your power away from you. ontonight at 9:00 p.m. afterwards, a fox news analyst offers thoughts on the mueller report and the investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. he has interviewed by the chair of the american conservative union. never haveshould been special counsel, he was a fact witness. he was not honest with the president. he didn't say, by the way, i have agreed to be special counsel to investigate you. he was not forthright. he was not honest and truthful to the president, which to me is unconscionable. >> watch afterwards tonight at 9:00 eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> >> history professor alan kraut looks at immigration.

after that, british politics. to sendat, funding humans back to the moon. ♪ susan: you have spent your professional career as a historian studying u.s. immigration. many americans look to the statue of liberty's famous poem that says "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses thening to breathe free" as embodiment of the way we think about this country and immigration.

as you look at history, does it track with the reality of how we have treated immigrants? dr. kraut: the history of immigration in the u.s. doesn't track at all with emma lazarus's wonderful quotation. it has been a love-hate relationship. in the 19th century, there was a popular immigrant saying, "america beckons but americans accurate as is more to how our relationship with immigration has been in the united states. a great irony is that emma 1883,s wrote the poem in and one year before, in 1882, the u.s. past the chinese chinesen law, excluding laborers from coming to the u.s. in the years after that, increasingly restrictive legislation was passed. we want immigrants to calm, we

beckon them with opportunity to skilled, as semiskilled, unskilled labor to build our country, construct our economy, but after they get here, frequently they are the object of scorn, they are discriminated against, they suffer some of the worst acts of prejudice imaginable. this is a very complicated relationship that america has with the foreign-born. susan: when there are large waves of immigration like over when there years, are backlashes, what are they caused by? what triggers people? dr. kraut: the backlashes are caused by a precipitating factor like an economic downturn, or a spike in the size of the migration, or the identity of who is coming at a particular

moment. there are lots of different things that can cause an outbreak of the kind of nativism that we have seen quite recently. it is hard to identify one single thing, but we know that yclically. there are moments when the u.s. is more welcoming and moments when the u.s. is not welcoming at all. we watch this with great interest and try to identify the moments when these things are happening. susan: is the current period of turmoil and debate over immigration different in any important way from past times the country has gone through? dr. kraut: i would argue the current ways of nativism, anti-immigrant sentiment, xenophobia is not different in what we have seen in the past. while it seems to us to be peppered with acts of violence and ferocity, there have been

other acts of violence, anti-immigrant riots. before the civil war, anti-immigrant riots in the 1880's. there have been lots of moments when thean history anti-immigrant sentiment has been translated into true ugliness. it has brought great harm to the foreign-born. i would argue the current wave, as unpleasant and offputting as unusuals not all that in the history of our country. susan: what causes congress to ultimately act during these times? acts most congress frequently when there is enorm ous pressure from one sector of the population to have revision. for example, the chinese exclusion law of 1882 was passed very largely because of pressure from the west coast of the

united states. workers who feared chinese competition, anti-chinese racism , all of that pressure kind of built up during the 1880's, the late 1870's and early 1880's and by 1882 you have the chinese exclusion law. in the case of one of the most restrictive immigration laws, what went on was, the united states had had its fill of foreign-born labor. our industries were fueled by foreign-born labor. we had had a peak. df immigration -- a peak perio of immigration, and at the end of the first world war, there was the red scare of 1919. there wasly 1920's, lots of bipartisan sentiment within congress to shut the door and to do so with the kind of

law that would limit the arrival of those immigrants who were the least popular. that included southern italians, eastern european jews, russians and so on. the law was structured to get, to keep those groups out. susan: starting in the 1880's to the present day, can you identify either major party with one stance or the other? dr. kraut: i think the republicans over the course of time have been the party least .ympathetic to immigration but there were also a significant element within the democratic party that was anti-immigration, as well. for example, the early 20th century area to keep up wages of american workers, they were anti-immigrant in sentiment. many southern democrats had

