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♪ >> midco supports c-span as a publ serce, along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> joining us now to discuss the trump administrations mass deportation efforts is michelle hackman, an immigration policy reporter with the wall street journal. welcome back to the program. ck to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: we will start with one of your headlines, trump ramps up deportation efforts after slow start. tell us when the deportation efforts started and what they look like right now. guest: we wrote that story because a few days before trump took office, we caught wind that they were planning a mass raid of chicago, basically. the tuesday after he took office. and we reported it and by reporting it, i think they

actually temporarily called it off. those first few days, we were tracking their efforts. they were blasting out press releases and videos, showing deportations. by all accounts, those seemed pretty routine. they seemed like business as usual for the biden levels of deportations, the types of people being deported. last weekend, we suddenly noticed this uptick in them sort of trying to bring up their numbers and arrest more people per day. host: when we talk about who they are focusing on, explain who that is, what's the priority for them? guest: it's a really interesting question, tammy, because that question has shifted over time. when trump was a candidate, he would say i want to deport everybody. i want to go after 15 million people. it's not clear if there are 15

million people who are eligible deportation in the country. after he won, we saw trump and his advisors narrow that group. that came out of recognition that what he was promising was sort of not practically possible. he said we will go after people with criminal histories. ice once estimated that there are approximately 700,000 immigrants here illegally who have some kind of criminal record. that i think seemed like a more manageable size of a population to them. it is what we see them prioritizing. it does not mean they are only going for criminals. they are arresting other people too. and i think that is in part because they want to drive up their numbers. host: and how are they finding the undocumented immigrants that they are apprehending or are at

least talking with? guest: yeah, so when uci's go out and -- you see ice go out and do an arrest, they are working on a target list that they have developed over time. they are using intelligence and other factors. these are people they have prioritized for deportation, typically people with some kind of criminal record or sometimes people who have received a final order of deportation from a judge. and so, typically, the way ice works is it creates those lists. these are not precise numbers. let's say they have a list of 2000 people in chicago for an operation. they will try to hit as many of those people as they can. the thing about those lists is that, especially people who have more serious criminal histories, they are typically not the easiest people to get. they know the drill with police. they know how to evade ice

arrests and it is easier to arrest somebody with no criminal history whatsoever who may not know that you don't need to open your door for an ice officer to avoid arrest. host: our guest, michelle hackman, is an immigration reporter with the wall street journal. if you have a question or comment, you can start calling now. the lines from republicans is (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. michelle, you mentioned chicago a couple of times. already, when we look at who is actually carrying out these ice raids and the deportation efforts, explain the role of the federal government versus state and local officials. guest: primary authority for arresting and deporting immigrants false to ice, immigrations and customs enforcement.

they only have 6000 officers for the whole country. the trump administration, because it is their goal to deport as many people as possible, they have deputized a sort of unbelievable number of other federal, state and local agencies. they have recruited fbi agents, dea agents. they have brought people in from secret service across dhs. they have also said if you are a state or local law enforcement official, we will give you arresting authority to help us out. we have not seen that happen in any kind of large-scale way, yet. we could see the state of texas has the department of public safety and officers around the state border. we could see them carrying out arrests. we could see the state of oklahoma, who said they would cooperate by turning over the immigration status of children in their public schools. i think we will see an unprecedented level of that type

of cooperation, particularly in red states, cities and counties. host: you have said the trump administration has been trying to increase the number of deportations, apprehensions. we know how many arrests have been made? guest: we have been coming up with a daily tally. i think it is a little over 5000 or 6000 at this point. the point i want to emphasize to listeners or to viewers here is that an arrest of an immigrant living here illegally is not 1:1 with a deportation. often times, ice will arrest someone and for various reasons realize they have to release them. a common reason is they will arrest someone and say oh my gosh, your country is just not taking any deportees right now so, there's no point in us detaining you when we have such limited space so we are going to release you. and you are on bond for now but

