They are just adding names to this. If there was a way for you or other community leaders, to add to this growing item, because of you know the people, they want to know them also, and nine times out of 10, there is not a there and maybe youppening would be able to influence it by bringing together a group. Getting activeat power often means getting types of power oftentimes mean is that there are a lot of people who have power. In order for new people to have it, other people have to relinquish them and that will take all of us to really come to terms with what that means and i hope that we are all of to the challenge. Just to the comment on the erosion of democracy, i wanted to share that. The elections we see Strong Political participation. President ial elections it is somewhere in the mid 40s. To me that says when we see that we have people who represent us and take on issues relevant to our daily lives than we come out. I think there is a lot that we can do and i think this is a critical moment for native people and communities and im really excited about this moment in time. Please join me in giving a round of applause to our amazing panel. [applause] thank you also much, lets keep the conversation going. President ial candidates are heading to the iowa state fair and we will have live coverage of the candidate soapbox. Former governor Mike Huckabee he will be live here on cspan. Then jim webbs lie that 2 00. Then Martin Omalley speaks to the crowd of 5 00 p. M. Et. After each of the candidates speak we will get your reaction to what they said, all here on cspan. The recent negotiations with iran and the war on terrorism. Whois isis and what are their origins and why are they so violent . Areof these questions important and i address them in the book. Is what isportant the u. S. Policy regarding isis . Why isnt it working . Can we go to war against terrorism . Are we doing the war wrong or is it wrong to say there should be a war against terrorism at all. Those are the questions that in some way will be the most useful. President ial candidates are talking about immigration including Border Security, Immigration Enforcement and workers. Up next, a discussion on immigration policy. This is one hour 20 minutes. Good morning everyone. Thank you very much for coming out on the lovely sunny sunday. My name is Teresa Cardinal brown and im a director of the bipartisan policy project. If you are not familiar with us, center wassan policy founded by two former Senate Majority leaders. Tom daschle, george mitchell, howard baker and bob dole. Commission is to bring together what we call constructive. Artisanship which means bringing together people from both sides of the aisle to come together and work towards practical and politically Viable Solutions to some of our biggest problems, one of which is immigration. In 2013, bpc started the Immigration Task force. To work on issues related to Immigration Reform. A lot of people thought it had huge momentum and we were going to have legislation and it would all get enacted. That didnt happen in the house. Here we are again facing another president ial election, which is well underway. Interestingly enough, we have more candidates in the selection in this election than i think we have ever had in history and the candidates are dealing with all the usual issues. Jobs and the economy and National Security and Foreign Policy. Immigration is still a topic of conversation. It has been a consistent feature throughout the president ial campaign. Every candidate has been asked about their position on Immigration Reform or has affirmatively put one forward. It has come up in the last president ial debate that happened last week in cleveland. It has been addressed by the Democratic Candidates. So we thought this would be a Good Opportunity to talk a little bit about where things are come have some experts here to talk about what the candidates have said about immigration, what they have said on policy, what they intend to do about it. A little bit about how it impacts the politics of the situation and what it might mean for the actual chances of reform. To lead us in this discussion, we have francine kiefer. Francine is with the Christian Science monitor. She is a Congressional Correspondent and has been there since 1980. She has been in washington for a long time, including she knows the politics of d. C. In and out. She has written extensively on immigration, including the congressional activities last congress. She has also worked for nearly five years as a National Editor at the San Jose Mercury news in Silicon Valley and is joining us to moderate the panel. I will let francine introduce our panelists. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much, theresa. Take you so much for setting the scene on immigration. I am going to begin by introducing our wonderful panelists here. I will begin immediately to my left, laura vasquez. She is the senior immigration legislative analyst at the national council, which is the Largest National latino civil rights and Advocacy Organization in the United States. She describes her work as advancing just and humane reform to the current information system. Before joining la raza, she worked as a constituent caseworker for Eleanor Holmes norton, helping City Residents with their immigration applications. Not an easy task. She was also a Congressional Hispanic Caucus institute fellow. Laura is an expert on mexican migration to the United States and the role of nonprofits and in advocating for latino immigrants. She hold an m. A. In latin american studies from the university of california san diego and a b. A. From kenyon college. She was born in mexico and grew up in ohio. Welcome, laura. Mike nextdoor is the executive director of the center for immigration studies. Which he has led for 20 years. The center is a nonpartisan Research Organization here in washington that examines the impact of immigration on the United States. It conducts factbased research in support of its proimmigrant low immigration vision. Mark frequently testifies before congress. He has published articles in the National Media, appeared on various television and radio shows, and is a contributor to at National Review online. Mark is also a book author, including this provocative title, the new case against immigration both legal and illegal. He holds a masters degree and a bachelors from georgetown university. And here is something that not everyone can say. He spent two years at yaribon State University in thensoviet armenia. And next to mark, we have maria. She is the executive director of the National Immigration law center. Under her leadership, they