prejudices, rachel -- racial prejudices and don't want large numbers of southern italians and eastern europeans coming to the united states. both parties have groups within it better anti-immigration -- that are anti-immigration, and they become part of an anti-immigrant bloc that is successful enough to pass legislation. susan: if the first major legislation was in the 1880's, was the country before that? how was immigration law handled? ,r. kraut: before the civil war immigration is a state matter. the federal government has nothing to do with immigration. each state has its own quarantine laws governing immigrants who might be sick upon arrival. they also have inspection procedures in place. the busiest port on the east coast is new york. in 1855, castle garden is opened

as the new york state immigration depot. it is there that new york state immigration officers interrogate newcomers, and it is there that volunteer physicians examine newcomers to see that they are not bringing disease to the united states and they will be sufficiently robust to support themselves. it is strictly a state matter until the law of 1882. at that point, the treasury department takes over immigration, but does business with the states, in effect contracts with the states to enforce american immigration law and restrictions. susan: clearly a blanket of different laws. dr. kraut: exactly. susan: let's get a snapshot of waves of immigration before federal laws. we have to would knowledge quite a large -- acknowledge quite a

large continue -- contingent of involuntary immigrants, african-americans brought in through slavery. dr. kraut: prior to the civil are 4.5 million slaves in the united states. by virtue of it from eyes of the constitutional convention, the international slave trade was ended in 18 oh wait, but there was plenty of smuggling -- 1808 there was plenty of smuggling. 4.5 million slaves by the time of the civil war. i have a problem with calling them ill -- in voluntary migrants. they were slaves, a distinct category, not involuntary migrants, not the same as indentured servants or any other category we recognize. the first real mass immigration to the united states in the post

revolutionary timeframe begins slowly at the end of the 1830's and picks up in the 1840's and 1850's. that is the great migration of irish, germans, scandinavians coming to the united states. 1840illion people between and 1860. susan: what will that be as a percentage of the existing population? 1790, there were under 4 million people in the united states. susan: so essentially it doubled the population. dr. kraut: it was in that direction. it is extraordinary. susan: when we talk about the current time as the greatest immigration into the united states, history doesn't seem to bear that out. the history of the united states bears out that this is a country that is constantly hungry for newcomers.

own population simply will not sustain what we need to settle the land, and to produce prosperity, and once we enter the industrial revolution in the post-civil war period, the need for low-cost labor is essential to our capitalist direction. where will we get that labor from? we will get it from abroad. even prior to the civil war, we begin to see the irish, who are very often a source of low-cost labor, we see the germans, who are escaping the aborted revolutions of the 1840's and the german states, coming with .heir skills and crafts we see the scandinavians, who are going to be farming the land in the northern part of the american middle west. this is an extraordinary movement of people onto the north american continent, and

it's going to have dramatic economic and cultural repercussions. then: at the same time on west coast, the first wave of chinese immigrants were coming. what rupp them? -- what brought them? fromraut: they are coming a certain province because of the gold rush. they heard gold has been discovered in california. they are coming to make their fortune. of course, most of them don't discover gold, but they do find jobs working on railroads, working in the minds -- in the mines, servicing the working communities. they are cooks, doing laundry. they are also doing mining and railroad building. of the chinese exclusion law in 1882, there were 300,000 chinese in the united states. susan: mostly in northern

california? dr. kraut: mostly along the west coast. some of them are going north and end up in wyoming and a variety of different places. learn a littleo more about you. how did you end up having this as your academic specialty? dr. kraut: i started out my a civil ware as historian. i was trained in the civil war by the antebellum period. the time i left graduate school, i realized that i had an increasing interest in how castingt voters were their ballots with respect to issues like slavery and many other issues, as well. i was trained in voting behavior .nd came at it from that angle increasingly, i knew that i really wanted to work in immigration. and that would require, since i

