fawn johnson,ational journal correspondent. we've been focusing a lot on immigration lately because of the change in policy. it could be 10:00 today. let's talk about how deportations' actually work, and how someone is treated if there in the country illegally -- if someone is in the country illegally. guest: we know there are 12 million undocumented immigrants. it is an estimate. they need to be identified. that happens a number of ways. i was just down on the border earlier this year. they literally catch them out in the desert. it will happen through random checks that would occur if you are trying to get into college, for example, which is one of the issues we have with the dream at students. then it is up to the immigration authorities to decide what they are going to do with that person's. you are in the country illegally, and you are in violation and need to be removed. then there is a question about what level of punishment will be afforded you. it is rare you have someone go before a judge

national journal correspondent, fawn johnson, what's going on? >> well, what's going on is that there's a countdown to a couple of different things in the middle of the summer that lawmakers are trying to figure out how to pay for. one of them is the federal highway authority, which has been under endless numbers of extensions for several years. is going to expire on june 30th. and the lawmakers will, at the very least, need to come up with a short-term extension, in order to keep the money flowing into the high-rate trust fund. the other issue that's coming up in the middle of the summer is that there are subsidized student loan interest rates are set to double on july 1st if congress doesn't act, and that was something that was set in place about five years ago, as part of a higher education financing act. but lawmakers are saying now with this economy that they really don't want to see that interest rate double. so they're trying to come up with a way to pay for a new highway bill that would allow federal authority for the highway trust fund t

joining us now on the phone to explain a little bit more about this decision is fawn johnson. she is the course on the covers immigration issues at "the national journal." how do the mechanics work out? what is involved? guest: it is a really huge program the administration will have to put together really quickly. they said it will be up and running in about six days. the administration has never done anything like this before. they need to put together a brand-new deferral program, and they claimed that the people who come forward -- this requires the undocumented youth who qualified to come forward and identify themselves, and the administration will decide on the case by case basis whether they can get this deferral. it will require a lot of individuals who might not necessarily trust the administration to come forward and say, "hears all of my credentials. here's the reason why you should not deport maine." they will be given a two-year the for all -- deferral. host: specifically, does this fall under dhs, or is there a specific agency wouldn't it that'll take up the bulk

the border secure, and it is a significantly less porous border than it was five years ago. >> fawn johnson, correspondent for national journal. looks look at the numbers of dough pour takes. the obama administration has posted with -- boasted with pride about the number of dee pour taigsz, but there's been a change of policy. in june 2011 the i.c.e. director john morton announced a shift on who is actually deported. tell bus what change and what it means. >> yeah, that was a shift that was intended to go after the worst of the worst first, and i don't actually think it was a huge, complete shift in policy from what they were doing before. if you're a woman, if you're pregnant, if you have children. if you've been here a long time, if you're elderly, those are considered low priority doeprtees. people who have criminal records, people linked with drug trafficking or human trafficking they're high on the list of priorities, so what morton did was list them out, and this was meant as guidance for immigration officers to look for the ones who are basically in jail who are regular police office

and national journal's correspondent fawn johnson. "washington journal" live here on c-span. >> this week on"q &a ," chief correspondent for the washington post covering his years in politics and actress questions from purdue university students. >> dan balz, what is the difference in reporting today for newspapers and back in 1972 when tim krause wrote his book, "boys on the bus." >> i not think of ourselves as being newspaper people anymore. the world has changed so dramatically that we are posting online, in print, doing video, doing so many different things today and doing it around the clock. i think it is a totally transformed the business in that sense. sometimes i will refer to that i work at the paper but in fact, i have to remind myself that is not really the case. that is only one way that we are disseminated information. is a much more competitive world, much more fast-paced, there is less time for reflection and sometimes less time for reporting events which are moving so much faster. >> how would you compare the informat