we will come get you at some point. host: we have callers waiting to talk with you. we will start with steve in florida on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have two points. number one, we have had open borders for the last 40 years. ever since the 1980's, when they started working in construction. and they have sort of gone through the immigration cycle and established themselves and had open businesses. i've worked with a lot of people coming up from the mexican border and they are just like everybody else. the fact this began with the biden administration is laughable. they brought them in originally for the sole purpose of undermining prevailing wage. the second point i have is we

need people here to work. we need people here to build houses. we need people here to provide long-term care, which the population we have now trying to get people to work in these industries is woefully inadequate. we are paying well over $2000 a month for rent. and well over 400 -- $400,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bedroom two bedroom, 2000 square-foot house. i think these new border policies are the exact opposite of what we need. guest: thanks so much, steve. you raise a lot of interesting points and it's probably impossible to address them all. for better or worse, what's happened over the last four

years feels a little different. we have had illegal immigration or whatever you would like to call it coming from mexico for as long as america has been a country. in the 1950's, we had -- this is an issue that goes back more than 100 years. what happened in the last four years that feels different to me, i won't say it is better or worse, is that typically, when you think of a really typical undocumented immigrant, you are thinking of somebody who sneaks across the board and goes unnoticed and does not have any papers whatsoever and gets a job . -- job under the table. recently, what we have seen is people asking for asylum, putting themselves in the system and getting a government work permit that gives them a social security number and allows them to integrate into the regular

economy. i think for those people, it's better in the sense that they are avoiding sort of some of the abuses that come with working under the table. but, it's different in the sense that they have been factored into the economy in a different way. a lot of people would say it is more of a draw because it facilitates their lives. host: let's hear from michael in massachusetts, line from republicans. good morning, michael. caller: yes. my question is the 1.3 million or approximate number of illegals cases who have been adjudicated, why have they not been removed from the country at a faster rate? thank you. guest: that's a really good question. it comes down to a philosophical debate, michael. where people with final orders of approval. the big answer is that, as i said, we have 6000 people

working in the entire section of ice that is responsible for arrest, detention and removal. that's a small number of people. congress never felt inclined to hire a significantly higher number of people. it is an issue of prioritization. people have treated it in different ways. past administrations, particularly under obama, they prioritized deporting as many people as possible through jails. that's how they ended up deporting so many people, actually. hunter biden, they decided -- under biden, they decided we don't want to pin somebody's life if they have mitigating factors. if they have children or have lived there 20 or 30 years. they didn't want to collect resources into deporting those people. that is a philosophical difference. i think the other big friends is

-- big difference is we think of people having their cases fully adjudicated. in the meantime, let's say they have married a u.s. citizen or have gotten some kind of job or their employee is able to sponsor them, on one hand, they have this order of removal on their case but they have a pending green card. from administration to administration, it changes whether you try to deport that person in the meantime or not. trump is still going after people who have pending green card cases because they have a removal order. biden would say that's a waste of time. we are just going to have to bring them back so why go after them at all? host: it's not your outlet but this morning's new york times has the headline and, to your earlier point, deportations only work if countries agree to take citizens back. what countries are looking at seeing a potential increase in these deportation returns? and what does the current trump

administration's relationship with them look like? guest: it's a really good question because it's one of the most complicated issues before the trump administration. obviously, the main countries of deportation, we have a well oiled machine with them. mexico, guatemala, some countries in south america to ecuador and honduras. the big problem is venezuela. that regime has not been in good relations with washington for at least a decade or so and categorically refuses to take its citizens back. it's a really big problem because, especially in the last few years, we are not seeing regular venezuelan refugees. we have seen in that flow, a

relatively small but significant number of gang members. those people, i don't want to downplay it, they are genuinely pretty dangerous people. a lot of them have been arrested or are in jail in the u.s. but, we have nowhere to put those people. if you have that person, we can't deport them even the we want to. they have to make the tough decision of holding somebody indefinitely in jail in a precious detention bed. we have relatively few of those. or, to have to release that person. host: let's hear from diana in new jersey on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: i was wondering if the guest could shed some light on the economic contributions that immigrants, whether they are undocumented or not, make to the country. for instance, they give $25