have grown to become the Main Organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low income immigrants in the u. S. Maria immigrated as a child from columbia to central falls, rhode island. Fully bilingual and bicultural, she is often interviewed by National Media outlets, including telemundo. She lectures frequently at national and international conferences. Whether litigating cases, testifying before congress, meeting with president obama, or with low income immigrant families, she is recognized as a passionate advocate and authentic leader. Maria is the recipient of several awards or her commitment to the latino community. She was recently a practitioner in residence at the school for social justice at uc berkeleys law school. And served as a visiting fellow at northeastern universitys school of law, where she received her law degree. And we also have randall johnson, who is Senior Vice President at the u. S. Chamber of commerce, the Worlds Largest business organization. He has been with the chamber or nearly 20 years and is primarily responsible for labor, immigration issues. In consultation with members of the chamber and his staff, randy determines the chamber passed policy decision chambers policy decisions and an array of issues including comprehensive Immigration Reform. He is also a board member of the National Immigration forum and the lutheran immigration and Refugee Services agency. Randy Knows Congress well. Before joining the chamber, he was the republican Labor Council and coordinator for the House Committee on education and the workforce. Randy is a graduate of Denison University and the university of Marylands School of law and earned his master of law in Labor Relations from georgetown universitys law center. So that is the biographical portion of our program. Now we are going to get to the questions. Mark, i think i will start with you, even though you are not immediately to my left. But one thing i was noticing when i watched the gop debate last week, both the Junior Varsity version and the varsity version, was that there seemed to be complete agreement among the candidates that what we should have is a strength in border first policy. I wondered why that unanimous agreement and is it actually possible to build the donald trump wall or do the kind of largescale enforcement on the border that republicans are talking about . Mark well, the first point i would make is that all of the candidates are not necessarily agree. Jeb bush has called for legalization at the same time as enforcement measures, so it is not necessarily the case that everybody on the republican side is for enforcement first. But you are right, generally speaking, that is the approach. Why . The answer is that if the enforcement doesnt come first, it is not going to happen because in 1986 this was the key failure was that the deal at that time was amnesty now upfront, in exchange for promises of enforcement in the future. Those promises werent kept. And that trick is not something that people are going to fall for a second time. In fact, it is not just speculation that that is the way it would turn out, the shortly after the bill was side, less than three years after the bill was signed again, remember, this was a deal makes in exchange for the ban on hiring illegals. Just a few years after the bill passed, they published a report saying that the enforcement part should be repealed. They were welshing on the deal. So the idea that we should just take their word for it that to in five or 10 or 13 years from now, the various enforcement elements will be implemented if the legalization happens first is, you know, is a fools bargain. The saying goes, fully once, shame on me. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The way it could actually work is to have several enforcement elements. I would pick three. Verify. This is the online system, so when you hire someone, you verify. Exit tracking for visa holders. In other words, most new todays ilLegal Immigration, 60 of it is people coming in as tourists and students and just not leaving. It is not really the border. But we dont know when people leave, so we dont know who stays. And number three, systematic routine integration of state and local Law Enforcement and federal immigration authorities. When those three things happen, and i dont mean on paper, they are actually implemented, the courtroom jihads that the aclu and others will launch against them, once they are actually working, then we can have a debate. That would be a kind of a bargain. Amnesty for most of the illegals who are here. In exchange for deep permanent cuts in future ilLegal Immigration. That seems to be the only way we are going to be able to get to a sort of more stable immigration position politically. It is never going away. Teresa mentioned Foreign Policy and jobs and the rest in the campaigns. Immigration is always going to be a part of a campaign for ever as it is a part of being in the business. But we can get to a more sustainable situation, but only by having an implementing and putting in place the enforcement systems we need to prevent this situation from recurring 10 or 15 years down the road. Host just a followup question about the borders specifically. United states has spent increasingly more money on enforcement. And so republicans want even more spent. What are the actually talking about in terms of doing work on the border . Mark i have to say, the place we are going to get the bigger bang for the buck in enforcement is not at the border. We have spent a lot of money at the border, and it shows. It has not all been wasted. Some of it has, it is the government. Some of it really works. I have been i have gone to most of the border. From the gulf of mexico to the pacific. And a lot of the fencing is sort of fake fencing to keep trucks from driving over. It is only this high. Your grandma can jump over it. But some of it is real fence. We have twice as many Border Patrol agents as we had a decade ago. We have fewer Border Patrol agents than the nypd has police officers. So we have improved on the border. There is still room for improvement, but if i had my druthers, the place i would want to be focusing on is more on the worksite, on visa tracking, that sort of thing because that is where the next dollar is going to get the most benefit, as far as enforcement. Host and i neglected to mention at the beginning that at about 11 30, we will open up to questions from the audience. Be gathering your questions. Laura, i would like to turn to you next. I noticed in the debate that jeb bush, if i recall, was the only one who spoke pretty extensively about his policies and plans for