was done with my phd, it would require retraining on my own. i did a lot of reading and a lot of teaching of a preliminary immigration course and so on, in i published my first book the early 1980's called "the huddled masses: the immigrant in american society 1880-1921." that launched me into immigration history. later in my career, i discovered i was interested in nativism that was particularly medical in content. the accusation that newcomers brought disease to the united states. but i had no background in the history of medicine. i had to retrain over a number of years in the history of a booke in order to do about the stigmatization of immigrants as disease bringers. susan: how many books have you done so far? dr. kraut: if you included

edited and co-authored books, nine. susan: all on immigration? dr. kraut: except for one, which is devoted to the antislavery movement. the rest all deal with immigration. travelers," which i published in the mid-1990's, squarely addresses the issue of health, disease, and immigration. susan: some of the things i note on your biography include your tenure on the statue of liberty advisory board and ultimately chairing it. what was the mission of that group? dr. kraut: back in the early 1980's, a young representative visited me in my office. her name was heather-. book as aad my graduate student and asked me if i would like to be part of a group of historians and designers and architects who in west virginia

to talk about, at harpers ferry, to talk about the possibility of a museum and the restoration of ellis island. course.aid of absolutely. i was fortunate enough to be part of an advisory committee that was formed, historians, who basically were a creature of the statue of liberty, ellis island foundation, the organization to raise the money for the restoration of the statue of liberty between 1984 and 1986. then, the creation of the ellis island museum and the restoration of part of ellis a placeo it could be for visitors to learn about the immigrant experience. in 2003, i was appointed chair of that committee and i have served in that capacity ever since. our most recent victory is the

opening of a new statue of liberty museum on liberty island at the opposite end of the island from the statue of liberty, which tells the story construction, its its role as a political and commercial iconographic figure. we think it is very exciting. susan: you served as a consultant to a lot of contemporary media organizations , telling stories about american immigration. what do you think of the american media telling the immigration story? dr. kraut: i think the media does a good job in telling the immigration story when they take the trouble to talk to people into a larger context. whether it is historians, sociologists, cultural .nthropologists the immigration story is complicated. it is deeply entwined with the larger american story.

when people ask what i do for a living, i say i write the history of a great republic but i write part of that history more than any other, and that is the part dealing with the peopling of america. if you want to understand that, it has to be contextualized. like to serve the media. should dohistorians the same. it is important, this story, and to critical to our country to get it wrong. susan: let's return to our narrative and the 1882 chinese exclusion act. i want to start with a piece of video from our library. way to thede its supreme court. let's show you a bit of an interview we did on the chinese exclusion act. very, very much the subject of discriminatory .ctivities

i am reminded of the case of people in 1854, very early california supreme court case in which several chinese witnesses saw a murder. they testified that they saw it. convicted and his clever defense attorney appealed the case to the california supreme court and argued there is a law in california that is indians and blacks can't testify against a white man and there are only three classes of people in the world, whites, blacks and mongolians. indians included chinese, and chinese were mongolian, indians were mongolians and the california supreme court lost the argument. testify against a

white man, the next thing you know, they will be sitting on a jury. they will run for the legislature. they will vote, they might even become judges. what a terrible thing that would be. racist type of decision. of californiatone history for about the first 100 years. susan: the act did go to the supreme court. how did the supreme court treat this case? dr. kraut: i think the supreme court treated it badly. in the sense that the chinese exclusion law lasted all the way 1943, and it is only in 1943 that we finally abandon our efforts to keep chinese out of the united states and from becoming citizens of the united

states. that was a great injustice. it speaks to another theme, which is important for us to explore, and that is the theme of racism within american immigration policy. there are plenty of reasons why americans reject particular immigrant groups. sometimes, it is on the basis of religion. anti-catholicism. always on the basis of color. on the basis of prevailing racism in the american consciousness that governs the way we approach these things. the first dramatic example of that is of course the 1882 chinese exclusion law. the fact that it took from 1882 all the way until 1943, until the chinese were our allies in the second world war, for that to finally abate.

