thank you, chris. i need everybody to leave their equipment here. we're going to stay on this vehicle. >> thank you. [indiscernible] >> we will be back here in 40 minutes. >> "washington journal" continues. host: they focus on migration at the u.s. southern border. our guest is andrew selee, president of the migration

policy institute. one thing mpi is known for is estimates on migrants living in the united states. guest: our numbers show there are 11.3 million people living in the united states. the number has gone up, it is probably close to 12 million. even when people arrive there are people leaving so the numbers do not move as much as they think. 11 million or 12 million people, our organizations check with other organizations like the department of homeland security. we have different methodologies but we all arrive at a very similar number. host: where are people coming from when they're crossing the border today? guest: about a quarter of them are from central america. we were talking about this under the trump administration and the biden administration, we were

talking about central americans. this was about guatemala and hundred or is. we have seen a lot of mexicans lately which is a new trend. the mexican numbers are overestimated but they tend to be the group that repeats. about half come from the rest of the world. the rest of the world is heavy on south america, especially venezuela, ecuador, south america. they get people from cameroon and senegal and nepal and india, all over the world. host: in terms of chinese unauthorized migrants, how has that number ballooned in recent years? what is that number compared to from other migrant groups from other countries? guest: it is not as big as other groups but it has shot up in the past year and a half. i was in texas at a border patrol station on the week the chinese national started arriving in large numbers.

we saw this happening in real time and no one was prepared. about three weeks after china relaxed its travel restrictions for chinese citizens, suddenly people started appearing at the border in the numbers have gone up since then. we are close to 100,000 this year. it is a number that has gone up. it is not one of the largest groups but it is in the top 10 now. that is a surprise, it is a country far away and hard to get here. host: are we talking about family units come individuals, unaccompanied minors in that group? certainly the subsection gets a lot of attention. guest: it seems to be mostly single adults, young adults, overwhelmingly male but not exclusively. fewer families and fewer unaccompanied minors. they seem to be middle-class, not extremely successful, lower middle-class or middle-class where the families have gotten

them money to get to the united states in the hopes they will be successful and help the family. host: migration policy institute is the organization. andrew selee is the president. for folks who do not know about the institute what should they know? guest: we are a policy research center and we are nonpartisan and we work around the world. our headquarters is in washington, d.c. we try to figure out what our sensible policies on migration that reasonable people of different political persuasions can get on board with and support. host: a lot of focus on the issue of borders are and kamala harris being a border czar. not an official title in the u.s. government. where did that come from. guest: we've not had a border czar ever. the secretary of homeland security has been a de facto order czar.

earlier in the biden administration there was an ambassador that how that role. vice president harris, i sensed she was not tasked with the border, she was tasked with diplomatic relations with central america, with private investment, which is something she leaned into and something she has let on, getting customers to an -- getting companies to invest in central america. she has never engaged on broader border issues. that is good or bad. on one side there are the accusations she is responsible for this mess, but she was not doing immigration. i think that is specious. you could say she had a chance to do more on these issues, she did not lead into it. she did what she was asked to do which is a limited mandate on engaging on central america and seems to have done well. she has been consistent on the private sector part. host: in atlanta yesterday she was defending her record on immigration as part of her

address to the rally-goer's there. this is about a minute and a half of what she had to say. [video clip] >> i was the attorney general of a border state and in that job i walked underground tunnels between united states and mexico with law enforcement officers. i went after transnational gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. i prosecuted them in case after case and i won. [applause] donald trump, on the other hand, has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk. or as my friend would say, he is not walk it like he talks it. [applause]

our administration works on the most significant border security bill in decades. some of the most conservative republicans in washington, d.c. supported the bill. even the border patrol endorsed it. it was all set to pass. at the last minute, trump directed his allies in the senate to vote it down. host: andrew selee, she ended talking about that bipartisan border bill that never got a vote. it never passed congress after a lot of discussion. remind viewers what was in that legislation. would it have been the most he didn't bill in decades? guest: probably.

