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plus, beware of the pop-up tax man. and hunger strike at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. but first, separating fact from fiction when it comes to the politics of the wage gap. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. this week senate democrats tried unsuccessfully to pass their paycheck fairness act to help close the wage gap between men and women workers. this, of course, set the nation to talking about women and work, and you can't really talk about working women in america without thinking of rosie. rosies riveter, the we can do it figure of world war 2. rosie answered the call of her nation by trading in her apron for a riveting gun. as millions of young men left home, millions of women took up their place in the factories of the defense industry, fighting

for democracy right here at home. 310,000 women worked in the aircraft industry alone, where almost none had worked before. yes, rosie and her sisters in the fight for democracy were critical to the war effort and a grateful nation thanks these efficient, sacrificial, hard-working women with deafening applause and paychecks half the size of the men who worked alongside with them. and never fear, when the war ended, these loyal women workers who toiled for half pay were indeed rewarded with a promotion to the most important job of all. domestic technician. yes, once the men came home from war, rosie was told to go home and to rebuild the nation another way, by making babies and buying consumer items and, man, rosie did a damn good job at that too. let it never be forgotten that it was the rosies who gave birth to the baby boomers. it's interesting then that democratic women in the senate framed their failed vote in

terms of war. >> we're leading an american revolution, just like abigail adams encouraged us. if they forget the ladies, we're here to fight. so i said square your shoulders, put your lipstick on and let's fight another day. >> we deserve more than to be left fighting the same uphill battles for justice we've been fighting for decades and decades. >> opposition to the paycheck fairness act is a war on progress in our country. >> it also probably won't surprise you to hear that the republicans blocked the bill. they said it was not about real policy but a transparent political stunt to draw more women voters to come out in november. now here's what the paycheck fairness act would have done. it would require some companies to report salary information to the government and would prohibit retaliation against employees for telling one another how much they make. it would also expand opportunities for workers to sue their employers over wage discrimination. now, workers can sue already,

thanks to the equal pay act, but it's a hard road to take. a woman has to know that she's being paid less. she has to find another employee making more money for the same job and she has to be willing to risk, torpedoing her own career in order to do so. she has to find a lawyer willing to take her case. that's not an easy thing to do when workers win only a third of the time in paycheck cases. the this would narrow the grounds on which an employer can claim that the disparity is due to legitimate business reasons but still puts the onus on the workers to sue a system that has not yet closed the wage gap. that's why frankly i kind of agree with the republicans. they said that the act is a little more a piece of political fluff than to lure women voters and because for all the talk of women making 77 cents on every dollar that a man earns, wage discrimination is simply not the only reason. the reality is in fact far more complicated. just look at the white house. republicans made much hay over the fact that women working at the white house earn on average

88% of what men working at the white house make. asked about it on monday, white house press secretary jay carney explained that men and women in the white house are paid the same level -- the same amount for the same level of job, but the problem only comes when you do the math. >> when you look at the aggregate and this includes everybody from the most senior levels to the lowest levels, you're averaging all salaries together, which means including the lowest level salaries, which may or may not be, depending on the institution, filled by more women than men. >> probably not a great idea to engage in mansplaning but it's the problem for women nationwide. women as an aggregate make less money than men and that's because they're more likely to work lower level jobs. women account for nearly three-quarters of workers in tipped occupations like waitressing where the federal minimum is only $2.13 an hour.

women congregate in lower paying fields. nine out of ten college majors that offer the least lucrative careers are dominated by women. early childhood education and social work. then there are disparities in similar fields. nurse midwives are 95% women and paid less than half as much as ob/gyns who are more than likely men. the highest paid women at major corporations made an average 18% less than the highest paid men in part because women tend to have lower level suite positions and not that top ceo gig. so disparity is complicated and due to a variety of reasons that require a variety of solutions. guaranteeing paid parental leave, instituting pre-k. joining me now, bryce covert at think progress and a contributor at the nation. rick newman, christina greer, assistant professor at fordham

university and author of "blackette 96, race, immigration and pursuit of the american dream." and naomi prince author of "all the president's bankers, the hidden alicenses that drive american power." >> i'm down with the paycheck fairness act but i'm not completely against the republicans' point that it's maybe a little more politics than it is substantively getting to this complicated set of questions. >> i want to give the republicans two points. one is that i do think the idea that the paycheck fairness act or the lily ledbetter act are silver bullets that will close the wage gap. that doesn't live up to reality. we need, like you said, i loved all the solutions that you put forward. >> oh, my liberal utopia that i would build. >> i would build it with you. i also think that they have a point. you know, they have been pushing back on the idea that there is a wage gap. i wouldn't give them that point but i would give them the point that it's complicated and saying

that the 77% earnings that women make compared to men is all discrimination is misleading. and i think that that number gets thrown around without a whole lot of context. >> so on the one hand, i want to be able to make that point because it's so important that it's not just the male manager up there, hr manager who's making a decision to pay the little woman less. on the other hand, it doesn't mean that discrimination is gone. it does in fact continue to exist in the workforce. >> exactly. as you mentioned, the power relationship in the workforce, particularly at the positions that are higher in companies and in the companies that themselves make more money, for example, in banking, the top six banks have always been run by men. the managing partners are traditionally mostly men and that has been the case historically. that's where the money is. so you filter that out through the issue of the framework of why women also don't have as much money as men in terms of their paychecks, they also don't have as much power. and that is a big part of the

complexity of the issue. >> so let me take that pointing around power, christina. come in part to what i see as maybe the most distressing thing when we do men versus women. that can generate a sense of false solidarity that all women are all necessarily in the same circumstance of unfairness. so even if there's a general sense of unfairness, if in fact my hr manager or my direct supervisor or the woman whose kitchen i clean is a woman, she nonetheless might be engaging with me with a way that is unfair as her employee. >> i think the historical context is really incorporating. we constantly throw around 77 cents to a dollar conversation but we also know that there's a very real racial divide also within this, right? so if white women for the most part are making 77 cents on the dollar, black and latina are making much less. >> 77 is the number we've been hearing. when we look at the race gap,

the wage gap for african-american women, if we compare it to white men's earnings, they only make 64% of what white men earn. so we see african-american women on the bottom. look at latinas. the earning for latinas compared to white men is 53%, right? and that is probably not because there are latina ceos who are being paid less. that has everything to do with a structured market that puts those women in a different -- >> but it's also a structured market. when we think about fdr, the way he was able to get the new deal passed was to sell black women down the river literally. so he excludes domestic workers. now we have a historical conversation about wealth, right? wealth, race and gender that goes across time and so we see people sort of stuck in sectors. not just early childhood education and social work but we see the replication of poverty and replication of lower wage

jobs. so we have to historicize some of these inequities. i somewhat agree with the republicans but there is something to be said about symbolic legislation every now and again. we saw this with apartheid legislation in the '80s and it seemed ridiculous, but over time it can sort of move progress a little bit more. >> this is an interesting point, even as i have a critique of the democrats on the paycheck fairness act, the fact is i don't have any idea what the right might be offering as an alternative. >> well, let's think about a way you might actually get something like this to pass. here's an idea. one gop objection is we can't put another burden on businesses. there's actually some legitimacy to that. if you talko business owners they really are drowning in legislation. so here's a way to construct a win-win. if you're the democrats, we're going to give you that point. let's take away a few outdated regulations on business, and believe me there are plenty, and

say we're going to put a new regulation on them. let's take a few off of them. how does that sound? is this a possible win-win position? it's not that hard to get to -- >> this is the balanced budget theory, right? >> this is called a compromise. really want to pass a law, make a compromise. >> that's a dirty word in d.c. these days in part because part of what they want to be able to do is say we presented this, the other side is against it and so part of the question is how well does that serve folks who are actually doing the work in these communities, in these corporatio corporations. when we come back, we'll talk more about the pay gap debate coming out of the texas attorney general's office. but first, the departure of one of the top women in the obama administration, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius publicly announced her resignation friday after five years that focused largely on the affordable care act. she was widely criticized after a troubled rollout of the healthcare.gov website, but as