susan: you made reference to the 1882 chinese exclusion act, the same year immigration, the first major immigration act. in 1990, president harrison establishes ellis island -- in 18 it -- in 1890, president harrison establishes ellis island. what is happening that necessitated these changes? dr. kraut: immigration is a matter of pushes and pulls. those who are going to be on the move are pushed by certain circumstances in their home countries, by poverty, by oppression, by religious this termination. and pulled by the promise of freedom, by the promise of economic opportunity and so on. if we think of these pushes and pulls, that is what pushed the irish and folks from the german states and scandinavians out of

their countries in the pre-civil war timeframe, and pulled them towards the united states, the promise of opportunity and greater freedom and so on. east.forces were moving europeuthern and eastern . the flow of migration to the united states was beginning to change in the 1880's, and while it was still germans coming and still folks from central europe, increasingly, there were folks coming from southern and eastern europe, where we had never gotten significant migration flow from before. it was fear, lots of anxiety about what that would mean. processingates up to all of these newcomers? did they have the power and organizational capacity to handle what was on the horizon? and the federal government's answer was no. so it became a matter of making

immigration a federal issue. a matter that would be handled by federal officers at federal immigration depots, and even the medical inspection would be handled by the offices of the u.s. marine hospital service, which can trace its roots to 1798 and a bill signed by john adams. they would be uniformed physicians of what would later become the u.s. public health service. the entire mechanism, this federal mechanism, was created to deal with the issue of immigration. how did americans deal with immigration in the late 19th century? with fear and anxiety, and at the same time expectation, the expectation that the newcomers would provide labor as america industrialized. the fear and anxiety was, who are these people?

where they coming from? how will they affect the texture of american culture and society? what are we going to do with them all? where are they going to settle? what is the implication? this is a very dramatic and dynamic period in the peopling of america, between the late 1880's and the 1920's when restrictive legislation is passed. susan: how many people came into the u.s. during that time? dr. kraut: 23.5 million. a significant percentage of the population. susan: some eastern europeans, including european jews, were fleeing religious persecution. where does the concept of refugees or asylum-seekers bubble up into immigration law? dr. kraut: the word refugee is not used with any precision during this period. there is a

great confusion over who is an immigrant and who is a refugee. we don't get any clarity to the term refugee until well into the 20th century. so yes, jews, especially after the pogroms of the earlier 20th century, are fleeing persecution in russia, and they are for all intents and purposes refugees. there is no definition of that, so they are part of the larger immigration experience. so you have all kinds of migration going on during this period. you have a seasonal labor migration of southern italians that come in march and april, they prefer outdoor work, they build the skyscrapers of manhattan, the federal triangle , theof washington, d.c. stonecutters are experts in

great demand. they go back during the winter months, and in the spring they come again. back and forth. the federal immigration officers oats ofo them as b passage, but they were labor immigration coming to take part in the jobs they liked best. the eastern european jews, the second largest group second to the italians during this time, have no intention of going back. they have come in part not just for economic opportunity but in flight from persecution. they are not going back to the tsar. they are not going back to that world. for them, it is a permanent one-way migration, or at least that's how they look at it. you have other groups, you have poles and slavs and greeks and so many different groups coming for a variety of reasons.

it is a big job or the federal government -- for the federal government to process these news -- these newcomers and inspect them and all the things that are necessary to make the country safe as the government understands it. susan: in 1917, they imposed a reading test for immigrants over the age of 16. what was that intended to do? dr. kraut: there was an inclination on the part of some in congress to try and improve the quality of immigration and exclude those groups notoriously ,n view of congress, illiterate under-educated, and so on. first thrust of restriction is in, there is an effort to pass literacy tests. they try it in 1896 and it failed, they tried in 1913 and 1915 and it failed.

