look down on blue-collar workers and ee decimation of american workers out of industry after industry after industry and take this condescending attitude, they are taking professional detached, studied heir of reality. theld trump is president of united states and fair is going to support donald trump's 2018.lative agenda in host: we have to end it there. immigration with reform, fairu.s.org. ben eastern. >> "washington journal laura meckler, let's start with where republicans are on this subject. a republicans any closer to

finding consensus on what they will be pushing for in the coming weeks and months? guest: there is so much on the immigration agenda right now that there is -- that it is hard to say. the dreamers had been protected program that had existed since 2012. and he called on congress to come up with a legislative answer to give these people a path to citizenship or legalization. question is, will congress be able to do that? essentially what the president and republicans are saying is that they will do that but they also want money for the border wall.

enforcement divisions and all sorts of things wrapped up in the immigration debate that is becoming it take immigration debate over a whole bunch of stuff. what they want for the wall and provisions, how much money are we talking about? what are other important revisions included? guest: the wall has been the most politically difficult subject that we have had all year. trump obviously ran on an election promising a border wall on the southwest border of mexico. he has backed off the idea of a full sea to shining sea wall and we don't know what the division is for the final end product but he is asking for the current budget year to build 74 miles of the area. so that is may more like a fence. we already have miles of fencing so we would just add to that.

fencing along the order. host: where do those miles go? >> some closer to the san diego area and some in the rio grande area in texas. ball -- the entire wall with texas is a river, the rio grande river. so this is a range of different projects. the interesting thing is that this wall is not that popular with republicans in congress. particularly those who represent the border. they are not enthusiastic about that. people who live on the border are not enthusiastic. people who live far away from the border do. so we don't necessarily have a wall as a top priority or even with a lot of support from republicans but the president has made that important.

host: is this something that has more support along the majority of republicans? guest: the interior enforcement. that has to do with how hard who areing after all living in the u.s. illegally today. that could be like using employers, requiring them to use the e-verify system. that would be a big change to require all employers to do that. a lot of people think that would to add into a legislation like 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.