billion to social security that they never collect. also, if they are going to go after the immigrants, they need to go after the employers. i know firsthand as a returning stay-at-home mom to work, without a college degree, i competed with immigrants. i worked side-by-side in some of the richest houses. i lived in livingston, new jersey. one of the upscale suburban neighborhoods. not all of us are rich. i live in livingston, too. i became a nanny for rich families. employed at their houses are nannies, maids, secretaries to help them conduct their life. they pay them all under the table. me being an american citizen, i questioned it and they said don't worry about it. he tried to treat me like a w-2 employee instead of -- a contract worker instead of a double to employee and i spoke

up. he was a real estate developer like trump. he put me on the books. and then of course, the kids got older and i moved on. a lot of this goes on. it's not just illegal immigrants working under the table. it is americans. a lawn doctor came and -- host: michelle, your response? guest: sounds like you had some really interesting experiences. yeah, it's a really good question and it runs the gamut. i think like time and again, all the research and all the evidence points to the fact that long-term immigrants coming to the country contribute economically to this country. both because often they work and they pay into social security. if you are undocumented, you can't collect what they have put in. approximately 50% or more of

people we consider undocumented pay taxes. even if they don't have a social security number, the irs has a way for them to pay taxes which a lot of people feel they need to do in case they ever have a path to become legal here. they want to be able to show they have done their part paying taxes. it is much broader than that. i would say our country, for better or worse, has priced these people into being here. the example i always give is that there are people here picking our strawberries. if they were not coming and taking those jobs steadily, replacing each other, this is an exhausting job that a lot of people can do for very long. the price of our strawberries might double because we would not have anyone pick them. even more broadly than that, if you think about it, you always want the economy to be growing. you want more people to be coming in. more people are working but more people are also consuming. that is a basic economic principle but it is something

that immigration really helps with. host: let's hear from keith in palm bay, florida. line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning, ladies. hope you're having a great day. one of the biggest things, do services, you are talking about strawberry pickers. america has always had migrants who have come in and done the farms themselves and gone back and forth for ages. reagan promised us the border would be closed after -- nobody followed through in our government. between our government and workers, we have progressed into this thing where it is migrants, illegal aliens and what we are having now, which i think started in 2019, when all seven democrats on the podium said

they would give free health care to anybody coming. i believe they started walking then. the ngos help them through cities and the cartels helped them through jungles. i think we are doing a real disservice to these people. and then president biden developed that app and now we are getting them from overseas. the african countries, the middle east. even europe and stuff has people flying in. i think we need to shut down the borders. we don't have enough people to be doing what we need to be doing, manufacturing and being

self-sufficient. we need people coming in but we need to know how many, what kind of work and stuff they need to do and we need to have an orderly, non-expensive way of getting into america. i really feel sorry for all of these people who have waited in line for 10 years and paid the right way and they are americans living the american dream. i believe that's why they lost a lot of votes from -- hispanic votes from the democratic party. guest: thanks for that perspective. i totally agree with you that i think this is not how literally anybody would have designed an immigration system. it is crazy. i think that the problem is that you've hit on something fundamental that a lot of people feel. which is there are so money people waiting in line, they are trying to do it the right way. why are we allowing people to do it the wrong way and rewarding them?