vetoed theson twice literacy test. it was finally passed over a presidential veto. there was a tremendous amount of negotiation that went on before it was actually instituted. what constituted a language in which you could be literate? was yiddish a language? it had a written form. it was a peculiar kind of merger of other languages. as the lobbying for yiddish, one example, was such that it made the illiteracy test passable by many of those who were coming. moreover, if a woman was married to a man who was literate, she needn't be. that cut down on the number of people who could be excluded. , as anliteracy test was exclusionary implement, as a restrictive element, a failure,

a tremendous failure. susan: after this wave, 23 million people coming to the thetry, in the 1920's emergency quota act passeda natm in 1924. what were the kind of quotas and what were they based on? the 19 21 emergency national origins quota act was passed in 1922 and 19 23 as well. was entitled to 30%g into the united states of those already here, according to the 1910 census. by problem with that is that the 1910, a lot of southern italians and eastern european jews, who many americans wanted

to exclude, were already here. 1924, in the immigration act, the most restrictive piece of legislation up until that point in american history, they used the 1890 census as a base. i think before i said 30%, i meant 3%. in 1924, it went down to 2% of in 1890. are here calculate how many european jews were here in 1890, how many seven italians in 1890, take 2% of that and it is the annual quota. it took between 1924 and 1929 to argue about this and figure out every countries quota. susan: where the numbers coming from ellis island? dr. kraut: the statistics were kept at every american immigration port. they were then compiled. move from thed to

european migration and asian migration to talk about the southern border for a bit. it is interesting when you look at the 1930's, and we were talking about this before we began, there was the deportation of as many as 400,000 mexicans and mexican americans. in the 1940's, we began a program, and you referenced earlier, in 1954, something called operation wet back, a terrible name, rounding up people and sending them back to the native country, most often mexico. , sorting to show a video of a documentary produced at the time that talks about the program, and help us understand theicans's in and yang on immigration issue. [video clip] >> the term is also applied to

many of the toughest and least desirable farm jobs. for example, no stooping here because citrus trees are thorny and more difficult to pick, most farmworkers avoid this kind of drop -- job. all such jobs that are tough, dirty, and unpleasant are generally referred to as stupid labor. stooptandably -- as labor. understandably, this type of labor is supplemented by mexican citizens, sometimes called nationals or mexican nationals. the term most commonly used is brasaros.-- they are a tiny fraction of the yet somed on our farms americans feel even this tiny fraction should not be used. a typical dialogue pinpoints the issues. >> with americans on relief

roles, why bring in foreigners to work our farms? it makes no sense. >> but it makes sense to the farmer, because they work for less pay. >> but he is cutting down on living standards. why doesn't somebody do something about it? in theut: mexican labor united states has a long and rich history. we have to understand the mexicans did not migrate to the united states at first. 1840'sre engulfed in the after the mexican war and the ,reaty of guadalupe bay hidalgo 1848. that's when the mexicans living in the southwest become part of the united states of america. they children become citizens of the united states of america. was, the most restrictive

immigration laws of the 1920's, no bar on the hemisphere. mexicans are moving back and forth across the borders easily. there is no barrier for them. during world war ii, it is clear that with so many americans going off to war, there is a need for extra labor. there is a need for planting, harvesting. which, as thegram film said, means working with one's arms and body. 1942 until 1964. abouteral, there were 200,000 workers per year moving back and forth, during the 4.8re period, approximately million. they performed critical

functions in the american economy. they had other jobs as well. the reaction to them is not wonderful on the part of many americans who really resent them because they seem to be taking jobs away from a native born americans, although they really are not during this period. and for all kinds of racial reasons that have nothing whatever to do with the economy but a lot to do with attitudes, american anglo attitudes toward mexicans. once they have served their purpose, many in the united states want them to leave. is the see happening deportation of mexicans, and it actually begins after the second world war and picks up during the 1950's. by the 1960's, we are getting

them out of the united states. many americans will remember a song produced by woody guthrie and sung beautifully by joan -- called "the party "deportee," about a terrible plane crash in which a number of mexicans being deported were killed. there were 32 people on the flight and 28 of them were mexicans. what impressed woody guthrie is that the newspapers only reported the names of the white pilots and so on who were on the plane. everybody else was referred to as a deportee and not named in the reports. in some ways, he dramatized what was going on. we had taken this labor and were using this labor and now we wanted to get rid of this labor. 1950's,iddle of the