Immigration Reform. And one of the things he talked about was an earned path to legal status for the 11 million undocumented that are already here in the United States. No one joined him on that. In fact, no one mentioned even earned status or earned path to citizenship. Which is what all the Democratic Candidates are supporting. On of the moderators asked scott walker, one of the candidates, why did you step back and rescind your support for a path to citizenship . It is quite clear republicans are not interested in a path to citizenship for undocumented workers and not too many are that keen on a pass to even earn legal status. What do you make of that Division Within the Republican Party and with the democrats . Laura thank you. I think you are right, there is a division there because we do see that there are some candidates that do still support a path to citizenship Lindsey Graham has consistently said that he supports the path to citizenship. He doesnt think the country would support a subclass group of people being here. So that is the position he has held for a long time. It is part of the support that he gave to the senate bill that passed in 2013. I think it is also consistent with the position that americans have. So, we have seen poll after poll consistently demonstrate that across the political spectrum, democrats and republicans support a path to citizenship or legal status. Now we are seeing more and more. Polls break that down into two things. And one of the things that is interesting is that when it is explained, earned to citizenship means to meeting requirements, having to go through a background check, demonstrating that you pay taxes, demonstrating that you would learn english. The support amongst Republican Voters goes up. So i think that once we are able to have that debate about what a path to earned citizenship looks like, we would see increased support within the Republican Party. We know that that is something that it is in the interest of the country. I think americans supported because they are pragmatic because they understand that they want immigrants all in. They dont want them in some sort of less than citizenship area. They want everybody in the same boat with the same requirements. And they also understand the history of our country, that we are a country of immigrants because we have always encouraged immigrants to fully participate in american life. Ms. Kiefer do you think there would be any give on this issue since republicans seem both staunchly behind and not even actually all behind the legal status if it came down to a choice . Do you think they would begin in that particular question . Laura i do think so. I think it is because of when. When people understand that it is not an automatic citizenship that people would be granted, it is not an amnesty, it would be something that as we saw in the senate bill, they were very strict requirements that people would have to meet. And that i think is something that, you know, people understand that now when they hear it and i think we would see that support with the candidates. Ms. Kiefer thanks so much for that input. Maria elena, im coming down to you now. Given your legal background, i wondered if you could explain to us what the status is of the various the court case against president obama at the moment or against the administration . If you recall in november, the president issued an executive order that was highly controversial, extending the third deportation to millions more undocumented immigrants. And then the state of texas sued for that, sued against that, and it is now wrapped up in the courts. And that program has been stopped. So i wonder if you could bring us uptodate on the status of that Court Situation and let us know your views on how in an outcome, whichever way it might go, might affect the debate . Maria elena yes, thank you for organizing this great panel. First, tummy tuck about the let me talk about the importance of this policy. In november, the president announced a 10 point executive action. Daca is the deferred action for childhood arrivals, parents of u. S. American citizens and it green card holders. And then the expansion, as we often think of as dreamers. And the importance of this is really critical. Last week, i was at the jersey shore with my niece and nephew, who are 13 years old. At the are about to start school. And they are really concerned about how much harder their science and math classes are going to be. And they are worried about whether they will be able to balance their soccer games with their harder classes. But today, there is also an eighth grader of their who is concerned not about classes, but she is concerned about whether her mother is going to be deported before the first day of school. She is worried about whether her father will be there when she graduates from eighth grade next spring. And it is that trauma, that fear of losing your parents, of being separated from their parents, from your families, being ripped apart, that lack of instability that immigrant families are facing today is really what is at stake. Over 5 million u. S. Citizen children at the direct beneficiaries. Their parents would be eligible for dapa. And it is that stability that this executive decision is really about. Unfortunately, the state of texas, the governor and other attorney generals, have sued the Obama Administration. One judge in brownsville, texas has blocked the implementation of dapa nationwide. We are currently waiting for a decision from the fifth Circuit Court of appeals. We expect that any day now. Frankly, this is a case that is going to go up before the Supreme Court. If you take the politics out of this, this is actually a constitutional issue that legal scholars across the board, conservatives and liberal scholars, agree that president s since eisenhower have exercised this power and have the authority to do what the president did. We expect that at this time next year, the outcome will probably be that the Supreme Court has ruled on this, the Obama Administration can start implementation. It is going to be front and center. Ms. Kiefer so you are expecting the ruling in the president ial Election Year . Maria elena probably, yes. Ms. Kiefer if it goes against the president , how that affect the debate . Maria elena i think the debate will continue because this is just one piece of the broader immigration debate. Part of what we will continue hearing is the sort of wall supporters among the gop candidates, and then also other things that can be done administratively. There is the future of what happens with the 11 million undocumented immigrants. What kind of immigration