to just continual refugee onslaught. that is where they started with this, what was the implementation? it was a little flawed. >> as everyone talks about policy and philosophy you are someone who has lived the this.

what are you thinking? refugees, ourut concerns are economic and national security. these two elements have been used a lot and the recent administration to mobilize people against immigration and refugees. when we talk about national security, when you mention maybe a true fact that specific people who come from specific immigration backgrounds have committed crimes in the u.s. if you want to talk about numbers this is what the judge was talking about, what is the reasoning, give me fact. that would let me say these orders are legit. immigrants have not committed more terrorist attacks more than citizens and we suffer from sectarianism.

when they asked me how i feel about the trump administration, -- people here are misinformed. the geographic location played into this that you are distant from what is going on overseas. the same overseas. your for them the strangers. what they read in the mainstream media this is what we believe. i am here to say this is not what is going on overseas, there is some truth to it that this is on it. ben we talk about how can we specific -- these specific countries, when we label it a muslim ban, the problem with labeling it is discriminatory. when you say we are not, these people have no functioning governments.

if we -- a syria had a functioning government, to let me come here and ask my government if i am secure to be in the u.s., what might own government has said is no. i was detained for demonstrating that same government. so going to the assad regime and -- we are fleeing, where fleeing those exact governments. this is not a good ideology or methodology to think of betting refugees. you are an immigrant. >> i was born here. >> your parents are immigrants. >> they were sponsored by a steel company. there should be a test for immigration. the security screening process, do you know the process

question mark it takes the average 18 to 22 months, every single person tracing your ancestors to come to the u.s., do you know that my 16 your old sister in turkey who has been trying to come to be with me and my mom has been interviewed several times on the resettlement process for nine hours, 16 years old. nine hours every single time grade what you are trying to find i do not know. for three years and a half of the security screening, the extreme vetting process, [inaudible] we process is extreme and have not experienced of this. we are vetted a lot. at the end of the day to ask ago my family after going through , my mom anding sister were rejected and denied to come to the united states regardless. their cases on the same persecution case, i was vetted

and given asylum. order. a discriminatory this is a discussion torry action and i reject it. there a lot of other cases. man who lives in istanbul who is a syrian refugee. he has two boys, one is 12 and younger -- the other is younger. he has aar-old is sick specific disease. there was no medicine for it in turkey. he has been in that process to be resettled for over three years also. and has been waiting and waiting. the reason to be settled is the medicine is here. son died waiting to be resettled, died in the hospital waiting to be resettled here. why? what justification? you explained yesterday that may

administration is a political decision, something he campaigned for, we have to do it. we knew that he is going to be such orders exactly provokes tople, extremist groups recruit people. imagine someone who has been waiting for five years and living in their horrible circumstances because syria is the most dangerous place on earth now, have been waiting to come here and an order comes out and says no, you're not coming.

this is giving him a pathway to by extremistuited groups. you are contributing to the process of creating more terrorists. i have been trying to find a trying to i have been find the good points behind any of these orders or the recent policies on immigration and i have not found this. and yourself when you had the hard-core that republicans and donald trump, their policy on muslim and immigration demonizes muslims and helps isis. i do not understand. >> that was an interview from before the election a year ago where i said that talking about banning muslims altogether demonizes muslims and leads to

isis so let's be specific about what you're talking about. secondarily -- fuels fuel -- of this isis and other extremist groups. >> let's talk about now. your spinning my words so let's talk about right now. we have an executive order that is a test and the problem that we have looked at not just from me terror perspective but from a data sharing perspective is that the systems are broken inside the united states. a time toto form assess this, that is what they started to look at. i cannot change the fact that there is a waiting press is that people die and this process has been there for years. that process has been there since the 1960's. i cannot change that process. what i can speak to is there is an intent right now to try and

fix the data sharing and between different government organizations so that this can start to move forward so that we can have better anti-terror insights. there is always going to be trade-offs if you're talking about national security and the ability to increase the population of a country by immigration. there's also challenges. like i said before. my family could not come here until my dad was physically sponsored by a steel company and they put up a bond equivalent to his salary for us, my family to come here. wifether had to send for a -- for a visa to bring his wife over. that process is the same for every immigrant that has come here from our part of the world. what is going on right now is challenging. the problem i see that continuing to say we are going