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let's look at one specific example of a wage gap, the texas attorney general's office. assistant attorney generals who are men make more on average than those who are women. now, that is something that's

come up and been a bit of a topic of debate because in texas the attorney general, greg abbott, is running for governor. the attorney general's office has defended itself by saying discrepancy stems from differences in how long the men have been licensed and worked at the agency. not so, says professor bethany albertson and assistant professor of government at the university of texas at os sin. writing in "texas monthly" she says based on my analysis it turns out each additional year of experience corresponds with a $992 increase in salary, if you're a man. but if you're a woman, the increase is about $200 less or $798 per year of experience. this discrepancy per year of experience shows just how insidious a gender wage gap can be. i'd love this research by professor albertson in part because it's indicative of that on the one hand you have abbott's office like carney saying oh, no, it's not discrimination, it's this other thing. when you look at it, no, each additional year of experience has a steeper curve for men than

for women. >> absolutely. women -- people often say, oh, well, you know, it's differing levels of education, let's say. but women graduate from college. the first year out they are making less than men despite their grades, despite their college. no matter what higher degree they take on, they will make less than an average man, so they get a ph.d. they're still making less. they get an mba, they're still making less. we always see these discrepancies even within groups. >> that was an auw study that showed that discrepancy for college grads coming straight out and the idea that on the one hand it is that traditional labor market where women's work is not valued as private work or public work but even itch they're taking the same job. we were talking on the break with the idea that transparency which is part of the paycheck fairness act could help this issue. >> that part isn't getting discussed as much and should be discussed a lot more. if you know as a woman or as anyone in a work environment what someone else is making for the same level that you have, then you have the ability to go

in and fight. it should be fair, everything should be fair. that would be a great situation. but if you at least are armed with a bullet, the ammunition to go in and say, you know what, that guy is making that much money to do what i do. in fact i'm actually doing it more but let's leave it aside. that guy is doing -- i want to be at the same level because in many cases, particularly as you go on up the ladder on the corporate side and in these institutions where more money is swirling around anyway and it doesn't even come out in the wage gap because it's in bonuses and other forms of compensation, you need to know so that you have the ability to fight. and that's a very important part of this act, which is a shame it didn't get through. >> wait, because i want to push back a little on something that you said earlier. i am a fan of actually getting things done and this idea of trade-off seemed right. but the more we were talking about it on the break, i thought wait a minute, we don't make trade-offs on basic fairness. this isn't a regulation, right, this is about paying workers in

a fair way for doing the same kind of work and providing transparency so that if they're not being paid that way. i want to go back and ask a little about that because you framed it as regulation. i'm wondering if there is another way to think about this. we don't think of basic human or civil rights as regulations. >> well, this is messy. we're talking about all these different ways. you can't exactly put these in two columns and say here's the women, here's the men. i'm just talking about how to pass a law. laws are never perfect, they're always messy. we've just shifted this conversation away from policy solutions a little bit and you're talking about women themselves in the workplace. i think one thing that's important to point out here is it's never been a better time for women to take this matter into their own hands when they can. they can't always do that. but sometimes they can. there is more support than there has ever been. a lot of attention like we're giving it right now, thanks in part to people putting

legislation forth and president obama drawing attention to this, to this fairness issue. this argument in texas is terrific. it's great that it's getting this attention. i'll bet you things change. >> but let me suggest that i think that's both true and not true, which is to say i agree that we have made enormous progress, particularly for women in the workforce. i'm not quite with the end of men as a theory. but we've also seen a regress in labor rights in general. and so i just think for workers in general in this moment with the very slack labor market, it's hard to make an argument about the power of any laborer to negotiate vis-a-vis their employer at this moment. >> we know that we're right now in a moment where it's a war on poor people. it really is a war on women. the fundamental principles of american democracy are not based on fairness, they're based on economic inequality. for us to not think about all the ways in which the fabric of this nation is about this

economic inequality and making sure that the exclusion of others to a certain extent benefits you. >> this is an argument vis-a-vis on race but you're making it around gender. even though we have soaring ideals in rhetoric, that in practice we've seen this interweaving inequality. >> we know this exists. so if it exists not just on a black/white spectrum or male/female spectrum, for us to start these conversations, yes, they're productive but the policies themselves, there isn't going to be a magic bullet and it's going to take a series of various policies but also it's going to take even more time, right. so the question is how long do women have to wait, right? a student just wrote a fantastic paper about how women are taxed on sanitary products because it's a luxury good. so even these minor things erode at women's sort of financial security. >> i love that you said intersectional because there's a

little drinking game that goes on in my control room around the use of the word intersectional. it's almost always me but see, it was my guest this time. up next, the time of lawmaker democrats love to hate. the argument that democrats love to make. >> it brings tears to my eyes to know how women every single day are working so hard and are getting paid less. it makes me emotional to hear that. then when i hear all of these phony reasons, some are mean and some are meaningless, i do get emotional. i get angry, i get outraged, i get volcanoic. salesperson #1: the real deal is the passat tdi clean diesel

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let republicans say stuff like what one missouri state representative said this week in defense of a proposed 72-hour waiting period for abortion. >> even when i buy a new vehicle, this is my experience again, i don't go right in there and say i want to buy that vehicle and then you walk -- you know, you leave with it. i have to look at it, get information about it, maybe drive it, you know, a lot of different things, check prices. there's a lot of things that i do going into a decision, whether that's a car, whether that's a house, any major decision in my life, even carpeting. >> even carpeting. so, look, there are -- you know, i don't want to -- even women who oppose abortion may not like a state representative saying, oh, you know, it's kind of like

you've got to at least make as much sense as i do when i buy a car or carpeting. isn't this precisely the kind of strategy that democrats are like, yeah, just keep talking because you end up being alienated. >> you wonder if some of these people have ever met a woman. have they ever talked to one? >> i think interestingly in that clip he's making his own point. we don't regulate his decision to buy a car or buy carpeting. they're big decisions and we don't tell you how to make it. >> oh, i love that. men could all have a 72-hour waiting period before being able to purchase a car. >> that's a lot of money. different models and makes. >> don't make an impulse buy. >> that's right. >> but, yeah, there's a strategy of just sort of staying back and letting them say the things they're going to say. what that does, it ends up putting you on the defense, right? you're always sort of playing on the extremist's turf and it's harder, i think, to move from that and then say but here's what we're going to do