will receive during the next administration . Ms. Kiefer ok. Randy, way down there. [laughter] on the far left, i like that. Jeb bush, as i mentioned earlier, last week in the debates laid out pretty extensively his steps and Immigration Reform. And one of the things he said he supported was required use of the everify Electronic System in order to determine whether they are hiring undocumented workers or not in their companies. And it has been voluntary, as far as i know, so far. So my question for you is, how would american businesses feel about being required to use the everify system . And also, how reasonable is it to expect that the system can be implemented nationwide and that it can function the way it is supposed to . Randy yeah, we dont engage in president ial politics at the chamber, so you are right, bush did take it up, but we are not taking a view on anybodys proposals per se. [indiscernible] with regard to everify, we have testified that. Probably 10 times in 15 years. Four times we opposed it and five times we supported it. But it is not a flipflop, it is a reevaluation. [laughter] randy let me give you a little history. The chamber does support a mandatory employment verification procedures. You are right, it is a Pilot Program and it is voluntary. And that comes to a shock to a comes as a shock to a lot of people, but we did put together a task force on this. We negotiated a deal with lamar smith and the Judiciary Committee on a bill we could support, but the history to that, and quickly, is we did sue the state of arizona back in 2010 over its mandatory employment verification procedures and it went up to the Supreme Court. We lost. And at that point and given what was happening we should negotiate a deal. And part of that was a tradeoff in which, given our loss, we obtained preemption of state and local laws and a safe harbor for our members if they complied and good face and relied erroneously complied in good faith and relied erroneously on information from the electronic verification system. No real verification of existing report is of existing employees. No reverification of existing employees. In other words, it applies to new hires. A sort of slow rollout so it could be tested along the way. So there is a series of things which we laid out in testimony. I think one of the big issues is what certainly came up last year when i testified was what would a mandatory what would it do to the Agricultural Industry . They acknowledge half of their workforce is undocumented. That does not mean they know it but its true. If you had mandatory everify, what would that do to the agriculture industry . Would it shut it down . There is everify but theres this ag issue that the circulated around that that even republicans acknowledge had to be taken care of. We support mandatory employment verification. We have negotiated legislation with certain House Republicans on the issue. Ive still got my job, so we did a good job on it, i think. There is a new mandate on our members. Ms. Kiefer randy, i want to ask you a different question, a little bit about the path forward now. Just before the senate broke for recess, mitch mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader, gave a press conference and i asked him if there was any hope for even a small portion of Immigration Reform to get done in this congress before the president ial election and the next congress and he said, absolutely no. He mentioned the trust issue that the president had so poisoned the well through his executive order that there was no hope anything would be done in this congress. I wonder if you might address looking ahead to after 2016 how might a new president , democrat or republican, proceed on this issue . You have two fronts to concern yourself with, one is trust and the other is policy with other panelists have talked about. How do you see that might work with a new president . Randy you did ask this congress, not this session . Ms. Kiefer i dont remember how i asked, but he said this congress. That he is not going to deal with it. If he says no, thats very much it. Randy we are little bit hopeful. We are working on a high scale bill in the house. If the fifth circuit ruled in favor of the Texas Governor that that might have an opening for this year next session, not this year. Looking beyond that, i think the days of talking about poisoning the well, its not just that the president went forward with these executive orders but the aca framing that with the Affordable Care act combined not just with partisanship, but that there were mandates under the aca which the president unilaterally postponed even though the statute clearly said here is the deadline. There was this backdrop of not trusting the president and immigration was part of it. Part of the aca was part of that whole debate. Going into next year, look, we will not have a big bill. We will not have the senate will again. I look at it as a combination of an everify, Border Security and an ag fix it will be some mix like that. Youve got a train with little caboose on it. The train is moving along but it is split up into different parts. What will go on that versus one big bill like the senate bill was. Maybe its high scale Border Security and everify and some other mix of that. I dont think Border Security first will fly in the senate because the democrats will want more out of of order security there is the fear that once congress does Border Security its another 10 years before they will come back to revisit it. It is substance and policy but also politics. Is ted cruz going to be the next president or will hillary . Or is it rubio . George bush was unable to get a bill through, though we worked hard on it. It depends not just on the presidency. Mark we are not going to see anything until after the president ial election. I dont think there is any way around that. What should congress be doing . How should be approaching this issue . The 115th congress. I think thats right. It seems that the idea of a 2000 page monstrosity bill that gives every Interest Group something to be happy about doesnt work. It had failed in 2005 and 2006 and 2013 and its just bad lawmaking. Whatever you think about how health care should be done, a gigantic aca is not the way to have done it and likewise with immigration. It seems to me, people on all sides of the debate need to lower their gazes and look at more smaller digestible things to do. Something i have suggested that would give everybody something would be, for instance, mandatory everify but package it into a small package with, say, giving green cards to the beneficiaries. Upgrade their amnesty to a green card