it was an important bill. we are likely to see something like it resurrected no matter who wins, whether it is vice president harris or former president trump. what it would have done is make the asylum system work at ports of entry so people have to present themselves and organized way but it is tougher to get asylum if you come between ports of entry and it would put resources into border agencies that are struggling, customs and border protection but also u.s. immigration services struggling under the weight of the caseload they have to deal with. we are researching agencies from a time and era where there were different people coming to the border. we have to be aware the policy has a piece of this. the reality is the number of people on the move is going on globally. people have a lot more room to move thanks to technology.

the reality is there's a great paper for the center of global development talking about how migration to the u.s. actually follows the economic cycles in the united states more than anything else. when there are jobs available is when you see large numbers of people coming in. obviously when you have a meltdown of a country, you have a major conflict, that drives people out. a lot of what we see at the u.s. border is about jobs and people knowing there's a job waiting them and if there is a job waiting there likely to try to come and if there is not they do not. host: how involved we know kamala harris was in the negotiations on the border bill? guest: i don't know if she was involved in the negotiation's. they actually kept that under wraps. they did a good job of that. they try to keep those negotiations out of view. there are so few attempts to get real bipartisan negotiations done between real conservatives

and real liberals. this was senator lankford, genuine conservative, and senator murphy from connecticut who is a genuine liberal. this reminds you of kennedy and mccain. these were not centrists trying to find out if they agreed on something. these were difficult negotiations to find areas of agreement and they found it which is admirable and i think we will see their efforts warded -- their efforts rewarded. host: andrew selee with us for the next 35 minutes or so on the washington journal. we are talking about migration on the southern border. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents (202) 748-8002, and then a special line for folks from border states. (202) 748-8003. let me had to the garden state. thomas is a new jersey.

democrat. caller: good morning. how are you doing? listen, i am 70 years old. i have been around a long time. border patrol -- border control, we call it border control. we do not collect border control when they were bringing all the slaves over to work for this country. now it is border control. the earth belongs to god and those that well upon it. god is the god of all nations. host: you have a question about border policy right now? caller: border policy. i don't know too much about border policy but i know we have a bill that was sent out for donald trump and his republicans to sign to help fix the border,

to help make the border better. they refused. then he wants to blame the vice president. host: back to the bipartisan border bill. guest: i will avoid the theology since we are on tv but i appreciate it. immigration has been good to this country. except for people who are fully native american we are all a product of immigration. slavery was forced immigration. people moving across borders as part of who we are as a country and is part of the secret sauce that made a successful. we know immigrants, a quarter of all patents have at least one immigrant innovator in the patent. a lot of our invasion system is driven by immigration. immigrants are 90% more likely to start new business than nativeborn americans. they are much more entrepreneurial. there is a great book called

"the truth about immigration" that ghosted economic stats and it is part of economic growth. it is a good thing. it is part of who we are. at the same time we know we do not have enough legal ways for people to go to the u.s. and so people are finding other ways. we also know we need to have people come legally. when people come across the border unchecked without a process, that will undermine the credibility of the immigration system and it will create legitimate concerns among americans that we do not know who is coming to this country or why or how. we figure out how we square this circle. how we make sure immigration continues in a way that is legal, that is a real challenge and a challenge democrats and republicans should be facing. host: this is vincent in michigan. good morning. caller: he brought up the comment about senator coons and senator lankford. two people who came up with a

bill that allows 5000 people a day to come into this country illegally. you tell me that is a bill? furthermore, talking about immigrants. how many more people have to be murdered? how many more people have to be raped before you get off of this kick and say do we need these illegal murderers? host: just for the point of fact, we know from multiple studies that immigrants are less likely to commit crime and when immigrants move into neighborhoods the crime rate goes down. we can find immigrants who are terminals and i think we should be worried that we are not fitting people well enough at the border to know when people come across who could have a criminal record. that is a real problem. overall immigrants, including those are unauthorized have a much lower propensity for crime than nativeborn americans. we should be worried about those who are born here. on the bill that was out there,