proactively. here's our vision. here's the bills we want to pass that don't just react to todd aiken or this guy. >> not that i think president obama is trying to build a progressive utopia but he's gotten increasingly progressive in his discourse around this. i want to listen to him in his weekly address which was released today talking about kind of a broad agenda for women's policy. >> house republicans won't vote to raise the minimum wage or extend unemployment insurance for women out of work through no fault of their own. the budget they passed this week would force deep cuts to investments that overwhelmingly benefit women and children, like medicaid, food stamps and college grants. and of course they're trying to repeal the affordable care act for the 50th or so time, which would take away vital benefits and protection for millions of women. >> so this is so great, right. the women's agenda now, medicaid, food stamps, college grants and, come on, there's 7.1

million people now signed up for aca. >> i think the real long-term damaging effects as a professor is that these bickering arguments back and forth really do turn off young voters, young potential voters, right. so when we're trying to actually get young people to care about not just financial aid but their own bodies and what regulations mean, all they hear are ignorant comments by some, not all republicans. and then when obama tries to make the counterargument that, well, women need welfare or they need certain provisions from the government, then they're just like wasn't he supposed to provide that as the president? so there's not a lot of context. there's sort of these shortcuts and these little cues and snippets and so the larger argument is getting lost. i think we're in jeopardy of alienating a much larger group of people. >> so are we right now failing to talk to women voters like adults?

>> i think that's -- by putting these side issues and wage isn't a side issue but by talking about these little skirmishes with the republicans and democrats and making it politicized as opposed to greater democracy, greater power, great equality, these are all things on an economic basis help drive america forward. women, people of different race, all of us together should be part of a more equal democracy. we don't have that. these are pieces are trying to build that. when we have that, the times when we've had that, even when rosie the riveter was doing her riveting, we actually had a more equal democracy. we had more -- even though there was a wage gap between women and men, there was also a sense of building the country together and distributing power a little bit more than we've had in other periods of history. >> but then also jim crow, so -- >> it was not perfect. >> but i think that's in part always the question whf we tell a historical narrative, sort of from whose perspective do we

tell it. i love rosie and i love the idea of rosie the riveter and as you pointed out the sets of policies around workers that emerged from that new deal. but then also recognition, right, that where my grandmother is working in the 1940s is in someone's kitchen, which does not end up getting covered under those labor policies. when we come back, it is like deja vu all over again when it comes to courting the women's vote. some history may din tifly and definitely be repeating itself. first, another update on a key part of the president's agenda, raising the minimum wage. more states are actually acting on their own. on monday maryland lawmakers passed a bill to increase the state's minimum wage to $10.10 by the year 2018. governor martin o'malley is expected to sign the bill. there are some drawbacks, one of them being that the legislation tont raise the minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers whose rate will remain at3.63 an hour. minnesota lawmakers approved a bill to raise it to $9.25 for

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so we know that there's a current political obsession with getting more women to the polls but it is not new. just check out this nbc "nightly news" segment from october 15th, 1996, which if you were to change the hair styles just a bit seems like it could have run last night. >> it was no accident that hillary rodham clinton happened to be in sue satucson, arizona,. solidly arizona is suddenly winnable for democrats who worked hard to exploit the gender gap. >> arizona republican women for clinton/gore. >> targeting women voters in ads and through 5500 faxes sent each month to influential women around the country, they have turned lifelong republicans into bill clinton activists. >> oh, send those faxes out to get people to the polls.

so, you know, we've been thinking a lot as we're going into the midterms, going into the next presidential election about the idea of a woman candidate at the top of the republican or democratic ticket as a way of attracting women. but if we go back to the question of the economic fairness for women workers, it seems to me that part of your argument is whether you're democrat or republican, woman or male candidate, you are really in the pockets of big business in ways that might make it tough for identity politics to translate into leftest policy. >> it's a good conversation and useful, but the fact is that relationship, the symbiotic relationships between anyone who sits in the oval office, anyone who is appointed, not elected as treasury secretary and the people that run the most profitable corporations and the banks in this country are really dictating a lot of the policy. and because they are so similar, because they have the wealth behind them, because they require each other's wealth and power to stay in their positions or to attain those positions, the policies themselves get

dictated through those alignm t alignmen alignments. so we're trying to chip away with the other issues on the outside of what's a central core of power between corporations and people in the white house. >> so one can be happy to have yellen in the fed position but her being a woman does not necessarily lead to different policy. >> she's doing exactly what ben bernanke did and she has no choice. anyone in that position would be doing that which is subsidizing the banking system at the expense of the greater and broader population. >> there has been a shift in the balance of power in the economy away from employees and workers to employers, and especially big employers. it's not hopeless for workers, but really important to know is we're talking about, you know, policies that will improve things. the thing that will improve people's position, men and women more, is more skills, the skills that matter. this is crucially important today. you know, just saying can you please pay me a little bit more isn't getting anywhere for men or women alike. what gets you some, where say i have some new skill that's going

to help the company. here's what i can contribute. i'm going to make a better contribution. this is how -- this is how people get ahead these days. really important to keep in mind. >> in part, immediately you start thinking about different kinds of work that are related there, so there's a way in which if you are the walmart greeter or the mcdonald's cashier, and we think these are teenagers, these are not, right, these are adult workers. what new skill do you bring -- if you're in that part of the labor market, you're stuck in this minimum wage space. if you're in another part of the labor market, it might be a fine time to be able to negotiate because there are lower numbers of high skilled workers compared to the jobs that are available. >> it depends what industry you're in but everybody can get more skills. you don't have to go to college and spend $200,000 to get more skills. there are things people can do. community colleges, you can find programs where community colleges will align with businesses because businesses need such and such a worker so they'll help programs. you have to do a lot of research. it's not going to land in your

lap. but that is the way the economy is these days. >> i wonder about that in part, i don't want to move away from this idea that part of the responsibility for individuals to invest in themselves, but it's also an investment in the sort of broader perspective to have a good workforce. should there be government -- part of what the president said was college loans, and he doesn't mean just come to wake forest university and get a b.a., he does mean making available community colleges. >> well, i want to point out that when we're talking about skills, even among high-skilled jobs, the ones that are dominated by women are paid about $470 less a week than ones dominated by men. so are we valuing the high skill jobs women can get and tend to get. of course i think we want to help women move into stem fields, for example. they're in high demand, they're incredibly important skills and we see women are less represented there. we also see not only a smaller pipeline, but it dribbles out. women do not stick with it and i think it's because it conflicts

with family, there's a lot of discrimination. there's a lot of stuff that works against them. >> we can spend all day with the stem thing. yes, more women in stem but why should stem be the only ones -- this goes back to your pointing of valuing what kinds of labor. after the break, the state passing legislation to make criminals out of mother. my letter of the week is next. i dunno, i just ah woke up today and i said i need something sportier. annnd done. ok maxwell, just need to ah contact your insurance company with the vin number. oh, i just did it. with my geico app. vin # is up to the loaded. ok well then jerry here will take you through all of the features then. why don't weeeeeeeeeeee go out to the car. ok, i'll just be outside... ok, yeah. his dad is my boss. yeah. vin scanning to add a car. just a tap away on the geico app.

