>> with the 115th congress on the way, a conversation on the potential congressional action on immigration in the year ahead on today's washington journal. a immigration

reporter at the wall street journal. she joins us now to discuss the prospect of immigration in 2018. are republicans any closer to finding a consensus on what they will be pushing for here in the coming weeks and months? on thee was so much immigration agenda right now, that it is hard to say what is coming to the four. the urgency is around of his young people who are brought to the country illegally by their parents, the so-called "dreamers." daca, andprotected by they have been in that program since 2012. president trump ended it, so now the question is, he called on congress to come up with a theseative answer, having young people a path to citizenship or legalization.

that is the question, will congress be able to do that. democratsicans -- the -- in addition to that the republicans also want enforcement. more money for a border wall, new rules, all sorts of things are wrapped up in this, so we essentially have a mini-immigration debate which is becoming a big immigration debate on a lot of stuff. >> in terms of what they want on the wall, how much money are we talking about? what are the provisions include? >> sure. the wall has been one of the most politically-difficult subjects we've had all year. president trump obviously run for election promising a big border wall, and he has backed full wall.ea of a what he is asking for right now,

is for $1.6 billion to build about 74 miles of a barrier which in fact may be more like offense. ofare ready have 650 miles some type of fencing, so it would add to that. >> where would those 75 miles go? the sanhey have said diego area, some of it is in the rio grande area in texas, the entire border with texas is actually a river. so it would be a convent -- a combination of a levy for the water and a wall. so there are various projects that they are requesting. the interesting thing is that this wall is not that popular with republicans in congress, particularly those who represent the border. they are not very enthusiastic about it. people who live far from the border like it, at least

conservatives do. so you have it interesting political dynamic. thathe president has made important to his voters. provisions you referenced, are they something that have more support along the majority of republicans? and what are they? yes, there are. the first thing would be the interior enforcement. that has to do with how hard peoplegoing after the who are living in the u.s. illegally today. that could be like using employers, requiring them to use the e-verify system. employers checking the immigration status of people before they are hired. that would be a big change to require all employers to do that. a lot of people think that would be too heavy a list to add to le this. detention beds to hold more people officially in jail when they catch them before they are to or did or go through

court proceedings that could lead to deportation. in a separate basket is changes to the legal immigration system. trump ran for election not just promising to cut back on illegal immigration but also legal immigration so he is talked about doing things like getting rid of the diversity lottery. which allows 60,000 people from underrepresented arts of the world to come in. migration, it has long been known as family-based migration. whereas if you are a family member or a citizen here in the u.s., you can sponsor those to come to the u.s.. host: phone lines are open if you want to join in on the conversation we are having with laura meckler. we are talking about immigration reform efforts in 2018. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

collars (202) 748-8002. borderin a state with a -- we want to hear from you. (202) 748-8003. take us to the democratic party strategy. how are they planning to tackle this in the coming weeks? they aremocrats say fully committed to trying to get some sort of dream act, the legalization for young people, into law. how could they do this? they are trying to use the leverage that they have overspending bills. republicans need democratic votes in order to pass spending bills. we have a deadline coming up on february 19 and another one coming up later this month and that is one point of leverage that democrats have. couldould stay -- they

say if they wanted to that they would vote for a spending bill it unless they provide a dream or provision but that is risky for democrats because they don't want to be seen as threatening a democratic government shutdown. it would not go well for them, potentially. so it is a tough climate that they are hauling. they do have a range of opportunities and that is one of them. -- " yesterday on twitter democrats are doing nothing for daca. they will start falling in love with republicans and their president. we are about result." guest: i don't know if anyone takes each and every one of the tweets to be an important moment in u.s. political history.

