first met in 2009, when he reached out to me, having just come to town help was to be taking over uscis. it had not yet happened, and we had an incredibly productive first conversation, which grew into a very productive relationship over all of those years since, and of course, after having served for several years as uscis as the director, he graduated, he was promoted, through a rather difficult process but nonetheless promoted to becoming the deputy secretary of the department of homeland security, where he has been since, administering a $60 billion budget with 240,000 staff. think about that. but i think it's fair to say that even with that sprawling mission and the incredible range of responsibilities at the department of homeland security has and is responsible for, he is probably spent the bulk of his time of any one issue on immigration issues. so, he has for the span of this administration almost uniquely been in places where policymaking and policy execution meet, and that is an extraordinary van -- vantage point. so we wanted to at this opinion, when the obama years are comi

and, of course, after having served for several years at uscis as the director, he graduated. he was promoted to a rather difficult process but nonetheless promoted to becoming the deputy secretary of the department of homeland security. where he has been since administering a $60 billion budget with 240,000 staff. just think about that. but i think it's fair to say that even without sprawling mission and the incredible range of responsibilities of the department of homeland security has and is responsible for, he's probably spent the bulk of his time of any one issue on immigration issues. so we has for the spent of this administration almost uniquely been in is where policymaking and policy execution meet. and that is an extraordinary vantage point. so we wanted to at this point when the obama years are coming to an end, to provide an opportunity for him to reflect on that perspective, and to tell us about the record of this very active administration, during a very demanding time. so this is really an opportunity to come as i said in inviting him, write the first draft of h

people who complain about uscis is the agency that does the green cards and that sort of thing for immigrants, the people who work there are not bad. it's just that they are being given an impossible task that cannot really be accomplished properly. in a sense, what do you expect? thesist beating up on people in the field because it's not they're doing. to donaldg back trump's plan, according to the "washington post," they looked at the feasibility and the cost cost of diverting at least 5 million undocumented 51igrants would be between point $2 billion-66 $.9 billion in enforcement costs over the next five years. how feasible logistically and in terms of financially is his plan? guest: it's clearly feasible. he did not say 5 million people. they are picking a number. they are saying about half. he specifically said everyone who was arrested will be removed. president obama's enforcement priorities now is they just let go lots of a rest of illegal aliens. they are not asking congress for the money to be able to detain and import additional people. they are not even using all the detention fac

do you agree with me that refugees are the most carefully vetted of all travelers, and what has uscis done to ensure that the high security requirements for refugees are not compromised as we look at some increase in the number of refugees? >> yes, i agree that will they are the most highly vetted travelers to the u.s. my particular sample population is the rest of immigrants to the u.s. who also, incidentally, are subject to extensive background checks. refugees definitely get more, as to asigh lees. we are in a constant process of adding tools as those tools become available. and so a lot of times, for example, when we're talking about incidents for people who arrived even eight or nine years ago and let alone 20 years ago, the process that they would have undergone then is nowhere near the process that we have now. >> right. and for the syrian refugees, there's an even -- an extra layer, is that right? >> there are a couple of extra layers. one a select portion of the cases when they have particular characteristics are prereviewed by our fraud detection and national security direct

there's a way to do this, you know, we had a hearing on this the other day, urged the department and uscis to look at this technology. and i think the american people would have a lot more comfort and assurance in the refugee program if they knew this was being deployed. danielle: let me press a little harder, this is such a big, contentious issue. i know you're a supporter of mr. trump who said we should not allow any people in from countries where there have been, where there's terrorist activity. i don't know exactly what that means because i presume he then means france and germany as well. mr. mccaul: that's a problem. danielle: that is people have a visa worker program, people coming in citizens of those countries. you put together what we're talking about, the global jihadi effort that has been absolutely energized by the internet and it is far ahead of us in many ways in terms of modernization of its context. you put that together with the fact that there are people in, you know, many, many countries, 40,000 jihadists who went into syria. many -- they come from all over the place,

louis, co-author of a major textbook on immigration and, two years chief counsel at the uscis.all measures one of the most dynamic and effective young leaders on the immigration rights movement today. they say is co kourp-founder ofd we dream. last but not least is becky, whose job now is head of government relations at job box. but it is her life prior to the dropbox that is of intrigue to this group. she was a very important member of the immigration issues on the senate and house side. she was assistant to speaker boehner on policy before the speaker left his job. before that, she was chief of staff to senator mccain and oversaw issues on immigration legislation while senator mccain was under senior kennedy. but most recently "washington post" called her -- i'm sure you've been called a lot of things. >> not all of them good. >> leading immigration expert within the gop. so thank you to all of you for being here. but we will start with david. we have definite republicans to this panel. >> you're the only one. >> so frankly this will be the time when most of us in this gather