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quick look at the weather. nice day, beautiful tomorrow. tomorrow is full of promise. we can come back tomorrrow. and we promise to keep it that way. driven to preserve the environment, csx moves a ton of freight nearly 450 miles on one gallon of fuel. what a day. can't wait til tomorrow. this week the tennessee state legislature passed a bill that would allow drug addicted pregnant women to be prosecuted as criminals. now, the bill would permit a woman who used illegal drugs during pregnancy to be charged with assault if her child is born addicted to or harmed by the drug. and to be charged with homicide if the child dies. it would also allow women to avoid those charged if they volunteer for drug treatment. but before tennessee's governor makes it official with his

signature, i wanted to urge him to consider that this proposed solution may only exacerbate the problem that his state is trying to solve. dear governor bill, it's me, melissa. now, i understand the magnitude of the crisis facing your state and how daunting it must feel. last year a report found that in tennessee babies born addicted to opiate drugs that their mothers took during pregnancy was higher than ever before. but governor, as you think about what you're going to do with that bill that's on your desk, please take a moment to consider that punishment is no substitute for protection. particularly when the threat of that punishment could put the health and well-being of vulnerable people, both the babies and their mothers, at even greater risk. as you have already no doubt heard from the national medical groups that have weighed in on this bill, this proposal could have the exact opposite effect of its intent of improving health outcomes for babies of drug-addicted mothers. according to a statement released by the american medical

association, pregnant women will be likely to avoid seeking prenatal or open medical care for fear that their physician's knowledge of substance abuse or other potentially harmful behavior could result in a jail sentence rather than proper medical treatment. so any government intervention to address drug dependency among pregnant women and their children must treat that addiction like what it is, a disease. and helping mothers to battle their disease requires a treatment-based approach that must first do no harm by ensuring they're not deterred from prenatal care. even as a law enforcement measure this bill is remarkably shor short-sighted because it targets only those web who use illegal drugs during their pregnancy. it is true 30% of mothers used illegal drugs specified boy the bill but it is also true that 42% of mothers of babies used legal drugs prescribed to them by a doctor for legitimate

treatment. and another 20% actually used both. so not only would your law criminalize only certain types of drug abusers, it would completely overlook the primary driver of the epidemic of drug-addicted babies in your state. what's more, you already have evidence that criminalizing drug-addicted mothers doesn't work. for years tennessee was allowing women to be charged if their new worns tested positive for drugs but over the last decade there was a ten-fold increase in babies born addicted to opiates. governor, here's the good news. you need not look for for an alternate policy approach for your state. there was a safe harbor law last year that gave mothers addicted to prescription drugs priority in line for treatment programs and also assured them they would not lose custody of their children if they disclosed their drug use. why not sign a law that would expand that intervention to include protection for all

mothers battling addictions during their pregnancy. i think that would be just a much better use of your pen. sincerely, melissa. [ female announcer ] who are we? we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all... with a signature. legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses, turning dreamers into business owners. and we're here to help start yours. but now we're karate parents. one day i noticed her gi looked dingier than the other kids. so i used tide plus bleach alternative and now she's all...pow! she looks as sharp as a serpent strike. [ female announcer ] tide plus bleach alternative. that's my tide plus.

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we are now in the final stretch of tax season, so maybe you've been seeing commercials like this. >> i've been waiting on my check. you need to do something about this. >> i just want my stuff back. >> i heard there was a company out there that could get your check in 30 seconds. >> that is a commercial from a few years back for the tax preparation company mo money taxes, formerly out of memphis, advertising a refund check in just 30 seconds. if that sounds a little sketchy to you, it was. last year the justice department filed a lawsuit to shut the company down, alleging that employees there prepare fraudulent returns that cause their customers to incorrectly report their federal tax liabilities and underpay their

taxes and charge customers bogus and unconscionably high fees. unfortunately, according to advocates, what mo money taxes was up to is not uncommon. more than half of all tax preparers for this tax season are not subject to any licensing or training regulations. they just have to register for an identification number. the ease of getting into the business combined with the more than $300 billion in anticipated tax refund money has made tax preparation ripe for predatory practices that target low income communities, especially individuals who qualify for the earned income tax credit. joining me now to explain why this happens and what we can do about it is steven black, director of the center for ethics and social responsibility at the university of alabama. he's also the founder and president of impact alabama, which trains students to provide free tax preparation services for low income families. good morning, steven. >> good morning. thank you for having me. >> absolutely. so start with the earned income tax credit. explain why that is such an issue in this predatory practice.

>> well, that's the basis for the entire industry. something that a lot of people don't appreciate. the earned income tax credit is the single largest federal anti-poverty program. it really doesn't get that much attention and press because it's one of those rare initiatives, probably the singular substantive federal tax initiative policy that enjoys bipartisan support. president reagan was a big supporter, president clinton grew it. it's a refundable credit to families. i think it's not controversial sort of welfare reform because it leaves the debate about welfare to the side. you only qualify for it if you're working and most of it goes to working parents raising adults. it's a huge amount of money that pours into low income communities in an eight-week period in the last part of january through march all over the country. the challenge is between 65% and 70% of these families feel as though they need professional help. they're intimidated by the irs, they don't want to mess up, they don't want to get it wrong and don't have actress to cpas, to

accountants the way upper income families do because cpas are not in the business of doing very simple returns. >> and so when you say professional, though, this is a pretty elastic term of professional. we were just looking that for tax practitioners subject to the treasury standards, about 308,000 of them who are doing taxes. but when it comes to these folks who are these unenrolled preparers, folks who just need to get an i.d., there's actually more of them. so they're professional only to the extent that you have to pay them to do it? >> this is the majority of tax preparation around the country that serves working class americans, working paycheck to paycheck. it's literally like the wild west. people use the word reg lagts and commercial tax preparers say this will be bad for our business. it literally will not be. regulation really isn't the best word. the best word is just basic licensing and training the way if you want to open a hair salon in any state in the country, you have to pass a test and get a license. if you want to do nails, you have to pass a test and get a

license. if you want to prepare taxes for families charging them on average $300 for 30 minutes of work that's not very difficult, signing the most important document they sign all year, there's no training requirement, there's no licensing. it's literally the wild west in every state other than four. >> so you're talking about $300 and $400 fees for a half hour worth of work. that's a $600 to $800 an hour level. even cpas don't charge that. >> that's right. the average $100,000 a year family, pays between $150 and $200 to have their taxes done with itemization from a trained certified accountant. the average single mother working at walmart making $19,000 a year raising two kids, goes into one of these places with a w-2, no itemization and will come out $300. that's a lot of money for me to waste in 30 minutes. i if you're making $18,000 a yore

raising children, it's painful and abusivabusive. >> i couldn't help but notice that the mo money commercial had a particular veilance to it that felt like there are some communities being particularly targeted here. >> there's no question. a lot of them will be very clear about it. liberty tax is another one. i think h & r block is the most legitimate, and they in fact are not against additional training requirements because they do train their staff more. sometimes i think they get a little too expensive but that's my opinion. but the other mom and pop operations and the chains that have sprung from the h & r block model, who specifically prey on low income communities, and a lot of them just african-american communities, they open up in strip malls next to payday lenders and title pawn shops and they're not even there by the end of april. you can't find them. a lot of times they don't even sign the returns for people. >> they pop up and then they're gone. we really wanted to get that information out. stephen black, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> absolutely.

also here in new york, rick newman and nomi prins. christina will stick around and maybe she'll say intersectional again. coming up president obama on lbj and the limits of presidential power. does he still believe yes we can? there's more coming at the top of the hour. mine was earned in korea in 1953. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve. they don't know it yet, but they're gonna fall in love,

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criticism we have in the press or public, the first lady has likely already expressed them in the residence. >> michelle was in particular interested of a recording in which lady bird is critiquing president johnson's performance. and she said come, come, you need to listen to this. >> he also gave us some of that delicious professor obama affect too, as he offered a compelling history lesson about johnson's first legislative priorities after unexpectedly assuming the presidency. >> he wanted to call on senators and representatives to pass a civil rights bill. in one particularly bold aide said he did not believe a president should spend his time and power on lost causes, however worthy they might be. too much it is said president johnson replied, well, what the hell's the presidency for?