premium from the green card light they have now. That way both sides would get something and maybe there has been versions of this maybe throw in some tech stuff where foreign students who get phds in stem fields would get green cards if they wanted them. Something like that. That is a smaller, digestible package and various constituency groups would get something out of it and i think it would move the issue forward rather than the idea of always trying to hit home runs. I dont mean to give advice to the other panelists but youre not always going to get home runs. Try for singles. It seems that both sides can get something out of an attempt at hitting singles instead of trying to get everything you want all at once and rolling over the opposition. They failed over and over again. Ms. Kiefer i had a conversation with congressman gutierrez as things look bad for the democrats last year on Immigration Reform. He seemed pretty open and pretty flexible to the separate pieces he seemed pretty flexible and pretty open to the separate pieces idea depending on what the pieces were. He expressed a degree of flexibility and pointed to the vision within republicans as a problem. Maybe you would like to address that. Maria elena whether it is a comprehensive bill or a separate bill that amounts to a comprehensive solution, i think that is a tactical question. Thats probably what he was referring to. I want to go back to something else, francine. One of the things that amazes me about washington dc is facts dont matter. What the president has announced whether it was 2012 or the recent executive action are not amnesty. All they are is a deferral of deportation. Its a temporary reprieve from deportation and if they voluntarily come forward and go through a National Security background check and they pay 465, after an individual determination, if they are awarded deferred action, they are eligible for Work Authorization. That is based on the regulations from the 1980s. Thats not anything the president did new and that can be revoked at any moment. We have seen individual daca folks get that revoked and it does not give them additional amnesty benefits. There is no path to citizenship or permanent say. As a lawyer, i think facts matter a lot. They make a huge difference. As far as the way forward, one of the big challenges we have now is that a lot of the president ial candidates are talking about Border Security first. For the last couple of decades in the United States, we have had enforcement first as the only approach but we have not had legalization or the 11 million considered. Until the candidates address the issue about what will happen with the 11 million, will they try to deport all of them . Mitt romney said self deportation and that did not get him far. Any candidate who wants to fund their path to the white house has to address the issue of the 11 million. It will not happen. They will not get the lation vote or the api vote. Ms. Kiefer let me give laura a chance to jump in here. Laura i would echo some of that what maria elena said. The idea that enforcement only has benefits to the status quo and asked and thats not the solution american support. One of the reasons why people talk about these things having to be either sequenced or together is because the parts are interlocking. People want to know what would a future president do with the 11 Million People that are here. They also want to know how would people coming to the country prospectively and how we address this so we are not in the future looking at another Large Population of people without avisa and how do we fix that in the future . They want to know that the borders are being and forced but that is something we have been seeing for the last 20 years. Border enforcement and enforcement only policies are the status quote from they are they are not the solution that americans support. I would say that one of the things i think we need to ask is why deny the benefits we would have if we would get all of these pieces fixed . The moral imperative is clear but there is real economic benefits that would be spread throughout the economy if we were able to get these pieces addressed. Enforcement is going to be what continues. We are denying the country significant economic benefits. Mark i dont like to play word games about amnesty but i will say my piece the fact is, giving legal status of any kind to an illegal immigrant is what we call amnesty. La raza did focus groups for bush which was torpedoed by 9 11 and what they found was that people hated the word amnesty. Their memo was not to use the word. Come up with euphemisms. Path to legalization, normalization every week there was a new euphemism. I lost track of them, but the fact is, the 600,000 people that obama has given amnesty has work permits have work permits, Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, eligible for the earnings tax credit which is welfare through the irs that is amnesty and they will not have it taken away. The only people who have lost their amnesty are the ones who mistakenly got the threeyear renewal instead of the twoyear renewal. Those people are permanently amnestied in the real world. Even though, technically, its temporary. The idea that we have had enforcement first is not true. We have had some enforcement but mostly at the border. The elements that are essential and that broken control people have been advocating for decades are not in place. Mandatory everify these are control congress eight times in the past 20 years is mandated the development of an exit tracking to check out systems for foreign visitors per it eight times of has been mandated and it still does not exist. Amnesty people who are here or amnesty people who are here undertake programs without having a system in place already to make sure we dont have more illegal aliens in the future is surreal. This contention that we have done everything that can reasonably be expected with regard to enforcement and that anything else is special pleading or rationalization president obama made that point that his speech in el paso a few years ago. He was saying we built a wall, do they want moats . Do they want alligators in the moats . It was his jokey way of saying that continuing to insist on enforcement is an excuse for postponing amnesty. We do not have the elements in place that we have been demanding for decades. Until those things are in place and fully operational and proven and overcome the legal challenges, we should not even be talking about what to do about the Illegal Immigrants who are here. That is not even a legitimate topic for discussion until we fix the problem. Its like bailing out the