it would not allow 5000 people a day. once it hit 5000 a day it allowed them to implement much stricter measures to try to keep people out. the administration has done it anyway without the legislation and have put a series of measures in place that are making it harder to cross between ports of entry. they have de facto done much of the bill. they do not have the resources that only congress can appropriate, and this will be a problem if it is president trump or vice president harris. you need the resources to go to the agencies at the border. secondly, anything you do through executive orders is subject to litigation. it is on much less solid ground. there are questions that some of the things they are doing could be enjoined in the courts and that is a risk. it was a pretty tough measure. it was humane and fair but also fairly tough. it would not have solved the

border. it would have been a positive step forward. host: nicole brings up illegal migrants and has been a talking point for the trump campaign for a while, including in a new ad focused on the vice president. this is 30 seconds of the at. [video clip] >> this is america's border czar and she has failed us. under harris, over 10 million illegal year. a quarter of a million dead from fentanyl. isis now here. you have any plans to visit the border? >> i have not been to europe. i do not understand the point you're making. >> kamala harris failed. host: your immediate reaction to that at? -- to that ad? guest: the charge that

immigrants are committing crimes is erroneous overall. where i think there is a legitimate point is that when the numbers get really large we do not have a good vetting process for people who come to the border. this is a problem on national security as well as for people who may have gang related activities or other past crimes, there is a vetting process and border patrol has seen this in real time. the border patrol does a good job of pulling aside people they have some recent to believe could pose a threat. they have problems -- knowing who might be a threat. we do not have perfect information from countries abroad. when the people arriving or large numbers in they end up having to release people, which is what happened under trump and president biden. when the numbers get big there's no real option but to let people go. you do not know who are letting in the country.

host: sohost: far there've not been any major terrorist attacks. we should be worried and it is a point of debate and something we've not seen the biden administration acknowledge fully. what we know about the numbers of people on terror watch list? do they get released immediately or do they just get turned away and possibly try to come in through some other route? guest: if they are on a terror watch list they are usually pretty good. there is a filter in costa rica and panama where they fingerprint most people who come from that route. most people are coming through that route. they share their fingerprints with the u.s. in the u.s. runs a check of the database. often people have been caught in costa rica and panama and deported back to those countries of origin. to get to the u.s. border, if they committed a crime the u.s. can prosecute they can be put in jail and prosecuted.

most of the time if they are on a terror watch list they have not committed a crime under u.s. law, they are someone under observation, they are relative of a known terrorist. there is some reason to believe they participated or had ties in a terrorist group. their son a crime they can hold them for. they report them back to their country of origin. host: this is robert, independent. thanks for waiting. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have a statement and a question. the statement is if you go to the border and you go through the process, welcome to america. that is how most of us got here to begin with. the question is i work in d.c. and i do construction work and i go around and i see all day, every week. the workforce is all latin. there are tens of thousands of workers.

there are major corporations that hire these guys. i find it hard to believe that all of these people are legally here and if they are not legally here how are they working for a major corporation? how are they getting away with doing this? guest: first of all, you are right. most americans agree with your point that we want to welcome people and we need more legal ways for people to come here and we want to welcome people who are fleeing persecution and would be in danger if they were returned to their country. otherwise people should be returned. we should not let people be in. the system has collapsed in the past few years. it started collapsing probably in the bush administration, it started collapsing in the 1990's and a lot under obama and then under trump and more recently hunter biden much more

noticeably. that is what we get back to. we want more legal ways for people to come in. people work in all sorts of ways. some people have temporary protection. when we talk about the 11 to 12 million people here illegally come of those there are 2 million that have some sort of temporary protection, either temporary protected status or dhaka deferred action -- or daca protected -- deferred action for people who came here and there you. they are legally here even though we count them as part of the illegal population. host: what is an example of protected status? guest: in venezuela if you look at everything that is going on, the trump administration made the original decision to not deport venezuelans. the biden administration

extended it and expanded it a bit. if you are in a city or washington dc a lot of people with motorcycles or venezuelans. they have temporary protections so they can work legally for up to 18 months and have renewed every 18 months. it is not a permanent status but they can work in the meantime. there are a lot of people in that category. other people are doing false social security numbers are being hired by contractors of contractors of contractors. i had a conversation with someone also in construction and congratulations for the work you do. important for all of us. they are saying i never thought of this, how are people working through the projects we do? the reality is construction companies hire a contractor who is often hiring gunther contractors and down the road --