they come and go on a daily basis. i think that most people read the tweet as a message to his base that he is not going to be capitulating to democrats. for whether hispanics get frustrated with democrats, yes, there is frustration with democrats. it hasn't gotten done and they believe democrats should be pushing harder to get that done. that being said, it's quite a stretch to say that they will fall in love with the president when he is the one who ended the program to start with. that -- itd just say would not involve any enforcement provisions, i will sign it then they might like to see that that he hasn't said anything like that. host: let's go to the special line for the border state

residents. josie is in new mexico, a republican in albuquerque. go ahead. we have a lot of people here in new mexico that are not children. we have a lot of people who are not working. even if you are half mexican, they will not give you a job here in new mexico. it is a border state and they need to stop the migration. thank you. guest: you can't even get daca until you are 16 years old. most to have it are adults. it is just that they are people who came to the u.s. when they were children. so i think there are people as

old as 30 who have the daca detections. the years are written into the legislation around the program and i can't recall exactly where the cutoff is. but there are definitely people in the 20's who benefit from the daca program. host: remind us of the cutoff of the daca program if congress does nothing? guest: he said starting march 5 that if your daca expires on march 5, you could not renew it. the president announced it was ending and if you had one that thenxpiring until march 5 there was the opportunity to renew. not everybody did renew and some of those people have already lost that protection. dacamarch 5, if you're expires after that, there is no chance to renew it so starting that every day we will have people coming off the program.

and not only will they be here without authorization but they will lose their work permit. said that she got a lot of them are not working but a lot of them are working and now they will not be able to legally work. host: robber, go ahead. caller: i don't believe that any of this debate is going to touch on what is the driving force behind the so-called immigration. i would recommend that everyone who is listening right now and watching to read a book that was written by a professor, kevin mcdonald. called "the culture of critique." this is not happening by accident. it is more than democrat or republican. what is going on not only here --america but immigration

even countries directed at you don't seean, this kind of immigration being directed towards these countries but you do see this being directed towards countries like australia, countries in europe, aerica -- countries with maturity of people of european background and dissent. white people. it isn't immigration. it is a demographic war. ago,n britain, a few years a person came out as a whistleblower and talked about how labor in britain had purposely put it as part of the platform to flood the country purposely with non-european and non-white immigrants to purposely -- host: we get your point. talk through the magnets for

immigration in the united states? magnet is that it is a great country. people want to come here. people want to come here for economic opportunity. people want to come here for that as they believe in what the country stands for. i think that is the magnet. and our laws allow it through a certain channel. yout of the country come -- can come to the country legally. there is a profound undercurrent there debate which is, are two different visions of the country. one is that we are country founded by immigrants and built by immigrants and it is a part of who we are. it enriches who we are. and there is another view that says no, what we really are is a white, european country and that

is important in our culture and it is being eroded. and a lot of people who support the president feel that and they feel threatened by immigrants who come in and take their jobs, in their view. whether it is true or not could be debated. they feel like they are essentially losing. it isn't that everybody wins, it is a win-lose and they feel like they are on the losing side. host: clyde, go ahead. caller: i don't understand about how none of the congressman bring up the fact that donald trump basically only hires mexicans and immigrants to work for him. how can our congressmen do not have a backbone and won't stand up for anything? what happened to our democratic society? what happened?

host: your reporting on the trump organization and their hires? guess they definitely do hire immigrants. temporaryrom the worker program which allows people to come for seasonal job so there are many people who are immigrants living in this country who they hire as well. yes, they do hire immigrants. and in terms of why democrats haven't gone after him for that point, number one, i think there have been charges of hypocrisy along those lines but i also think democrats don't necessarily think it is a bad thing for employers to be hiring people -- all types of people who live in the country so i don't think they are interested in attacking the use of immigrant labor. host: we are talking through a couple of different pieces of legislation that are moving through congress. one that we haven't is the visasation aimed at h one

. can you explain what that would do? guest: it deals with high skilled immigrants who are jobsg to this country for usually in technology. and there are a couple of major different uses of the program. one of them is outsourcing. where typically indian firms and indian workers will come and a company will hire an outsourcing firm to come in to do tax work for them. and there have been instances essentially, american workers get laid off and foreign workers do essentially take their job and people have been angry about that. to attack attempt that by changing the way this program can be used. on it puts tough new rules h-1b employers.