during the eisenhower administration, there was an operation called unfortunately operation wet back, which was designed to dump even more mexicans out of the united states and across the border. in all, a little over a million were deported during operation wet back. of love-hateind relationship with labor from abroad that america had had for a long time. here it was, with respect to our southern neighbor. we wanted them when we wanted them because we needed their labor, and when we did not need their labor anymore, we wanted them to go home. 1964, the formal agreement between the two governments is ended and that is the end of the program. but it is not the end of migration of labor back and forth across the border by any means. mexican labor is simply too

important to american growers. in addition, it helps the american growers to keep the price of produce low. they are working the mexican laborers way below what you would have to pay american workers to do the same job. susan: that was 1964. this next video is from 1965, it is at ellis island, linden johnson -- lyndon johnson signing a major bill. [video clip] >> those who contribute most to this country, its growth, its strength, its spirit, will be the first admitted to this land. the fairness of this standard is so self-evident that mean -- that we may well wonder that it has not always been applied. yet the fact is that for over four decades, the immigration policy of the united states has byn twisted and distorted

the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system. under that system, the ability of new immigrants come to america depended upon the country of their birth. only three countries were of all of supply 70% the immigrants. because were kept apart a husband or wife or child had been born in the wrong place. men of needed skill and talent were denied entrance because they came from southern or eastern europe or one of the developing continents. violated the basic principle of american democracy, a principal that values and rewards each man on the basis of

his merit as a man. susan: i think we have a chart i want to add to the discussion done by the pew organization that looks at american population after the 1965 legislation. as we are getting this ready to put up -- you can see what happened here from 1965 when the act passed, until the projected population in 2065. the foreign-born population told grow from 9.6 back then 45 million in 2018 and ultimately 78 million. the three major aspects of this legislation, as president johnson was talking about, families kept together, skills-based system, and repealing the quota you talked about. which had the most impact on the numbers changing? certainly family reunification has a tremendous impact, as it is described in

the legislation, but also skills-based as well. the idea was to get rid of a system that had become very ethnocentric and ugly, the national origins quota system. for reforming american immigration policy came out of the kennedy administration, and john kennedy wrote a book about immigration and was pushing very hard for it. it is doubtful he would have been able to get it through congress, but lyndon johnson did get it through congress. period he wasme getting three pieces of civil rights legislation through, he was also getting through this very important act of 1965 --led the hart cellar act seller act.

it substituted hemispheric quotas. 120,000 for the western hemisphere, 170,000 for the eastern hemisphere. flowanged the immigration for the united states significantly. instead of the flow coming primarily from europe, it really opened the door to many more people coming out of asia and ultimately africa and other parts of the world. , it imposed a quota on the western hemisphere, and that meant the movement of latin americans and especially mexicans that had once been unencumbered now was subject to a quota system too. world early 1970's, the is a very different place in terms of migration. great economic hardship and political turmoil in latin america.

the end of the vietnam war brings southeast asians and greater numbers to the united states, including ethnic chinese that had been in vietnam and cambodia and laos who also wanted to come to the united states. and it is a moment in which our current dilemma over undocumented or unauthorized immigration is born big time. -- there hasways always been undocumented immigration to the u.s., ever since there was documented admission. but now it was growing in numbers because there were so many from central america and so many from mexico who wanted to come into the united states. moreover, there were folks in the united states who were all two inches to hire them for their low wages and so on. the entire immigration seen, the cene, changes after