boat before you fill the hole. First, you plug the hole and then you talk about bailing out the boat. Ms. Kiefer randy, yes . Randy the chamber has been accused of supporting the hated Senate Amnesty bill which it wasnt. We dont have to belabor it but amnesty in our view is forgiveness. If you look it up in a law dictionary. Its forgiveness of a wrong and no one is offered forgiveness. There is a stiff fine for that wrong of coming in. Its not for giving the wrong. Its what is the appropriate. Penalty . Many think people think deportation is appropriate. I would argue thats a penalty i would argue that the. Penalty does not fit the crime. Its not realistic because we will not deport them so lets come up with a fix instead of doing nothing. It seems a substantial civil fine and going through other steps before you get a series of probationary steps before you get a status to work and then a green card is appropriate. People will disagree with that. But i dont think most people call that amnesty. At least from the chamber positive point, its not amnesty. With regard to Border Security, it is more complicated than assets of the border and many maybe we do need those and more of them. The senate bill had lots of money in there. There is disagreement on how that money would be spent. It was a lot of money. All past Homeland Security secretaries have said physical Border Security is not enough. It should be combined for National Security purposes. Forget the humanistic argument here such as a controlled temporary worker programs, eliminate the job magnet which draws the Illegal Immigrants here and control temporary worker programs and health National Security and it helps Border Security. Everyone from napolitano to tom ridge to chertoff has said the same thing. You cannot ignore the economic realities. Not to help employ earners, but to would help the nations Border Security. On legalization, it is more difficult area. I dont talk about this at the thanksgiving table anymore. Everyone has strong views, depending where they live. That is the part of shrinking the haystack. There is some logic to providing the legalization process to those people who are here and finding out who they are and those we find out our criminals deport them. Its unfortunate but coming back to aca with the website, it fed into the argument that the administration cannot create a process to check on 11 Million People. They cant even put up a website on health care. That was another perfect storm hurt us last year. Among cantors defeat and the kids at the border issue, among several others. Part of the argument about why we need other parts of Immigration Reform other than more stuff of the border is not to help employers but it really helps National Security and helps Border Security. People who are not big defenders of the employers can say that. Ms. Kiefer not being a big word person, myself, i have appreciated the unpacking of the amnesty word in this discussion. I learned a few things. I want to come back to the way forward again. When you bring Immigration Reform and all its complexities and boil it down, it strikes me that there are two pieces the enforcement aspect and what to do about the undocumented aspect. There has been agreement in the Senate Bipartisan bill that did not go anywhere in the house. There has been agreement on how to handle this so congress is capable of doing this. Then it sort of broke down. One question i would like to ask each one of you is what needs to change in the dynamic in order for this to come back again and be dealt with in a bipartisan way . If you were to identify one thing you feel needs to change to get back on this road that we seemed to be on in 2013 when the Senate Passed this bill, what would that be . Maria elena one way to think about the path forward is to look at california as a blueprint. In 1994, governor wilson at the time had strong antiimmigrant rhetoric, just like we see today at the federal level, and was a supporter of prop 187, and antiimmigrant bill that became law and was struck down for being unconstitutional. Today, california is passing some of the most progressive and inclusive state policies because it understands the demographics require us to really take an approach to not try to exclude people who are part of the community but how do we improve conditions for everyone . In california, the Republican Party has not been able to gain back any positions of power because of that antiimmigrant rhetoric. We are seeing the exact same thing at the federal level. When, lets say if donald trump were to become president or if he were the nominee he would lose so badly. If the Republican Party continues to have an agenda that is antiimmigrant and antiblack and antiwomen and antiworker, they have no path to the white house. A major loss in 2016 which given the rate they are going now, they are picking every community to fight against and to offend. They will lose and they will lose so badly that i think the extreme right wing of the Republican Party will finally be silent and the establishment of the Republican Party will say we need to come up with solutions and Immigration Reform will be one of those. Ms. Kiefer what is the one thing that needs to change . Mark if there is a big loss in the part of the democrats, i will come back in 1. 5 years and we will see what that needs means. The one thing i think that needs to change is the sense that having a republican and democrat supporter of amnesty together make something bipartisan. The problem you see across the board in the politics in this issue is that this is not really a right left issue entirely. It is also an up down issue, an elite versus the public. That the dynamic here. You see it in congress where youve got guys who are almost like fish that dont understand they are wet. They dont they think that john mccain and ted kennedy got together on something so that must cover all the ideological basis. The fact is, they are the same guys. There is a very broad diversity of opinion among the public very different from the elite consensus. A key part of that consensus, that isnt shared by the public, is the third element. You are talking about enforcement and amnesty basically. There is a third part of the senate bill on a third part of the issue which is the level of Legal Immigration. The senate bill would have doubled Legal Immigration from the one million per year to 2 million per year. It would have almost doubled socalled temporary worker admissions which ends up being longterm anyway. If i pick one thing, its the issue of the legal numbers being sort of taken for granted as a kind of gimme to various constituent groups. We