>> then, the next key ingredient in the obama formula, when the president makes his trademark turn from a specific story, lyndon johnson's in this case, to a broader theory of democracy and government by the people. it's always my favorite part because no other president has so eloquently and routinely included social movements in his telling of the american story. here president obama reminds us that lbj could act only because he was compelled to act by the people. >> we recall the countless unheralded americans, black and white, students and scholars, preachers, and housekeepers, whose names are etched not on monuments but in the hearts of their loved ones and in the fabric of the country that they helped to change. >> okay. so at this point close followers of the president's speeches know what is coming, right? it's what follows the mention of the elderly anna nixon cooper

who cast her vote on election vote. it's what followed thein vocation of stone wall at the second inauguration. come on, you know what is next, nerdland, yes, we can. right? it's the moment the president assures us of the ability of the american people to change ourselves, our nation, our world, as we bend that arc of history toward justice, and here it is. >> those of us who have had the singular privilege to hold the office of the presidency know well that progress in this country can be hard and it can be slow. frustrating, and sometimes you're stymied. the office humbles you. >> wait a minute, what? this is the yes, we can part, mr. president. your giving me slow and frustrating and stymied and humbling? okay, okay, maybe it's up next. >> you're reminded daily that in this great democracy, you are

but a relay swimmer in the currents of history. bound by decisions made by those who came before, reliant on the efforts of those who will follow to fully vindicate your vision. >> a relay swimmer? okay, i'm going to need to hit pause here because our president has changed the ending on us in a very interesting way. facing the last midterm election of his presidency with no other election in his personal future, our soaring optimist is turning a more jaundiced eye on the american project. now, he is still firmly an american exceptionalist who insists on a fundamentally optimistic view of the american project, but as he discussed lbj's legislative legacy, it was easy to sense that he was distressed that his own legacy would not contain these sorts of civil rights achievements, not because he didn't want them, but because he faced a 112th, 113th and likely a 114th congress far more intransient than anything even the master of the senate,

johnson himself, could have imagined. and so the president left us on thursday with hope, always with hope, but maybe a more tempered hope and one that leaves us not declaring yes, we can, but asking can we still? at the table amy goodman, the host and executive producer of "democracy now." raul reyes, christina greer, assistant professor of political science at fordham university and juan catania, president and general counsel of latino justice. sometimes the pronouncers are harder for me. you know, they do like this highlight reel of me destroying everyone's name. but i actually want to start with you because if we are, as the president suggested here, swimming in a relay, are we winning in terms of achieving that more perfected union? >> well, we've got a lot of work to do, obviously. i think the issues that are concerning the civil rights movement in general have to take

into account everything that's happening on the immigration front. incredible challenges that we have in ensuring that latinos are also receiving equal treatment under the law. if it is a relay race then the next person grabbing this baton better pay attention to this issue. >> i like that you immediately started to expand the definition of civil rights. raul, i want to come to you in part on this because i think if we think about civil rights exclusively about african-american politics, then the president has a strong, but certainly not an lbj level record, right, on this. but if we think about civil rights more broadly, particularly around lgbt issues, this presidency, the years of this presidency will be remembered as expansive. >> right. >> on -- not solely because of policies he himself passed but a new environment which he helps to create. and i wonder if when you're an elected official you have to not be a member of the group for which you are expanding the rights. like being the southern white

gentleman helps lbj to do race rights and being the straight black president helps president obama to expand lgbt civil rights. >> maybe. i mean my impression of the speech, i came away from watching it that it was so realistic in the sense that he made references -- he talked about history moving backwards, which the first thing i thought about was the shelby county decision. he also mentioned very pragmatically that passing laws is only the first step. during lbj's time we had bigotry and discrimination and racism that was codified into law so the policy fight was very easy from a progressive standpoint of good versus bad. now we still have all of those issues, but they're in a much more subtle way, so it's a harder fight. it's a tougher lift for him to move ahead. and maybe -- i see what you're saying. maybe sometimes when you're not at the centering of those issues, maybe it is a little easier as a leader, as a lawmaker to see the calculus and to move on that.

>> amy, i sort of like this president obama rhetorically better. i love -- i loved the yes, we can, especially for campaigning, like i said that as a strategy. but i appreciate that he tempered the sort of performance of hope that he often does by suggesting, man, this is hard and we may not be making much progress right now. >> well, i think the key word there is "we" because with this whole looking back 50 years to lbj, i think the critical point is you have to go beyond lbj as even obama referenced to the movements. it wasn't lbj that did this, it was the movements that forced him to. the minute he's signing the civil rights act in july, you have john lewis, now the congressman, then a leading civil rights activist once again protesting with diane nash and the other remarkable people fighting already for the voting rights act that would come the next year. and right now with president obama, it's not really about what he's going to do. it is about what people are

going to push him to do. and i think clearly right now, the movement that is pushing the hardest, that is the most organized, is the immigrants' rights movement. and the question is not so much what is obama going to do but what are people demanding. >> well, i always look at the civil rights act and voting rights act and the immigration act -- i can see him moving into this. we saw george bush do this in 2006 when he started to break away from cheney. you start to think about your legacy. i think as a democratic president, obama is also looking at the big picture, right. we know there's fdr and the new deal, there's lbj and the great society and there's nothing really with clinton. >> there's a massive prison industrial complex. >> so these are the things that as a democratic president we can't really hang our hats on. we've got monica, welfare, prisons and nafta/kafta and ignorance over rwanda.