he was often hiring other contractors and down the road they may not be checking the way large company is doing. host: to walter in mississippi. thanks for waiting. caller: how are you doing? my question is this bill they keep talking about how great it is, when you pass a bill, we need a bill on this border that does not let anybody in. it shuts the border down. 5000 a day, that does not make sense. another thing. biden, when he takes the oath of office, doesn't he say he will protect the united states from all foreign this and that? i know he does. why is that not in impeachable offense? why haven't they made him shut the border down? host: andrew selee on shutting down the border completely. is it possible and what would happen if it were possible? guest: i don't think it is

possible to shut down the border entirely. even north korea has tried to shut down their border and have not been able to do it. it is hard to control a large border, especially one that is our biggest trade corridor. mexico is our biggest trade partner so there is legal movement all the time. you can bring numbers down. what this bill would have done it sharply break down the numbers. we have seen the administration do some of the same members in the bill and the numbers are coming down significantly and they could come down more. it is unlikely we will get to zero. one of the things we have seen that the numbers have come down, critically in the past three months. last month was notable -- once you see the numbers come down they start to be able to do things that dissuade people from coming. before they were a lot of people on the street giving them what

is called a notice to appear. they do not have time to process them. now they begin to do some of the things that lead to returning people to their countries if they do not have a legal way in or find out they have illegally staying. that begins to create a reinforcing process of bringing the numbers down. i think you can do things that bring numbers down but there is no magic let. the other side of this is when the job market is tight in the u.s., when there are lots of jobs, we defined a legal wafer importers to hire people from abroad when they are not enough american workers in those sectors. we do not have legal pathways for construction work. a lot of immigrants in construction work. many who do not have papers. a lot of immigrants in care work. we do not have legal pathways for that. we need to think about how we bring in the people we need. last time we changed our visa system was 1990, that was way

before ai, way before the internet revolution, way before the economy we have today. this is something republicans and democrats should be talking about. how to create legal pathways that lead people in? we can argue about people that came in the last couple of years but it has only been here 10 years or 15 years or 20 years. host: on legal immigration, how many legal immigrants to we allow into the country each year? guest: a million that come in for permanent residence give or take every year. there is another million to 1.5 million that come in legally on student visas or temporary work visas or intercompany transfers. there are a lot that will allow people to work. i usually say between 2 million and 2.5 million. host: to the question about border security, we have heard

the border so -- we've heard the border described as a balloon, if you tightknit here come the air moves over here. right now where are we squeezing and where illegal migrants moving to to get through the border? guest: the squeezing we did this time was smart. they created a process for people to come in legally at ports of entry. it needs to be fixed. it needs to be resourced and done better. it is a good start. it is an incentive for people who cross at ports of entry to come to the border. they made it harder if you go between points of entry they made it harder to get asylum and made it easier for them to put you on the airline and send you back home. then they opened these mobility offices, which has been part of the biden thing. it is the kind of thing you could to the trump administration do when their joint event people ahead of time

their countries origin, so people along the route can apply for protection in the u.s. where they can apply for a job if there is legal pathway they qualify for. host: they still forget themselves there. guest: they can only get themselves there if they qualify. before they start a journey, before they hire a smuggler, they find out if they can legally enter the united states. a lot of people are doing the offices and appointment system and stuff going between points of entry and that is a big start. if you can make the balloon go further south so people know their options before they go, we know some people can find out they have no legal options that they will still hire a smuggler. we have to be honest about that. some people will say i got my chance and i will stay where i am. that seems to be paying off. it needs to be done better. it is the kind of thing that

needs a republican or democratic administration to build on it. host: line for democrats. richard in georgia. caller: good morning. i participated in the human boatlift as a military assignment back in 1980 when they came in under president carter. that is where i learned about the immigration policy -- the immigration problem. now over the years we have had one for cuba, we had one for haiti, we had one for the northeast, we have one for the northwest people coming into the country and the northern border is not secure. my thinking is how we can go along with another years of trump who separate parents from their children and we are still trying to locate who the mothers of the children that belongs to