1965. in part of the speech, lyndon johnson says this legislation not change much but he could not have been more wrong. it changed everything. it opened the door for folks who had been unable to get to the united states before and it changed the flow of immigration to the united states and created the current problem we talk about a great deal, and that is how do we treat and how should those who are of unauthorized in our midst? susan: the policy debate from the 1980's forward focuses on undocumented or illegal immigrants as a policy issue. dr. kraut: it is certainly one of the major issues of confrontation and engagement in the policy world, no question. susan: let's move to 1986 when ronald reagan and congress tried

to create legislation to address some of the issues surrounding that. issolias the simpson ms. bill. [video clip] >> this bill that i will sign in a few minutes is the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952. it is the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings in the last three congresses. further, it is an excellent example of a truly successful bipartisan effort. allies ofstration and immigration reform on both sides of the capital and both sides of the aisle worked together to accomplish these critically important reforms to control illegal immigration. 1981, this administration asked congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package including employer

sanctions, other measures to increase the immigration laws and the act provides these essential components. discouraged -- has not discouraged immigration to the u.s. from around the globe. the problem of immigration should not be seen as a problem between the u.s. and its neighbors. our objective is only to establish a reasonable, fair, orderly, and secure system of immigration into this country and not to discriminate in any way against particular nations and people. susan: we hear a lot of criticism of that legislation, with the word amnesty tagged to it, and saying it encourages additional waves of migration from the southern hemisphere and mexico. what is the reality? dr. kraut: the reality is there were so many millions, estimates vary between 8.5, 9 million, 11 million unauthorized immigrants

in the united states, some who had lived here a very long time might their children here, who were citizens by birthright. veryd reagan did something pragmatic, he issued an amnesty to some of those folks in order to quiet the problem before the rest of the legislation addressed the problem. tried to shift the onus from those who were trying to cross our borders to those who were feasting on their labor and exploiting them terribly. from the migrant to those who hired and knowingly hired unauthorized immigrants in the united states. efforts to do this in a systematic kind of way. in the waycceeded

that those who crafted the legislation envisioned. in part because it became very unpopular from a political perspective to prosecute small business owners, or big business owners. and so the government did not jealously pursue those hiring undocumented immigrants, and the emphasis continued to be on trying to police the borders and send people back when you intercepted them at one border or another, the coast guard operating off the coast of cuba, and intercepting haitian immigrants, searching for people who had overstayed student or work visas. in short, the legislation did not do the job it had been intended to do in an effective way. that's one of the reasons why we continue to debate immigration policy and continue to feel very

badly about the problem we have, which is good people who want opportunity for their children, safety for themselves and their children, who cross our borders, but in doing so break our laws. how should we treat that? we are a nation of laws. on one hand, the inclination is to enforce our laws, on the other hand the humanitarian aspect cannot be ignored. how should we treat this? we continue to debate it. need a-- we desperately solution. i am a nonresident fellow at a immigration policy institute, and one of the things we do is debate what a good immigration policy would be. what would that look like? one possibility is it would involve advanced planning.

what are the country's economic needs going forward? when we create a five-year plan, plane plan for -- 10 year for who we invite into our country. what kind of skills they would have, and how with the skills of incoming immigrants mesh with our desire to be humanitarian and except the relatives of those already here, the family reunification element of previous legislation. a tremendous number of very hard questions for our country to answer. in aly we are enmeshed ferocious debate which, because of the contemporary spirit of nativism and xenophobia, has become very embittered and angry. americans are furious about this issue, and in many of the polls that has been taken when americans are asked what is the most important issue fewer -- for you in the next election, a

remarkable number say immigration. susan: what is the reality in the 40 years since ronald reagan's legislation? how many undocumented immigrants have come from the southern border of the u.s.? dr. kraut: we can't count them and we don't know with any great precision how many people are in the u.s. in an unauthorized fashion at any given moment. we know that during the period after 2008,sion, the number went down. we believe it went from approximately 11 million down to below 9 million. back up it has buoyed again as the economy improved. one of the things about migration is it is not a casual decision, it is a very serious decision that people are making to put their lives at risk to try and go to another country

and break the country's by entering that country. laws byountries entering the country. at a time when a country is in the economic doldrums, you are less likely to take the risk van at a time when jobs are plentiful. working in a job construction, on lawns, a more skilled position depending on your skill set. it is not surprising in the least to see that as the economy has recovered, the number of undocumented has increased. in addition, we are living in a world with a lot of political chaos in various parts of the world. whether we are talking about refugees coming out of the middle east or talking about violence inng gang guatemala, honduras, el salvador. people are on the move.