so if obama is trying to have a muchlt movement as a democratic president, this idea of immigration reform really needs to happen but i wonder if he's fallen into the george bush trap which is you're obviously going to really start about immigration reform essentially your last two years in office and it's too little too late. >> one of the things i like about this notion of the democratic president, we have this incredible piece where he is trying to rethink johnson. i just want to read this. it's kind of long but let me read from the piece here. perhaps the simple explanation which johnson likely understood better than most was there is no magic formula where people can emancipate themselves from prejudice, no finish line that when crossed awards a person's sole with a shining medal of purity in matters of race. all we can offer is a commitment to justice in word and deed that must be honored but from which we will all occasionally fall short. maybe when johnson said it's not just negroes but all of us who

must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry, he really meant all of us, including hi , himself, right? so this suggests that that same tempered notion that president obama was giving us, when we look back at lbj, we see these great legislative applicators but it is always still just partial. it's never fully there. >> definitely. that's the matter of legislation. you can only take it to a certain point. behavior has to change, and that behavior has changed in many, many ways. obama symbolizes so many things of the civil rights movement. now the question is for us in this diverse country that we now live in, given all the challenges we currently have, how do we translate those promises into today's realities. >> and one way that we might be able to do it would be through the vote, which of course we know is at the moment being challenged. so when we come back, president obama minces absolutely no words in his friday speech that drilled the gop. seriously, you must go read adam

sora's piece entitled lyndon johnson was a civil rights hero but also a racist. this morning if you read this one thing, you will have done something good for your brain. >> this zcivil rights act is a challenge to all of us, to go to work in our communities and in our states in, our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice. because when you buy the new samsung galaxy s5 on verizon, you get a second samsung galaxy s5 for free. so, who ya gonna give it to? maybe your brother could use it to finally meet a girl. your mom, but isn't your love reward enough? it's not. maybe your roommate, i mean you pretty much share everything else. hey. your girlfriend. just don't tell her it was free. whoever you choose, you'll both get the best devices on the best network. for best results, use verizon (agent) i understand.

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so let's be clear, the real voter fraud is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud. there have been some of these officials passing these laws have been more blunt. they say this is going to be good for the republican party.

some of them have not been shy about saying that they're doing this for partisan reasons. >> that was president obama yesterday giving the keynote address at reverend al sharpton's national action network's annual conference. reverend sharpton also hosts the program "politics nation" right here on msnbc. bh i saw the president, i thought he's got ludikris back on his play list. have you ever seen him not mincing words about voting rights in this way. >> it was so important what he said. 147 million votes cast, 40 people were indicted for fraud. we're talking about a nonexistent issue. but what is extreme problem because there is an extreme problem is that people are losing their right to vote. what people got their heads bashed in for 50 years ago, right now they're cutting -- what is the justification for saying we'll give less time for people to vote, especially for working people. when you go in the morning to

vote, if you don't get there at 6:00 and you work all day and you have to go back where you live, you're not going to be able to live. what can justify, i don't care, democrat or republican, cutting back on people's ability to get to the polls. >> as you point out, that in no way would address voter fraud. having a shorter number of hours to cast one's vote would have no impact on someone -- like we expect fraudulent people to show up more at noon than 6:00 a.m. >> when you do talk about voter fraud, these voter i.d. requirements they're passing and other pieces of restrictive legislation, that wouldn't impact it anyway because most of that tends to occur like through mail-in votes. >> acty ballots. >> right, absentee ballots. i just think it's so important the president was calling it out for what it is. so much of the time when we talk about civil rights legislation, the voting rights act, it's often in the sense of black and white. but as we go forward in the future, the reason that -- the

shelby county decision is damaging for the latino community is the greatest growth of the latino population is throughout the south and southeast, the states that no longer have the preclearance. so it's not just going to be an issue for african-american voters, it's going to be increasingly an issue for the latino community. >> i want to look at sort of the president's approval ratings by race over time. you see that he starts particularly with african-american and hispanic voters sort of way up. particularly with african-american voters. you see it declines a little bit from 100 to 75. but the important little blip i want you to see for both hispanic and african-american voters is in 2012 it kind of ticks back up. it seems to me that part of the reason that happens is because that is when kind of the discourse about the attacks on voting become very clear. it becomes not just a referendum on president obama but a referendum on whether or not we all have the right to vote. you see that uptick and i wonder if in part his courage and forth rightness which may in part be

sincere is also political and also about saying this is the thing that really gets people to understand why they have to show up and vote. >> and this is the thing that will hopefully get people to show up and vote in 2014, right? >> oh, 'tis the problem of midterms. >> and i think we also just have to ask ourselves, where are the democrats on this larger conversation, right? we have the president versus the republican party. but not to throw water on the parade -- they're in there, but there are many democrats on local and state levels who actually it behooves them not to have more people in the voting process. they're not as actively out there diminishing the vote the way certain republican legislators are, but the democrats know their base, they know who turns out. and especially if you're in a district where it's a democratic district and you really only have to worry about your primary, not your general. you're actually not that interested in bringing new voters in. they'll likely be democrats if they're latino, but they could go for some one else. so i'm just bringing up the

point that democrats, if you're interested in moving this conversation forward, you need to do a lot more and not just put it on the republicans and say they're the ones trying to limit the vote. >> we're going to spend an hour on this tomorrow because this is a central issue, but hearing the president just refuse to -- for him to frame it as a partisan issue, for him to frame it standings there at national action network, but let me ask one thing about this. would lbj been invited to speak at sclc. is there a capture of the movements that are meant to be pressing presidents and lawmakers when the presidents and lawmakers are president -- does that make sense? >> it does. but thank god if president johnson, the exposing we're giving this topic is enormous and well deserved. yes, he was pumped up, look at the audience. pumped up, look who introduced him. but he's speaking clearly what

everyone already knows. you hit the nail on the head. the 2012 election was a clear indication that this was done for clearly partisan reasons. everyone knows it. i've worked on voting cases for 30 plus years. you piss somebody off when you tell them they can't vote. they'll go back to their house, get their i.d. and bring back their cousins. this wonderful picture of people standing in line trying to exercise that right because they can see it for what it is. >> i think the republicans understand that, that 2012 there was a lot of anger and also it goes to what media pays attention to. and when people get angry, they're going to do something about it. so short term they may win somewhere, but long term i think democrats and i think it's a key point you're making, incumbents, even democratic incumbents don't want to expand it, they want to keep who voted them in. >> and long term that structural piece -- yes, it's good to rev people up, but you want to talk about who's dealing with structures. up next, the essential civil rights player in the obama

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can help your kids' school get extra stuff. they're the only cereals with box tops for education. you can raise money for your kids' school. look for this logo. only on big g cereals. you can make a difference. every cereal box counts. we're bolstering our across-the-board civil rights enforcement efforts to ensure that our work is as strong and as effective today as ever before. over the past three years, the department's civil rights division has filed more criminal civil rights cases than during any other period in its history. >> that was attorney general eric holder speaking at the national action network's annual convention on wednesday. and while president obama has not had the major legislative achievements like lbj's civil

rights act, here's what he has done. president obama appointed an attorney general who has aggressively enforced existing civil rights law and has made strides to correct past errors. those accomplishments include endorsing a proposal to shorten prison sentences for many nonviolent drug offenders that would change the face of the criminal justice system as we know it. he sued both texas and north carolina to block voter i.d. laws that would make it more difficult for minorities to vote, and he has issued a directive expanding government recognition of same-sex marriages to all federal courtrooms, prisons and some federal benefits programs just to name a few of things he's been up to. so while we may not appreciate the accomplishments of this administration until a decade hence, that's because so much of the civil rights work is happening in the department of justice. i kept asking myself, is eric holder the obama that we had been hoping for? right, there's a way in which -- but of course he works for president obama. i mean you can't -- i think it's not really fair to separate