those children. i like parts of the rolling or section 42, but we have to tell corporate graces that hire them to make sure they do 1099 forms to show they can legally work in the country and also have green cards. we have five different immigration policies and the only one that gets to come in with no problem is the cubans. host: richard brings up a lot of different topics. guest: the thing that has been created recently is a program for cubans, haitians, venezuelans, nicaraguans. these are countries under enormous stress that have communist governments that sate -- that are really authoritarian. haiti is a country that has been

on the edge for a long time. if people have a family member in the u.s. that family member can apply for them to common get to the united states. they are responsible for them it is limited numbers. there were pretty big numbers. about 30,000 a month. i looked at the numbers just to make sure things are as they have been. therapeutic cubans, haitians, nicaraguans through points of entry -- venezuela's have gone way down. we will see what happens now it looks like there's been fraud in the election. numbers from venezuela have gone down because they have gone down because they of this alternate legal pathway. thinking about how we push decisions away from the border. you can bet people when they apply.

the good thing is before they get to the u.s. you can run them through the databases. the more we can do that, we cannot make decisions at the border. the border is a last resort. we will take people in extreme danger, but other than that we will return you. we are opening other options along the way so you can come earlier. we are much more likely to see the numbers go down on the border. there is a real danger when we are making spot positions at the border about people and we are not fully venting them. we do not have the tools because the border patrol does not want to do it or the u.s. government does not want to do it. it is because the tools are not there and the timing is not there to allow people to do this with what is needed to actually check people out. host: my phone lines are lit up. i will keep taking calls. tie in connecticut, good

morning. caller: i don't know a lot about immigration in this country but i son interview with trump and he said he wanted to get rid of the asylum status that our country has. they are lumping people who are seeking asylum with people illegally crossing the borders. how do we speed up the asylum process and legal immigration process so these people are not lumped in with people illegally crossing? guest: that is a great point. this is what the legislation was trying to fix. this legislation, trump tainted but so did groups more on the left. this was a lot of people on both sides to not like this. a lot of the immigrant advocacy groups whose job is to advocate for people, but there also groups really skeptical. we saw one of the senators from california, few senators that opposed this from the left as well this was both sides,

probably president trump's opposition was more important but ultimately there was pushback on both sides. asylum is something we under international law -- anyone who gets to our borders or gets into the united states, this is true of any country that signed the refugee convention which is all democratic countries in the world -- if everyone comes to our border and they are in danger persecution we have to offer them legal entry. the problem is the system for making that decision has become so clunky that it takes four to five years to make that decision. that becomes an incentive for everyone at the border to apply for asylum because they know they can stay four or five years. not everyone does. what they try to do is speed that process up. how did you last in, first out.

as they come in -- is a higher standard for asylum. they need to hire a lot more asylum officers and let asylum officers make the final decisions. we have been moving in that direction the last couple of years but there is a lot more that needs done and then needs resources. you need a fast, fair, and final process that lets people in who are running for their lives. we should do that. that is part of our moral obligation as a democratic society to protect people running away from authoritarian governments or from governments will not protect them but does not create an incentive for people to apply to asylum. host: this is alex in dillon county, republican. good morning. caller: good morning and thanks c-span radio and tv for educating the world.

when it comes to casa, that cosigned for pieces -- for visas for the work visa aliens -- the problem i'm having with casa? host: what is casa? caller: they advocate for and recruit from other countries. you are not familiar with casa? guest: i am not. caller: is a catholic organization that gives out these work visas for these

people in foreign countries to work. host: you're are talking about recruiting for work visas. caller: you're familiar with it? host: i am not familiar with it but what is your question? caller: my question is when it comes to hiring, why can't we just hire here and save all of the rhetoric from hiring around the world? why can't we just hire our own? that is all i am saying. it is to a point now where police officers are being recruited from other countries to work our police departments. guest: i don't think police officers but we are seeing nurses and doctors certainly. the u.s. is getting older. we are below replacement rate. people have fewer than two children per family on average.