will get rid of this category but we will give you extra here. The way they deal with the issue with competing intrests in Legal Immigration is everybody gets more. Rethinking that and thinking about it in a different way Charles Kamasaki is with larasa and he talked about the issue and said maybe his side of the issue needs to rethink this and consider trading legal status for illegals in exchange for cutting future Legal Immigration. That is the kind of thing back that can completely reshuffle the deck on this and maybe yield political results. Ms. Kiefer laura, whats your thought about what could break this logjam in a new presidency and congress . Laura we will continue to see latino voters are paying attention to this issue and are hearing about it in the mainstream news as the debate is being covered. They hear about it on spanishlanguage news every night. Its such a personal issue for latino voters. They know someone who has gone through the immigrant experience and i know someone who was on documented. Who is undocumented. Thats what they want to see addressed. As the number of voters increase in the trap of latino voters continues to grow, i think thats what will make the difference. Ms. Kiefer you and maria elena say the election outcome will be a game changer. Maria elena they will determine the changes. Elected officials will have to realize that the country has changed and is changing. Ms. Kiefer randy, any thoughts about one thing that might need to change in your view to bring this issue home . Randy i have a little different perspective. I have seen enough internal republican and analysis on the latino vote, republicans could whether a storm and take the white house this time around even if their message was perceived as antilatino. Maybe the next election, not likely. There is the argument. The house still has to pass a bill and the senate has to pass a bill. You still have to deal with the house. As long as the speaker sticks h to the hastert rule, its a majority of the republicans. Given my visits on the hill, what i get back my staff, its not the amnesty issue compelling opposition to doing things so much as this pervasive view that immigrants are taking jobs away from americans that they here in town halls. We can give these guys economic studies that say the opposite and arguments but economists are like lawyers, no one believes them its hard to explain. I think weve got to do a better job of getting data out there and doing a better job of spreading the word that immigration is good for america and that is the message. There is a lot of data behind that that state and local cities acknowledge. They are reaching out to immigrants to come to cities tocause they see them as keys urban revitalization. That goes against people who say immigrants are on welfare rolls. We have to do a better message of getting the word out. I told the staff that we are going on the right wing talk radio shows to get the message out. When you talk about half the republican caucus, thats what i hear. I dont care whos in the white house, you still have to get the speaker behind it. You got to overcome that and i think thats what got to change. I think we have room for one more question among ourselves before we go to the q a and i ant to ask you about legal visas and r7b1 b hightech workers in the kind of thing you said the price is not being talked about very much. Can you elaborate on that . Im talking about overall numbers. The visas are a part of it and they are a temporary visas for technical workers. There almost all from industry and almost all work in the computer industry and are almost all white color. Its a contract worker program. They are indentured servants but there are all kinds of other things like Legal Immigration which is permanent which is running at one million per year. There seems to be an increasing consensus that our Legal Immigration flow is skewed toward relatives and needs to be skewed more to the individual skills of the immigrants. Marco rubio talks about that and bush talks about that but they are talking about it in the context of increasing immigration as opposed to what i think is clearly decreased immigration. The public approval for increases in immigration is mutual. The practices of planned parenthood are as popular as increasing immigration but every bill that comes forward that the establishment on both parties pushes, calls for increased immigration. That seems to be one of the key questions, not just enforcement, not just legalization for the Illegal Immigrants but what about tomorrow possibly legals. We need to be clear and you were reflecting this view is that the way you deal with ilLegal Immigration and pressures in the future is by letting in everybody wants to come here legally and that way there is no ilLegal Immigration. If everybody wants to come you let in, then who is going to sneak in . Maybe just a handful of bad guys. Thats an approach you can take which is plausible. Is that good for American Workers . S it good for American Workers and american taxpayers . Randy said cities are trying to entice more immigrants. It debunks the idea that theyre ll on welfare. Welfare and work go together. Almost everybody whether they are immigrant or whoever is on welfare has a job. What drives welfare rates is the level of education of the people who are coming in and therefore their incomes. We have an immigration system that lets them the low skilled workers and cannot earn a lot of money. If youre a high school dropout, you can work three jobs and still cannot support your family without the taxpayers giving you stuff. That is the question. Its not how do we keep foreigners off of welfare. Why are we importing more people . Inevitably, they will end up using taxpayerfunded government services. Thats something nobody wants to engage. I disagree with the characterization of the h1b program but with regard to low skilled workers, very few green cards go to workers at all, its only 6 . Its based on employment. Ut they all have jobs. We need to move into the audience participation part. I will call on you and if you can state your name and organization and wait for someone to bring you a microphone we will begin ight here with the laptop. Thanks very much, last summer, Congress Overwhelmingly reauthorized the workforce innovation and opportunity act. One in six workers in the u. S. Is an immigrant and most of them are not undocumented. How do we bring immigration into the conversation about what the skills of the American Workforce needs to look like and what mployers need . My question is first to randy and others on the panel. We have a whole center at the chamber