but only certain types. depended.ho are h-1b where a certain amount of the workforce are using the visas. so it goes after the higher use programs. couple of other companies that do outsourcing not based in india and they do not meet the definition so they would still be allowed to do what they are doing. but the outsourcing department would be hit very hard. they would have to pay much higher wages and promise they off any workers, american workers during this june to the visa. host: go ahead. i met a few of the dreamers at a latin festival in a park over here. when they held it. and they are serving in the united states army.

i am a vietnam veteran. i'm going to tell you something. i am for veterans first. anybody who is a veteran, they should get the job first. and as far as the dreamers who serve? they are united states citizens to me. and puerto ricans are a part of the country. people should look at the latin community different when they have uniforms on and they're willing to bleed for this country. they should have preferential treatment. they shouldn't have to go through this. i beg to differ with republicans in congress. they should have passed the daca bill a long time ago. and i don't see why they don't do it. i think they're lazy. that is what it is. they are lazy. they are letting the latin community carry their load and that is my comment.

host: how many dreamers do serve in the military? the original act did have a path to citizenship or going to college which has been talked about in conjunction with this. that i don't have the exact numbers but there are definitely dreamers in the military. wondering, the immigration thing, there is a lot less of it coming in now, right? what was coming in? they had to lower it down to so much of a percentage. and what i'm wondering is, when we're the melting pot, how come they come here and do the work me, theye people, like do the work that we won't.

because it doesn't pay enough. but they're willing to work for it. i started as a dollar $.65 when i started working at it didn't bother me butbut they're willinr it. now it seems like a job needs to be $20 an hour to go to work. guest: that is the argument that employers use for why they need immigrant workers. these jobs. nobody wants to work in crops or in chicken plant factories. they essentially say that is why we need more immigrant labor. a counterargument would be, well, you would find americans to do this if you would pay more so raise wages. i think that how they would reply that is they would say, well, economics are economics.

pay what the market requires. and believe he was referring to undocumented workers. our viewers will remember these from early december from the department of homeland security in the fiscal year 2017, customs reported 300-3000 16 -- along the southwest border. immigrations and customs conductedt, they arrests. very: border crossings are low. they went off a cliff when trump took office. they have been falling for a while. they have been inching back up

over the last few months but overall, they are at a historically low number. that is the context there. in terms of the second set of numbers, it has to do with interior enforcement. people who are already living in the u.s. arrests are up from what they were at the end of the obama administration, for sure. but deportations have not risen. and that is because some of the deportations stemmed from border crossers. we have fewer deportations. some of it has to do with the fact that the immigration courts are severely backlogged and in order to deport someone who has been living here you have to take them through the court first. caller: hello, c-span. god bless you. are you seriously thinking about building a wall when we are building drones?

the mexican people are hard workers. and they are human beings. we would liberate iran and pakistan, why wouldn't we liberate mexico? why do they want to come over here and work so hard and be such good people but we don't want to liberate their government? we want to liberate iran and pakistan. that we will be done with the stupidity. host: we got your point. how much would a wall cost if it were fully built to what the trump administration wants? guest: we don't really know, that is the short answer. and that is the problem. they've never come out to say, here is the big picture plan. absolutely in the billions of dollars.

maybe over $30 billion. if you were going to build an entire border. very few people think that makes sense. -- i don't know if anybody even wants it at this point. the prototypest of the walls that we have seen being built outside california? what is happened with them? have we picked one that works the best? chosenno, they haven't one. prototypes were built to see which one seems to be the best. and in some cases, they are laying the groundwork for this project but that was the easy thing to do. the harder thing to do is what i just said. laying out a vision for the entire project and actually getting congressional support for it, which they have failed to do so far. so in a way, it it like spending a lot of time picking out your

dress for prom but you don't have a date. or anyone to dance with. host: bob is an independent. good morning. i went to a five-year immigration court with my girlfriend because she filed for citizenship and 12 years before --t she got host: you are going in and out. we will go to leroy in north carolina. the line for democrats. go ahead. i am calling about wages for immigrants. that is the main problem. if all the poor people who work on farms got paid her decent wage then they would work. i grew up on a farm as a black child.