are fears about terrorism in the united states post 9/11. dr. kraut: immigration and refugee policy is a national security issue. time itnot the first was regarded as a national security issue. it was regarded that way in the 1930's and 1940's, many times. at since 9/11, immigration is national security issue and that cannot be ignored either. susan: very quickly, just to get it on the record, a snapshot of the debate we are having, nancy pelosi and president donald trump. [video clip] >> every president in recent memory has understood the value of immigration to our nation. in his last speech as president of the united states, president ronald reagan said i have an important message to the country i love purity he went on to say,

thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, always on the cutting edge, always eating the world to the next frontier -- always leading the world to the next frontier, this quality is vital to the nation. he went on to say, if we close the door to new americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost. great,country is doing unemployment is very low, we just came out with 224,000 new jobs, the numbers are unbelievable. that is bringing people up like they have never come up. border patrol and ice have done a great job. people are being removed from the country, we are removing them. we are starting with ms 13. onslaughtver had an -- the reason they came up -- and they come up -- is because

the country is doing well and they want jobs. susan: the tenor of much of the discussion in the country. during the 1990's and 2000's, it seemed like immigration laws were incremental and all of the politicians who say we need a fundamental revisiting of immigration law, let's finish where we started -- what will it take in this country to enact or change theion immigration to policy that we need is a nation? dr. kraut: it would return to a cooperative bipartisanship, to agree that immigration is an important part of our country, has been, is, will be in the future, and that it behooves everyone involved to put aside the pettiness and the anger that his underpinning the current

debate and try to act constructively in creating new policy. be a sudden moment, a precipitating factor, a moment of illumination from on high? i doubt that very much. but several times in recent thedes, whether it was mccain-kennedy discussions, or discussions by other politicians willing to cross party lines, there have been constructive debates about what a rational immigration policy would be. i would like to see, many of us would like to see, a return to that kind of across the aisle, bipartisan discussion in order to create a rational immigration policy, whether it takes the form of an immigration commission with representatives of labor, manufacturing, ethnic communities, creating five or 10 year migration plans. there are lots of different

proposals out there. the one thing that is absolutely crucial is that we not continue with of the current chaos of american policy. moment,i wait for that i anxiously wait for that moment as many others do as well, a moment of illumination and politicians on both sides of the aisle will step forward and say this is too serious of a problem not to solve this policy discussion. historiann kraut, a of american immigration, thank you for the conversation. dr. kraut: thank you. ♪ >> all "q&a" programs are available on our website, or as a podcast at c-span.org. ♪ next week on "q&a," a wall

talks journal columnist about her book, "resistance at all costs." she argues the president trumps critics have become a threat to democracy. that is next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. conversationt a next week with some of the republican candidates mounting primary challenges to president trump along with your questions. that is live friday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] thinking about participating in c-span's studentcam 2020 competition you have never made a documentary film? no problem. we have resources on our website to help you get started. check out our getting started and downloads pages on studentcam.org for producing information and links to footage. teachers will also find

resources on the teacher's materials page, to help introduce studentcam to your students. >> my advice to anyone who wants to compete this year is to find a topic you are passionate about and pursue it as much as you can. >> this year, we asked middleton high school students to create a short documentary on the issue you would like presidential candidates to address during the 2020 campaign. c-span will award $100,000 in total cash prizes plus a 500,000 -- plus a $5,000 grand prize. >> go start filming and produce the best video you can possibly produce. >> visit studentcam.org for more information today. this week in british politics began with a speech from queen elizabeth at the state opening of parliament and ended with a vote to delay prime minister boris johnson's plan to leave the european union. here's a look at some of