them. but he is like, yeah, i sue you and you and how about you don't put them in jail and you get to vote. he's very -- he's doing that work. >> i think he may be the greatest addition to the entire obama administration, and i think in the long term the work that he is doing now, the foundational work that he's doing will actually pay off in dividends and actually help obama's legacy because we know right now on immigration reform or deportations which we'll talk about later, many people have been disappointed in this president. but i think eric holder with the appointments that he's made for individuals beneath him, u.s. attorneys across the country, younger, more diverse people, the issues that he's raising and fighting for, i think, you know, especially with the courts, plural, that we have and the lack of judges that sort of aren't in positions that are filled because of republican holdouts and the supreme court and they're leaning to the right consistently, i think the fights that he's starting we'll see pay off in hopefully five, ten, 15

years. >> you said one thing i don't want to miss which is about the other attorneys in the doj. we may not as a public recognize it but those who don't want to see these policy reenacted absolutely recognize it. what happened with dabo and t the -- it's almost like as soon as i see somebody fighting, i go, oh, wait a minute, that must be something interesting that's happening there. >> i mean what's important here though is that it was the democrats who ultimately blocked him. this was -- yes, of course the republicans were opposing him but it was the democrats who joined with them in the senate when they didn't even need 60 votes. they just took him down and that really goes to this bigger point about where the democrats are today, that it's not just about president obama or eric holder and also very interesting to hear the attorney general saying that he alone as an attorney general today, no other attorney

general has been treated by congress like he has been treated, going to the issue of race. >> actually i want to listen to him in this interaction with gomert because you get a sense of how ugly the treatment has been. >> i realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight. >> you don't want to go there, okay? >> i don't want to go there? >> no. >> about the contempt? >> you should not assume that that is not a big deal to me. i think that it was inappropriate. i think it was unjust. but never think that that was not a big deal to me. don't ever think that. >> man, i was standing on the side, yeah. you don't -- you don't want to go there. >> right. >> that was kind of a lovely moment. >> yes. and i was so glad that you showed the earlier clip of holder saying that no one else has been treated as he was, which i was a little surprised that he went there. but when i see eric holder now,

i just think back to when alberto gonzalez was attorney general. now, he presided over the doj when it was totally politicized. partisanship was pretty much a requirement to get into the doj at that time, there was all these different scandals. and yet during that time democrats held back at going after him because there was that sense that, well, he's the first latino attorney general and that would look bad. and now with eric holder it seems that republicans are emboldened to go after attorney general holder as an african-american, that gives them this free rein for this unparalleled disrespect that he is enduring in this office. >> and it could be about him being african-american, i think there's a hypothesis that's at the table. i think the other possibility is that it could be about how aggressively he and effectively he is at the core of implementing this. when we come back, i'm going to come to the issue you tried to take us to on the very first

question, which is immigration and the extent to which civil rights as a central issue of our day right now is about immigration. we're going to ask this question, why is there a hunger strike in fronting of the white house right now. >> half a century later, the law's lbj passed are now as fundamental to our conception of ourselves and our democracy as the constitution. and the bill of rights. they are foundational. an essential piece of the american character. did you knowe vital nutrients as you age? [ male announcer ] that's why there's ocuvite to help replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. ocuvite. help protect your eye health.

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little things, anyone can do. it steals your memories. your independence. insures support. a breakthrough. and sooner than you'd like... ...sooner than you think. ...you die from alzheimer's disease. ...we cure alzheimer's disease. every little click, call, or donation adds up to something big. alzheimer's association. the brains behind saving yours. when president obama was at the civil rights summit on thursday praised lyndon johnson's zil accomplishment, the civil rights act of 1964, he also touted what came after it, the voting rights act, fair housing act and immigration reform. that last one, immigration reform, is something that president obama has also placed high on his agenda, but it's

something he hasn't been able to accomplish despite bipartisan legislation passed by the senate and calls for immigration reform by prominent republicans like jeb bush. in the meantime, president obama has continued the trend set by another bush, president george w. bush, with his administration's aggressive detention and deportation of unauthorized immigrants from the united states since he took office in 2009. according to vox.com last year removal occurred at a pace of 1,010 persons per day. that means that the two millionth deportation likely happened sometime in the middle of last month. in the last seven days new pressure has been applied to the president to bypass congress and use his executive power to stop or at least slow deportations and detensions. there was last saturday's day of action during which protesters krae

rallied across the country. the president spoke in austin on thursday. some activists chained themselves to a statue of the dr. martin luther king jr. on the university of texas campus. at least three people were arrested. and the cry for the president to take executive action is being issued right in front of his own house. three people have staged a hunger strike since tuesday in front of the white house demanding their loved ones be released from immigration detention. one of the activists, 18-year-old cynthia diaz, is taking time away from her studies at the university of arizona to protest the detention of her mother, ria rodriguez who has been in detention since march. cynthia joins us now from washington. nice to have you. >> hi, thank you for having me. >> so, cynthia, you are currently right now hunger striking, is that right? >> yeah, that's right. this is my fifth day. >> so tell me why. why are you hunger striking? >> i am doing this hunger strike for my mom. she was unfairly deported on may, 2011.

when i.c.e. raided our home, i was 13, cynthia, they're taking your mom. i was confused because i didn't know what that meant so i went to my front yard and there i saw ten i.c.e. officers all over my front yard and i saw my mom being handcuffed and pushed into a van. and then the door shut and we were really confused. my brother heard everything but he didn't leave his room because he didn't want to see what was happening. that was really traumatizing for me because, like i said before, i was only 15 at the time. >> when you talk about being confused, were you aware of your mother's status as an unauthorized immigrant? >> no, i didn't know. i was born and raised in phoenix, arizona. i have a brother and my dad who are u.s. residents, but i didn't

know until they took my mom that, you know, she was undocumented. >> so you're an american citizen. you have u.s. permanent r residents in your family. and you have not eaten in days because you are trying to get your president and your government to let your mom out of detention. this is a trite question but sort of how are you feeling both physically and politically at this moment? >> this morning i woke up a little sore, so that means my body is reacting to the lack of fo food. and it's been tough. this is my first hunger strike. i haven't eaten in five days. but i'm still, you know, trying to stay strong and push forward and try to call out president obama because we are in his front yard. >> cynthia, stay with us, don't go away, but i don't want to

come out to the table here. when you asked us to come to this issue from the beginning, and part of why we wanted cynthia's voice here is so often when we talk about immigration reform, it's like -- it's like this big theory up here. this is about families and moms and dads and children. >> it's about mixed status families. for every unauthorized immigrant in a family household, you'll have citizens, you'll have lawful permanent residents. what happened here with this young woman's family was aggressive, outrageous, unconstitutional actions probably by i.c.e. we should know my office sued i.c.e. and got a major settlement to actually apply the fourth amendment doing home raids. what a marvel, incredible application of the constitution. i.c.e. has been doing this forever. and now to see this young woman talk about this in this way, i am so happy you put them on the way. we have to continue to talk about people like this with a story about these policies. >> "the new york times" just did