to demonize this and we're going to protest this end not try and figure out how we can engage to make this better -- seen the engagement from this administration, it is a crackdown. on theone who, i was joint terrorism task force so i have first-hand experience in what this means. you are right, the data sharing is not perfect. it has improved every year since september 11. every year, it has become better and better and so the idea that we can just shut down immigration from certain or refugees or immigrants from certain regions because we are broken is absolutely a falsehood. our system is never going to be perfect. it is not going to be like it stopped and never continued to improve. i would make is it is interesting to hear this idea we are going to shut down

immigration from these countries because it makes our borders safer to do so. at the sametime -- time we are going to cut usaid and state apartment funding, the very agencies whose responsibility it is to make these countries from which refugees are coming both safer and more stable and the same agencies who are supposed to support refugee camps and other countries in turkey and borders, we will cut that funding, we will do list to help secure countries overseas while also not allowing people to come here . there is a cognitive dissident if the argument is we are making this was because we need for national security reasons. many was a letter from how three and four-star generals signing onto the letter saying cutting funding is absolutely antithetical to protecting our national security's i cannot buy one argument while at the same

time we are doing this other thing that is hurting us globally. >> i am not saying policy is perfect. i am not saying that at all. a decision the administration made but this is an administration that is looking at everything and we have too much government, they came up with a thomas with cutting government and that is what they are doing. havedo you think would happened if ross perot had become president, it would be very similar to what you are looking at now. government cuts, you're looking at changes in policy, you're looking at the fact that maybe america should be partnering with other countries in terms of global policing and global leadership. it is really expensive. goingch we do but we're to anger those partners that we have worked so hard to have them cooperate with us on counterterrorism issues including some from the countries we are saying we do not want anything to do with you right now. x there is a false notion that there is a cut in government spending.

on military forces and expanding military defense budget, that should be ok while other programs that are essential for people who are here in the united states, that is numberential, that one. number two, the idea that the system is not working and you can make the argument in every single area. the system is not working. you have to back it up in fact and sound analysis and we did not see that coming, particularly in the area of so-called extreme vetting. there has been extreme vetting already. you have heard compelling examples, the wait time, robust, rigorous screening process they go through. people are stranded in refugee camps waiting for that moment to go through and the people who get to the united states, go and thek the people that come, most vulnerable of the vulnerable refugees.

the selection process is so rigid. and besides that the fact that we should keep in mind how many refugees who came to this country as refugees committed acts of terrorism. can you answer that question, do you know what the answer is? the last 20 or 30 years? >> i do not have the data. it is not zero. >> causing serious harm and that is the kind of thing we cannot make the argument seriously that all the sudden refugees are becoming the most, number one threat to the united states. >> we never said that. >> it seems to skip a generation and we see this all over europe and orlando. minneapolis has the second-largest which is on the travel ban list has the second-largest population of somalis in the world outside of somalia. there is 50 young men who are

children of refugees who have been identified as security threats. >> the issue with that is that is less about letting refugees in the country, it is what we do once communities are here. it is debatable whether that number is zero or not, it depends on how you define it, we did have one somali and minnesota who stabbed people, a defense -- depends on how you there isefine that it no comparison to the number of white american homegrown extremists who have committed acts that have actually resulted in murders and killing. ist is an argument that based on fear mongering and in supporting this case. i am glad you brought up the somali situation. there is boston also. >> we are talking about this and we know that there is this list of countries that were banned and iraq made the big news because it turned out that some

military advisers who had helped their own military ended up getting caught up in that. in somalia, no one seems to care about that. the thousands of somalia -- somalis languishing in the biggest refugee camp in kenya, kenya is threatening to shut the camp down. you have somalis who have spent years being vetted to join their families here in minnesota, we have had some children of refugees who had been radicalized and we can discuss ad nauseam what we have possibly not done so great in integrating's love these communities but to just -- this community has been cut off, they cannot go back to somalia to build because they know they might not be able to come back. minority,e made the the marginal, small number of immigrants or sons of immigrant refugees who came to the country. you have to put it in

perspective and that is why when even when president trump during the campaign brought all the people who were victims of crime, haim us -- heinous crime, some of them, people who were murdered by immigrants, that is true and that is a grave suffering for the families and that is an issue that should be addressed it to single out to people,e are the same so we have to protect our nation of those families from everybody who is out there sends the message it is scapegoating immigrants and turning the people who are watching who are not necessarily experts on the fact into them a i should care about that, i should be fearful about the other person who is coming who is a immigrant or refugee or whatever. making thingss work. turningt trump is people against each other. were against each