the number of people in the u.s. labor force is going down. the number of people paying taxes is going down. the only way we are keeping up is by having a certain number of immigrant workers. we can argue how many and what sectors. those are things politician should be arguing about. how do we set this up? we need people to come into certain sectors where we do not have american workers. until recently there were about two jobs. unemployment is down to about 4.1%, which is historically low. we have had anywhere from eight to 10 million jobs open in a given month. americans are not taking most of those jobs. the numbers have gone down. the number of open jobs is down. that may also be linked to the numbers of immigrants at the border going down also. we are going to need to bring in immigrant workers from some sectors because we do not have enough americans moving there.

i do not think it has happened with police departments but we are seeing it in agriculture come in service industries and hospitality industries. we are seeing it in medicine. it is only doctors and nurses in medicine we need a broad set of people involved in the medical industry and the health-care industry and in care work that go beyond this and we do not have visas beyond doctors and nurses. we need to figure this out, not replace american workers but to complement american workers. i recommend "the truth about immigration" on this. he is a good economist and he shows you all sides of the picture. you see immigrant workers mostly complement american workers and they tend to increase employment and a lot of the sectors. if you bring people into the right sectors for the complement american workers it tends to help all of us. host: who is the author? guest: z current and as.

-- zeke hernandez. host: we will show at that book looks like. alicia in maryland. independent. caller: good morning. i would like to make two points please. please don't hang up on me and i thank you for it -- i thank you for letting me speak. when the majority in the house and the senate -- when speaker pelosi was the speaker mr. trump wanted to build the wall. he said to ms. pelosi would you give me the money to build the

wall and i will give you daca? ms. pelosi never answered. she just went on vacation. host: i'm running short on time. what is your other point you want to make quickly? caller: the other is i think they call it the r2 from the house. speaker johnson said that they had a very comprehensive bill about the border he sent to chuck schumer and schumer just sat on it for a year. host: that is alicia in maryland. guest: hr2 was really popular with republicans and not so with democrats and never really got any traction on the senate side. it did on the house side, on the

senate side it never got a vote because democrats were opposed. it was a wish list of enforcement measures that went beyond where democrats were willing to go and it did not have anything about expanding legal immigration which a lot of republicans would like to see in the senate as well. i think there been mistakes made on both sides politically. democrats have overplayed their hands, republicans have overplayed their hands. if you want me to be an all-purpose curmudgeon i would say -- there's a lot of goodwill. if you could get most republicans and democrats in a room away from cameras and no social media and a promise no one would tweet anything out, you could actually get to some pretty reasonable agreement in the way that senator lankford and senator murphy and senator kyrsten sinema did because people know this. we did not want people coming

across the border without documents. we want to protect people coming from authoritarian countries, but we do not want people coming illegally. we can argue about which sectors and how many but we could hash this out. the problem is the optics and symbolism in politics. both sides overplay. republicans overplayed thinking it is all about the border and if you shut it down that will solve everything. democrats tend not to worry about the border, they forget that matters and it creates a lack of confidence in the system if you do not have an orderly process and they think it is about taking care of people who are undocumented in this country, which is a noble effort. republicans are right that the border needs more control, but you cannot just do that. you have to think about how you have sensible measures at the border that are doable. what you do about the legal immigration system that allows people to come and legally? if you make it harder to come in

legally -- that is what takes pressure off. that is to push the border out, have people apply legally way before rather than right of the border. let's see that and let's figure out what people -- what to do with people of been here a long time. it will be good for all of us, they will be more productive, they will move up professionally, it will help all of us. this is the thing that gets lost by both sides. democrats talk about a humanitarian issue, republicans talk about it as a national security issue. it really is an economic issue. it is an element of national security and an element of fairness, but it is also a question of how we make this country successful, how we continue to be innovative. immigration is a big part of how we do that. we just need to figure out how to manage it and away we are talking about legal immigration going forward. host: a good place to go if you

want facts and figures on migration policy analysis. migrationpolicy.org. andrew selee is the president of the migratioy policy

decisions. the next meeting is scheduled for mid september.