the problem with that is i will give you an example. the line -- in order to get in the line, you need to have one of a few things. a child who is a u.s. citizen, a college degree or you need to be applying to college or you need to have an employer who is sponsoring you for a job. typically, the sponsorship process is so expensive that it's rare for you not to have a college degree or an employer to find you and sponsor you. they are very, very, basically no other avenues into the country if you don't fit into one of those categories. you were talking about this. there are people coming from around the world and crossing the border. i will say it's not actually true that people were registering on an app and flying from countries like africa. they had to physically make their way to the border and use an app. the app was designed to say if you are already here, we are

acknowledging you here and please don't cross illegally. we will give you a reward if you wait and let us screen you and know who you are and come in some illegally. -- semi-legally. -- farm work, all sorts of construction and industries, we have absorbed those people right in. we needed those people to some extent. we have no legal way for those people to come in and no legal way for companies to say i need someone, i am finding no americans, i need more people quickly and i need to use a visa to get them here. there is no such program that does that. host: about 20 minutes left with michelle hackman, reporter for the wall street journal. we will go to bruce in florida. line for republicans.

good morning. caller: hi. how are you doing? we need immigrants. like the gentleman who spoke before, there is a legal way to do it and there is a legal way that has been happening for years. the influx for the last four years i think, correct me if i'm wrong, they call these people to go to these certain sanctuary cities, correct me if i'm wrong, isn't congress, when the senses is taken -- whether they are voters or not, that's my question. guest: it's true the way that the census works is that undocumented people are counted as people for the purpose of the census. it does mean that anywhere that they go, they are increasing the population. i think we are going to have to wait until 2030 to see how that

sort of impacts the way that the map is drawn. i will say in 2020, this is not my area of expertise but i found it notable that even though you think of these patterns of migration as being mainly toward places like new york, california and chicago, the places that grew the most were the sun belts. i think that's because even though we think of migration as being the sort of future influx into the country, it is more significant -- sort of this huge influx into the country, it is more significant elsewhere. that is canceling out americans moving to different parts of the country, especially the sun belt. host: i want to hit on something you talk about earlier, the lack of space to hold migrants once they are apprehended or detained. trump has ordered the use of wonton obey to house migrants. what can you tell us about that?

-- guantanamo bay to house migrants. what can you tell us about that? guest: i'm glad you asked. it's controversial considering the use of guantanamo bay, as a place for terrorists. and the migrants who are caught at sea, haitians and cubans primarily. the thing about the trump administration, there are approximately 41,000 beds across all of iced attention. that, even under biden, was pretty tight. they were trying to move people out as quickly as possible. they wanted -- the biden administration was deporting 200,000 or so people. they wanted to move people through as quickly as possible. the trump people are saying if we want to scale up and deport hundreds of thousands of millions of people, we need a lot more beds. and so, one thing they have come up with is they have figured out they can open a facility in

guantanamo that they think and hold about 30,000 people. and they think they can use it as a pentagon contract to pay for that and stand that up really quickly. host: let's hear from marvin in michigan, line for democrats. good morning, marvin. caller: good morning, ladies. i've seen the deportations. the colombian president announced that all colombians are working -- that are working in the united states can come back to columbia immediately and he will have jobs for them. where was all of this information before the election process was going on and they knew this could happen to them? and they voted for the guy anyway? guest: it's interesting what

happened with columbia. what happened as far as i understand it is that the colombian president had seen pictures that disgruntled him, where he saw deportees shackled. i think that is relatively standard for ice to treat their detainees that way. the columbia president, he's a bombastic figure himself. i think some people talk about him almost as a trump like figure in his own country. he really almost stunts. he said i'm not taking any military aircraft to my country. then you saw trump snap back in a comprehensive way, saying i will put sanctions on your country and i will cancel visas and do tariffs. i think what we learned from that experience is, at least for columbia, that was too much. they caved. what happened this week was columbia sort of did this stunt

where they said we don't trust the americans to treat our people well so we will send our own planes to take our deportees back. this came as a delight to the trump administration because it is one fewer flight they have to pay for. it's interesting how this whole episode went down. host: patricia in texas, line for republicans. good morning, patricia. caller: good morning, c-span. i wanted to correct your guest on the number of ice agents we have. according to the official website, we have, and i quote, more than 20,000 law-enforcement and support personnel. so the number of agents is much larger and those facts do matter , that ms. hackman is a journalist. she should know the correct number. and also, she stated that they just figured out about the beds