other at the turn of the election. i do nothing president trump had too much to do with that. -- do not think president trump had much to do with that. >> if you take the first actions in office, the executive orders he placed on immigration and force meant to do a travel ban, the other areas. clearly, they are not supported by facts. they are supported by a fear mongering. maybe he is responding to political campaign promises, but ultimately he is going to be responsible for what will happen at this point and we are seeing this. not just people in this country but nations around the world are going to resist this. they see we did not -- >> there is someone in the audience who wants to join the conversation. is there someone waiting? >> i wanted to add comment the policy is been not just knocked down in hawaii, but it will not be policy anymore. it is tabled. i will add that is probably the

point they were getting at. there were political promises made and these political promises are now settled. >> promises that are unconstitutional cannot really be -- correct the portions that were unconstitutional were ruled unconstitutional -- quick and that is how it works. >> it is aberration of power. >> i will be brief. the intent of the travel ban in the beginning was -- and that will determine the challenges -- is what has been the intent? the intent has been discriminatory. it violates the establishment clause. >> it is already tabled. >> let's hear from our audience. who would like to speak first? >> during the kelly administration when he was commissioner of the police

department, he stopped 16 islamic terrorist attacks in new york. it did not get a lot of publicity except for one of the new york city train station, when there was an intent to use sarin gas. my point is a lot of these terrorist attacks that were stopped does not come to the public attention and there are also 400 active caces that the fbi is pursuing around the united states of terrorist attacks. they do not get the attention. it is only when something happens that this attention comes to it. your point was when you get into specifics, you would agree that not bringing a laptop because there were specific intelligence there.

you do not hear about the other specifics. i am trying to present that. i wanted your opinion about a guy who would come into the united states illegally time and time again committing felonies. time and time again was let go in a sanctuary city uotil he killed somebody. >> i am going to address the first point. i agree with you the second point is awful. the first point, you are right. i mean, someone who worked in these agencies in my life unable to talk about successes, you only know about failures. the point is they were successes. i mean, that is why we have our law enforcement and our intelligence community. they are doing the job they are supposed to do. and by making the entire immigration population feel that they cannot actually cooperate with the police or fbi anymore because they are too scared to

do so is going to harm our ability to stop these exact attacks you are talking them. i know this is excessively complicated, although obviously i identify as a liberal, i reckon ties that we cannot say it is either this or that. it is extremely complicated. but to make our entire immigrant community too fearful to operate -- to cooperate with the police or fbi is going to harm our ability to stop these attacks in the future. that would be what i would want to bring up. >> i had two questions. first, thoughts on i was there during the pan-arab spring in egypt and turkey, so i know what you have been through. it is a massive ordeal. two questions. one is mostly for oz. a scientist for the country

currently you can argue the data fragmentation as an issue. you know, collecting data from all parts of the country. but if you look at assad, you can say they are smaller, more agile. why don't we throw more money a technological resources versus putting more money towards the military budget? >> there is two sides to that. one is, you have worked with soup.et this is all the different organizations across the government. in between these organizations there are chinese firewalls in terms of the data that can be shared. i want to say the organizations of the government are here, but look at it as a layer cake. the second is federal policing. the third layer is state policing. the bottom layer is local leasing.

the biggest problems is outside coplink, you cannot share data effectively up and down or side to side. that is the largest problem we have today in terms of the large threat of terrorism and even the large threat of crime from ms 13 and other large groups. to the issue of military spending, this is an obama problem. we had 150,000 troops in afghanistan when obama started the troop drawdown. now we have -- we went from a base of having operations where we could surgically drop off a battalion to smaller groups, you know, 3000 special forces, seal team 6, another group here. and we are intrinsically intertwined in so many conflicts right now, it is insane.