and the wages never grew in a way you could live off of it. and all around you, wages were going up. so now, when the mexican people keep the here, they wages down low on them. host: are you talking about legal immigrants? caller: legal immigrants and undocumented. they still are paid getting paid lower than what the american people want to work for. guest: we really have to think that if we don't want immigrant labor working in the fields, are we willing to pay a lot more? are we willing to have those prices go up? did, in fact, pay

people higher wages, you probably could get americans out there picking crops but it would have to be a lot more. that is the economic argument from the immigration restructured the side. that there is a way that somebody will do that job for us. host: just a couple of minutes left from laura meckler. you can follow her on twitter. charles has been waiting. go ahead. caller: good morning. question, twofold. six callers ago, a guy complained shortsighted late -- or maybe not educated -- he addressed the flow of the immigration and you fail to tie going to various countries and starting various wars and being involved in starting democratic institutions while looking for new minerals to enhance our country's ability to

grow forward. what happens generally is that we have a lot of wars and conflicts and we support rebel group. host: what is your question? caller: from those types of wars, people see this country and they come to the place where the heroes or liberators have come from. host: charles was referring to refugees, as well. which is part of the system that we haven't talked much about. go refugees, that is another area with the immigration system where the president has decreased the number of people dramatically. 45,000. host: margaret from florida. go ahead. your true liberal colors

are showing. a few minutes ago you indicated the undercurrent of people in america for people who objects to illegal immigration for fear of losing the white, european -- i am so fed up with listening to liberals decide -- i am married to an immigrant. he came to this country. we met when we worked in a restaurant. we got married and he never thought -- let alone -- was it his right to live here. and i tell you now i'll work with people with disabilities in this country and they are being pushed out of jobs. i will go to work today were not one single person in the back room speaks english. the difference between 30 years theynd now and the reason flood in greater numbers is that 30 years ago, my husband had to catch up to speed. he had to learn the language and make an attempt to assimilate.

now, if you speak a different language and you work a low page job, not only are you noble and then we are and we are a bigot. what: i was responding to the caller was referring to which is why it went in those terms. that is one way to frame it. the point that you make is a point that i have heard from other people as well. that people it came to the country illegally and followed the rules and are sometimes among people who resent illegal immigration the most. iey say i came here and waited in line and i waited my turn and i learned english and why shouldn't other people have to do that also? so i think it is a powerful argument. the assimilation requirements any less stringent now than they were 30 years ago? guest: i don't think they are

but i don't think that's what she was getting at. less that the rules and more at that we say we need to pass laws for them and help them when they are not doing what they need to do to assimilate into our country. i think that was the argument she was making. host:

>> for the sake of a better world. but i say again and again and again, that i put those it for our own americans self interest. >> hendrik hank meyer with his book "arthur vandenberg -- the man in the middle of the american century." >> he finds himself in the opposition when the democrats take majority of the senate in the early 1930's. he was in opposition for the next dozen years, which meant that to get anything done, which often meant resistant some of fdr's initiatives, there needed to be a correlation. he had to reach across the aisle. >> q&a, sunday night at 8:00 eastern on

>> sunday night, federal appellate judge john newman looks back at his 38-your judicial career in his book "bench." he is interviewed by richard blumenthal. newman: as a -- richard blumenthal: as a judge for 35 years, was that a difficult transaction and did you ever -- transition and did you ever miss advocacy? : it was not difficult. i have known people that became judges and so disliked the decision-making process they left the bench. i was glad to be an advocate. i found the decision-making process, while it was different, enormously challenging, and while i