in guantanamo. they did not just figure that out, they've been planning on it for four years. i have a friend who works in guantanamo. she needs to get her facts straight and i appreciate the call from florida -- caller from florida and his sentiments were what i agree with. maga. guest: thank you for looking that up. i will expand to you why our numbers are different. ice has 20,000 employees overall. about 6000 work in the division that i'm talking about, which is called the enforcement removal operations. roughly another 6000 work in something called homeland security investigations. those are closer to fbi agent's. those people are not day-to-day arresting immigrants in the country illegally. those people are investigating

migrant smuggling organizations, cartels. they are even doing things, a big hearing for them is looking into child pornography. often, that is sort of coming in and out of the country internationally. the rest of ice, or a lot of them, they are lawyers or prosecutors. so, yes. ice has 20,000 people. practically speaking, those who are available by job title are responsible -- that our response will -- responsible for doing arrests and deportation are only 6000. caller: people realize our medical system. they go to doctors who don't

care if they get well-paid there are 9 million people with disabilities. 100,000 added every year. these people, if they want to natural doctors or homeopaths, etc., can actually get well and go to work. we are not taking personal responsibility for our health. they go on disability and linger for the rest of their lives and big pharma loves it. host: do you have a response for our caller? guest: this is not an area of expertise for me but i will say one trend we have seen that has made it particularly advantageous for immigrants in the country illegally to have available jobs for them is that a lot of jobs that typically would go filled by americans who typically don't have college degrees or don't have specialized training or skill sets is that a lot of that

population has unfortunately become addicted to painkillers type drugs and that has made them less and less able to work. and so, a lot of those jobs they would or should be taking are instead going to immigrants. host: chris in alabama, line for democrats. good morning. caller: yes, hi. i have a catch-22 question. we are deporting mexicans, rapists and killers and etc., etc. and yet, from what i understand, if you know a killer and you don't report it, you are -- you are helping them. ok? so, he's released people from

january 6 who have been found guilty of these crimes and they are being allowed to come into this country by our president. and yet, he's throwing out rapists and killers who they don't necessarily have any clue of them being such. certainly, i would just like an answer of who's who and wise why -- why is why? thank you very much. guest: i have heard that criticism from a lot of people, that we are treating different people who have committed similar crimes differently and that is something that i should not share an opinion on because it's not something i cover day-to-day. but you raise a point that a lot of people say -- share. which is we have an american criminal system. is it almost like double

punishment if you throw someone in jail or in prison for 10 years and also deport them? i'm not going to share an opinion either way because if someone is deported, they have been in the country illegally. you can decide for yourself if that's fair or not. host: michelle, you have had a busy week. i want to share another headline. trump sows fear among migrants with shock and all deportation campaign. talk about the advocacy groups supporting them. guest: we wrote a story to highlight the fact that a lot of people that trump is highlighting for deportations are people who were being deported under biden, also. biden focused on serious criminals. trump has cranked up a pr campaign that is working pretty well. he is blasting out video of

people loading onto deportation planes. he is sending relatively high profile people out on deportation operations. a lot of viewers saw kristi noem on a deportation operation, wearing a sort of law enforcement uniform. they sent dr. phil out. they sent all sorts of other right-wing personalities out there to show how these operations are working. and what it has done is, a, it has made the operations look different or stale. it is also -- has also sewed fear in migrants, saying these arrests are ubiquitous, they are everywhere and they are coming for me next. people have really responded in a rational way, which is that they are too scared in some

cases to go to work or go to the grocery store. we have heard reports that public transportation like subways or buses are more empty than they would have been a few weeks ago. that is having an impact on the country and the economy already. host: let's hear from bill in alabama on the line from republicans. good morning, bill. caller: there is no law that you have to return illegals to their country of origin. why don't we make a deal with low-cost countries where people are desperate for money, pay a billion dollars to somalia or sudan or chad and just load these planes up with illegals and take them there and let them out and let them enjoy the life of those people? we don't have an obligation to maintain these people who are here illegally, they chose to make an illegal action and they can suffer the action --