we are up to about nine global conflicts, two of which we have russia on the opposite side of, troops in somalia, maybe pulling troops out of troopse in syria, troops in iraq. we also have a multitude of additional conflicts coming up with the south china sea. what are we going to do with that sort of stuff? mathis is the market are really us of our time. we have to look at this in a way of, when we have got these very small groups that we have to support across a massive distributed area, and just to put this in a cost perspective, to keep one soldier in the theater on a yearly basis it is $1 million. because how much do you think gas costs when you get the

guests over there? ok? gas might be $6 in europe but by the time you get a gallon of gas to afghanistan it is $150 a gallon. right? this stuff is all expensive to keep hand operate. this stuff is expensive. the longer term is how do we balance those global conflicts and hold back in a way where we can allow for democracy to be created by groups in those countries. in terms of big data science, this is a longer-term challenge. and i applaud d.j. for some of the stuff he has done, but i really think until we have gotten some policies and practices in place to take unclassified data in hand have it shared with some of the classified data and collaboration from the alphabet soup agencies down to local and up to state and federal, we will

still have these problems. >> i want to comment. >> this military power, and i have not specifically speaking for aclu because we do not weigh in on whether war is just, fair, right, wrong. we would if it is if it is constitutional. i want to say one thing that is really concerning we are seeing is that rather than looking at ways that are not necessarily engaging militarily over the world, but looking at soft powers and other ways of engaging the world, we see the administration is signaling no. we are going to pull out of the u.n. i was at the u.n. council last month, and i was in d.c., wherethe united states where the

united states has two different approaches. they did not show up to specifically address the issues of the travel ban, integration and so on. and at the geneva convention, i think it was a confusing approach, not understanding what was at stake. similarly with nato and other international nations, there is a serious concern that the decision is going to expand the notion of we can do it by using force. the fact that there are now reports in "the new york times" saying this administration may loosen up the rules of engagement with regard to the use of force and places like somalia and yemen where most civilians will be harmed, will be killed. and that as a result, more people will join forces like isis and others. >> this might be another conversation. >> i would like to get a question. >> thank you for being here. a lot of the talk these days about immigration has boiled

down to the idea that donald trump has revived america first. anti-semitiche slogan from world war ii -- mr. sultan: that is not accurate. >> right. but the idea is america first, take care of our own before we take care of others. i have been grappling with this idea a lot because i am from california. we have a lot of immigrants and that community. i see these refugees when i come over. and i am asking myself, who is an american? what is the definition? the refugees who come over, i do not see a stranger. i see someone that will be one of us. so i would like each of you to answer, if you can, what makes someone an american? >> we were talking last night about all of the reasons why america does not have the same

problems with radicalization as europe and what was the quote? >> i said because [indiscernible] >> this is a country based more on ideas. it is easier for people to assimilate and become americas because we are a nation based on ideas. >> i have been here for four years. i would not be here speaking with you if it was not for the americans who open up their doors and let me stay with them as a stranger. i would not be here. if i was not given a scholarship from bard college, i would not be able to speak this english with you even. i feel now it is home here.

i contribute to the community. i worry about domestic issues. and i tried to be part of it, not only in international issues. so actually, america has become my second homeland if you want to call it. this is a feeling we extend, a lot of us as refugees and maybe first-generation immigrants. you are a muslim, the son of immigrants, and you are here because you were given the opportunity because your parents , were given the opportunity to be here and you are a muslim. so we are given a opportunity. and once we are given an still contribute to the community. >> if anybody was to give another quick answer? >> can night answer that? i would say that the greatest thing about being american is that this is universally the

coolest melting pot in the entire globe. i grew up in pittsburgh. i became a new yorker about 15 years ago. in my little community, i was the town muslim, because when i was growing up, we did not have -- we did not really have muslims there. in the late 1960's, there were about 100,000 muslims in the u.s. i was born in the late 1970's. i went to yeshiva for two years because there was no muslim school, like, there is no population. you know. and my mom was, like, close enough. and you get a hat. you had me at hat. americawhat makes great. you can have pierogies and halushki.

it can be all these different things together that it is an interesting tapestry of life. andy you grow up learning about 70 different cultures and helping your neighbor and being part of a community, and giving back. i do a tremendous amount of interfaith work. it is being able to tell all of these different stories as one collective. >> everyone in this room would agree with that. >> let me at my two cents. my way of looking at america is that it is a place where it is opening up. you can be your own person. bring your ideas. and it is open to correcting wrongs. i think that is fundamentally important. it has never been perfect. there has ever been a perfect union. and particularly looking at the people who work here before the new settlers came in, the immigrants,

the first nations, the native americans, indigenous peoples. if we look at them and try to see have the united states can be better, i think that would have much more help making this conversation better. i was in standing rock in january when the executive order came down to adapt the dakota access pipeline. i learned in just one week so much about the history of the united states and what the united states can do better in terms of making this place better for everybody by learning from the mistakes and the wrongs of the past. so we do not repeat some of those mistakes. and what is happening with the immigrants, refugees, the ban, is repeating those terrible mistakes. >> we have a five-minute warning and i want to hear from both of our guests. we have a very tight schedule here. >> basically you have