this great expose. president obama is saying we're going after the criminals, the gang bangers, it's not like we're going after the students and the grandmothers, but the fact is two-thirds of the people who are being deported, and we've hit this unbelievable two million deportation mark just within president obama's administration, two-thirds of them are either involved with minor criminal offenses like they ran a red light, a traffic violation, or no criminal offense at all. >> the only criminal offense is the status offense, is the undocumentation. >> just for the record, we also hear a lot about detention. you know, detention is prison. when you're in detention, you don't get due process, you often don't get a chance to make a phone call, you are separated physically. you might be in a different state. many of those detention centers are privately run, so there's no accountability, no transparency so in many ways it's worse than prison. in this country we have people in our prison system who are convicted murderers and rapists

who are treated better than moms and dads who are in detention. just be clear, detention is prison. >> cynthia, let me come back to you for a moment. have you had a chance to talk with your mother, and where is her case right now? >> yeah, i talked to her last night. right now she's in san luis, arizona in, a private detention center. she does tell me that it's really cold there, the beds are really uncomfortable, the food is not pleasant at all. >> cynthia diaz in washington, d.c., i want to say two things. as someone who thinks of myself as committed to questions of activism, i am incredibly proud of you for taking action, for being an activist on this question. as a mom and my bet is, although i have not spoken to your mom, but just as a mom, at some point i want to ensure that you are also caring for yourself. i am so proud of you for hunger striking here, but i also, i just want to make my mom appeal that at some point, please continue to care for yourself as

you work to liberate your mother, please. >> that's what i'm doing, thank you. >> thank you to cynthia diaz in washington, d.c. up next, democratic leader nancy pelosi says race is the reason for immigration reform being stalled. we asked people a question,

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leadership, that notion of race being part of it, and i think we talk an awful lot about latino immigration but also about black immigration but the idea that immigrants are these racial others. >> right. i said this when i was on the show a few weeks ago. the face of immigration is a latino face, right, and that sort of when many people americans think about immigration as an idea, it's just mexico, right. we have to also be very clear, there's loads of undocumented immigrants from canada who are here and lots of immigration from people all over the world. i particularly work on caribbean and africa, but asia, south america, wherever. so i think it's really problematic the way the entire immigration debate has been framed because it turns into a latino versus america problem. but i think the fact that nancy pelosi, and maybe it is because it's a midterm election year and we know many people see it as an off year in the sense that they don't have to turn out, this may actually mobilize and motivate certain democratic individuals

to actually come out, so we'll see. >> so here you have the politics of it happening up here strategically but in terms of the policy, is there anything the president can unilaterally do? here's a young woman who is not eating because she needs the president to do something. >> there's quite a number of things the president can do using his executive authority. he could end the secure communities program, a very controversial program which is basically a pipeline into detention. he could end the 287-g program which depp tieses all these local law enforcement officers with no immigration training and makes them i.c.e. agents. he could also expand the number of people eligible for deferred action. now, he can't do it for everybody, and granted none of these measures would be permanent. he cannot give anybody citizenship. but there are things he can do. when you put it in perspective, two million people is the size of the population of west virginia, of nebraska. it's more than those states. and more than 12 or 15 other

states. when you think about the devastation that has wrought on our communities, it's hard to wrap your mind around it. >> and as much as two million matters, i almost don't care if it's two million or just cynthia's story, when you hear that story it's just so appalling. >> i was thinking about president obama last night when he was at the play, "a raisin in the sun" taken from langston hughes poem. i want to read three lines from that poem. what happens to a dream deferred, does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run and hughes ends by saying or does -- he says maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode. this is what president obama and the republicans and democrats have to deal with with the immigrant rights movement, the injustice of two million people being deported, the vast majority have not committed a crime. they are here. and who is talking about this?

jeb bush. >> yes, i was going to say -- in fact let's listen to jeb bush because it is sort of stunning that the point that you just made has been made by jeb bush. let's listen. >> the way i look at this, and this is not -- you know, i'm going to say this and it will be on tape and so be it. they cross the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. yes, they broke the law. but it's not a felony. it's kind of -- it's an act of love. it's an act of commitment to your family. >> so everybody stay with me because we're going to come back and talk about if in fact the world is going to explode because jeb bush and amy goodman agree on this question when we come back. why is ourrizona-basey relocating manufacturing to upstate new york? i tell people it's for the climate. the conditions in new york state are great for business. new york is ranked #2 in the nation for new private sector job creation. and now it's even better because they've introduced startup new york - dozens of tax-free zones

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joo so what you heard jeb bush saying there was not an anomaly, he really meant it. here he is on thursday. >> this last week i made some

statements about immigration reform that apparently generated a little more news than anticipate. the simple fact is there is having some sensitivity to the immigrant experience, which is part of who we are as a country. >> well, i don't hate that. is that -- so is that the solution for the republican party, to sort of regain a foothold as a party that can grow as opposed to one shrinking demographically? >> i would hope the republican party would admit the fact it's intentional and a part of many of the colleagues to isolate and single out latinos in the they've been doing. it would be nice if he said yes, some of my colleagues have made a mistake. in alabama, a judge said it was code for anti-latino. means it's pretty clear. let's have a republican also have an honest discussion about

race. >> i guess i want to push back. there's always the sort of, okay, let's talk about immigration, as if that will get the latino vote. as if latinos only vote on open immigration policy, which is empirically false. >> also vote for the economy, jobs, schools. there are many other issues. >> they're voters. they're multidimensional voters, right. >> but it is amazing we are at this point where jeb bush is, you know, out in public with that. nancy pelosi in her remarks, she also compared the immigration enforcement policies we currently have, she compared that to the interment camps of the japanese during the war, so who is holding the rad car position in this policy? it's the obama administration. it's time for them to think about the whole enforcement policy. it's just been absolutely fruitless. >> that interment camp language is so important. you guess that assumption that certain identities are simply

enemies of the state. >> what the white house is weighing inside, maybe they'll extend it. let's make no mistake about it, the reason they got that is because they were sitting in, like cynthia, they were fasting. president obama was a community organizer. the demand has been from the right for a long time. now those who help to elect them are making demands. they haven't for a long time. they were demobilized. most powerful movement now is the immigrant rights movement and he has to figure out what to do. >> this is really i think the perfect point to end on for this hour. we started with lbj, this notion of a movement that pushes a president to great civil rights work, ending with an 18-year-old girl who is not just fasting, hunger striking, not eating for five days, because her mother is inprisoned. >> these people are the immigrants right movement. >> thank you. that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for

watching. i'll see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. new york magazine writer jonathan chait is coming. we are going to have ourselves a conversation about race, politics and president obama. now it's time for a preview of "weekend with alex witt." >> we have a lot of news to unpack for all of you. embattled republican congressman vance mcallister facing pressure to resign. can he survive this surveillance tape after this long kiss good night? a new documentary takes us to what might be the epicenter of the fight over the controversial keystone pipeline, in one town's effort to keep the oil flowing. and lbj, obama and the civil rights act 50 years in the making. >> that's why i'm standing here today. because of those efforts. ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money?

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deadly head-on collision in california? could new eyewitness reports change the investigation? a live report next. nothing but garbage. why does the flight f370 search keep finding trash? could the irs take your tax refund without warning because your parents, that's right, parents, owe the government money? president obama in some of his strongest remarks takes the fight to republicans other voting rights. how did he use math to prove his argument? hello, everyone. it's high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. in the west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." the horrific bus crash in northern california. witnesses say the fedex truck