consequences by going to live as millions of others do all around the world. guest: you raise an interesting point and that is the trump -- strategy the trump administration is attempting to pursue. the first such deal is likely with el salvador. el salvador has an extensive prison system and the trump administration is concentrating on trying to see if they can send some of those venezuelan gang members i was talking about to el salvador to sort of be in their presence rather than hours. even in that case, i think that the numbers of people that el salvador is willing to take will not be unlimited and we will have to compensate them in some way. and so, it's going to take some amount of diplomatic work to keep striking these deals with other countries. it is certainly something this administration is looking into. host: let's hear from ronald in new york on the line for

independents. good morning. caller: good morning. i am disappointed in the sense that on this issue and other issues, it's not really taking a position that i thought would be correct. now, regarding illegal immigrants, they have all committed crime in the sense that coming into this country illegally is a crime itself. during the eisenhower administration, they were able to successfully deport a million illegal immigrants. either we obey the rules as a country or we do not. these people broke the law and

the right thing is for them to go back and come in legally. that's it. they won't let in one person who comes in illegally. not one. you will say that's a small country. that's true, of course. but either you a by -- obey the rules of a country or you don't and then suffer the consequences. thank you. guest: thanks for the feedback. my job as a journalist is to inform about what the facts are, but also to share perspectives that people have considered. a lot of readers are uncomfortable and don't like it but it is our job to make sure we are representing the views of everybody in the country. the employer's of people who have immigrants moving into

their communities and of the immigrants themselves, their experience working through the system. i will say, to your point about laws, there is a common misconception about what is a crime and what is not a crime. i will lay it out pretty quickly. entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor. it's not a felony in the vast majority of cases. it could be prosecuted but the justice department under every past administration has decided it's not something that is worth pursuing. prosecuting someone for a misdemeanor would not send them to jail typically. if people across-the-board are illegally more than once, that turns into a felony and that much more often becomes prosecuted. living in the country illegally is not a crime, it is a civil violation. same in statute but not in

consequences, like getting a parking ticket. that's not something that somebody can be sent to a criminal jail for. i will say that answer makes a lot of people angry because they feel like it should be a crime to live here illegally. and i will say that's something that, if people feel that way, that is something that congress could change and speaks to the fact that our politics have interests in having those people here for economic and other reasons. that's why there has been pressure not to change that. host: we have time for one last call. we will hear from ralph in georgia on the line for democrats. good morning, ralph. caller: good morning. i would just like to say, i will try to make this quick. i lived in el paso, texas after i retired from the military. there were people who would come across the border, go to the schools and come work in our different places, hotels and our

agriculture, any type of work and they were required to go back in and return. what i want to know is we went into all of these countries that they are talking about, are those people that were flown to chicago, new york, texas and from florida, where they vetted to see what their temperatures were before they were flown into these countries? people are begging for these people to come work for them. guest: you speak to the continued brokenness of the system. as i always say, this is a system that is not remotely operational and is the

consequence of 40 years of not fixing this immigration system and coming up with something new that actually functions. because no one would design it this way. you have employers all over the country who want workers, want to be able to hire people legally in most cases, i shouldn't say in all cases, who would be willing to go through a visa process if that existed. it does not in most cases. especially for these lower income types of jobs like construction or working in an interesting home or something. what you have is this roughshod system where immigrants are crossing the border, often legally, they are often -- often illegally, they are often asking for asylum and choosing themselves where to go. texas was bussing people to different places. if they did not have a

destination in mind. you had people showing up in places like chicago, new york and denver that were being sent there by texas but there was no coordination whatsoever between texas, the federal government and those places to say where are they needed and wanted and where are their jobs for them? there is no mechanism in place to do that because that is the system. this is all not how the system is supposed to work to begin with. there is no way to coordinate in that sense. host: our guest, michelle hackman, you can find