all been talking about how policy is created, presented. but this also means that this gets into the media. and wording is important. you have the case of the ban, that is the muslim ban. in the case of the latino community, you receive always these very sensationalist titles given for the newspapers. and when you see for example the case of a white american that is and has been killed in a shooting was that has somehow we violently, you do not get the same titles. how do you seek to actually create a sense of community in people if even the headlines of the newspapers single each group out? this isis is a -- >>

what i think about. it enrages me more than anything. if you look in a factory in ohio or anywhere else [indiscernible] there is a sort of racial division and especially in the media putting people into groups. i wonder if any of thing -- if anyone else has something to say. >> -- >> ale panel whole panel. >> open borders, work visas, all of that. considering how much the u.s. has bonded and invaded the middle east since 1945 and provided weaponry for israel to do the same thing, how this is not just all middle easterners not homicidally hate the united states, at some point there family, their extended family has been killed by an american bomber bullet.

so to me, how can you expect anybody to come here and not have some death in their family caused by the u.s. and, therefore, want to inflict terrorism? >> this is a legitimate point, right? i could say how could we not expect by not idealizing. when you come and tell me, like 60 people or whatever were terrorists in the united states, >> immigrants are human beings just like any other human beings. when we idealize we force such claims. if they did so, so what because how many americans are losers? how many americans are and how many refugees are great entrepreneurs? we cannot idealize the old population. so actually, if we wanted to oversee what you guys -- have done to us, we would see people

overseas, and especially in syria and iraq on the ground, they would generalize americans and say all of them are killers and murderers and basically we want to kill any of them we see. so how is this different? we should stop idealizing the population and actually just humanize the population. >> i want to say very quickly, it is exactly as on as we -- as long as we stand up for the american people and defend our use, that is exactly the aspiration people cling to when they see the united states. i will not in any way said there are not legitimate concerns for many american military interventions around the world, but i would help the reason people still do want to come here is because of what we what we represent, and that is why i will speak out, marge, i will say this is not the america

i believe in or stand for and i hope you can see that somebody americans -- and i do believe that is why so many people come here. we're still the land of opportunity. i do not know if that will last forever. but hopefully for a while. >> there are archetypes in the media that allow media to demonize latinos, muslims, certain segments of the population, blacks, over and over again because that is what sells newspapers. and that is click bait. the reason 30% of latinos, 33% of american muslims voted for donald trump is because we have had 60 years of these same aggressive foreign policy that is only focused on -- it is focused on hegemony. one thing. it is just focused on hegemony. if we look at what donald trump has said and wants to do, we have got like sensible leadership come to bear. we can argue with some of the

other guys. we have sensible leadership coming to bear in terms of how we disentangle ourselves from the myriad of conflicts we are in and how we do something that actually leaves a positive footprint of americans moving forward. it is populism. that's what we voted in. look, that is what of america -- >> it was only the majority in new york and los angeles in the popular vote. >> the challenge with a look at is what is the legacy we're going to keep. look, you are here. there will be additional folks coming from different parts of the world. we need a universal standard for immigration. was a screwup, but they are trying. if we can move towards this new populism, maybe we will get somewhere. >> i appreciate your candid assessment.

it is a screwup. it there are consequences. they are sending really dangerous messages and it impact life. i don't think we should take it lightly. one thing just to say, i think trump offers a silver lining. has offered us an opportunity to think about what we're taking for granted, taboos, particularly in the area of foreign policy. the fact that we are supporting not only israel with billions of dollars, but also egypt and by bahrain and we're making things easier for people's rights to be violated the in different countries with new accountability. we need an honest conversation about what the united states government is doing on behalf of people here in how does that impact the ability of the united states to be part of the world that is not based on hegemony,

not based on using military force, but promoting some of those values of justice and equality and freedom. if we follow through on that i think it will be a different conversation in this country. >> that is an optimistic note on which to end. >> great. >> folks, this conversation could go on and on. it is such a deep and important one. there will be a half-hour break now, and if you are inclined to discuss level security, then please come back at 3:30 the continuation of the forum. before you go, would you please not only thank the people in the audience who contributed, but also our panel? and our excellent chair. thank you very much.