for workforce preparation. Its trying to improve the influence on the local School System. Thats driven by states. There are department of labor and education programs. We support core standards. Weve got to do more to improve the job training and skills of American Workers. Anytime i have testified, we have always had that slice of the pie. We view immigration as filling some of the gaps in which American Workers are not feeling hose gaps. Are not filling those gaps in those areas. It depends geographically where the American Workers are meme not line up all the time with that particular job. Anytime you talk about immigration, youve got to talk about the other slice of the pie. Some people argue that immigration can lead to those American Workers who are at the bottom being ignored because immigrants have told the gap. That does not mean there could be a complementary activity of both angles. Politically speaking, they dont have to be ignored. We have workforce Human Capital problems in many of our society. There is no question about that. What high levels of immigration does is eliminate the incentive for american business, the most important and powerful lobbying element in our society, to exert the pressure on our institutions whether its schools are others to do something about these single capital deficits. Ts a sort of a shortcut to put it crudely lets take these American Kids are dont know how to work and dont drop on time and are chewing gum while they try to check out people of the store lets push them aside. They can get welfare and we can import better people from outside. Morally, its an abomination. Secondly, it it does not work in the long run. The children of immigrants are americans and theyve got all the same social problems that the rest of us do. And shove them asize import another group . Its not sustainable. Only by creating the conditions where we fix our own problems are we ever going to overcome some of these hurdles that really exists that employers have. Immigration is a kind of crutch that enables us to avoid grappling with these larger social problems. Thank you for the question. Frankly, we have major problems in the United States with unemployment and underemployment. There has been a disinvestment in poor communities especially ones of color. There is a need for investment in the School System and our Public Schools and make sure todays children are in stem classes. What are we doing to make sure we have a next generation that is prepared to take those classes . They are being fulfilled primarily with temper guest workers. The incentive that employers have now to recruit and hire undocumented workers often this is a small set of them especially in the low Wage Industries is to exploit a lot workers because they can get of those away with that because there are not strong labor Law Enforcement policies. If youre looking at enforcement as a solution, theres a way to get at that would labor Law Enforcement but not necessarily more border or interior enforcement. You were next. Then well come to you. On the aisle. You have mentioned the ethical concerns of family eparation. I am wondering if you are aware of what percentage of people who are in this country legally with an american citizen and child have legal barriers from their home country, bringing their children back with them rather than separating . If they should be deported and do you think its appropriate for a person who has been imported maybe because they have been they have finished a just sentence and have been deported and wouldnt be eligible for an amnesty because they usually are not saying that amnesty people with felony convictions would you say its upon them to bring back the child with them . Should they be leaving them . I dont know a percentage. 85 of immigrant families today re what we call mixed out of status families which means there is a u. S. Citizen and one on documented immigrant in the family unit. We are talking about large percentages of people. Many people who are deported take their children back to their home country. I dont know of their other legal barriers and other countries to do that for the mpact is that we have u. S. Citizen children who sometimes the father or mother might say they will stay of the United States with me because i want them to have a quality education. Or i want them to remain united with the rest of the family members and then it is the father or mother gets deported. Often an entire family gets uprooted and leaves. That is not the solution either. There seems to be a static number of 11 million undocumented immigrants. When you look at the statistics and bringing it back to Border Security, according to customs nd border protection, fiscal june 2015 from october 1 to 30, more than 99,000 other than mexicans, many of them from central america, have been apprehended in that time. That is a huge number and i wonder if you would comment on how that reflects on the Border Security issue. We have done some research on this. Many people on the skeptical side dont believe the 11 million to 12 million number. It is not really 11 million. Its between 11 million and 12 million. Its almost certainly 13 but its not 20 or 30. If it is, you would see it in the birth and death records. There is no question that it is Something Like 11 or 12, maybe even 13 million. There has been ongoing ilLegal Immigration to the United States. One estimate is since the obama inauguration, 2. 5 million of todays illegal aliens arrived since obama took office. What has happened is there has been outflow from the illegal population. Some people go home because of the bad economy. Some people have gotten amnesty basically so they are out of the of the illegal population. The illegal population is always churning. If obama is not enforcing the law, there would be 2000 less than there were. We are releasing a report tomorrow that looks at the recent numbers literally from this year and last year and it ooks like the trend is reversing in the number of Illegal Immigrants which is going back up. I dont really care what the numbers are because of 11 million is a big in a population of illegal aliens. Its a plausible number and not something people pulled out of the air. Its an educated guess but its a well educated guess. Playing around with 20 is missing the point. What do we do to make sure we dont have another 11 million illegal aliens . Hats the key issue. Until we address that, it doesnt matter whether its 11 or 12 or 13 million. What matters is how we stop the next 11 or 12 or 13 million . The flow has shifted so that mexicans are a smaller share of the overall of the new Illegal Immigrants and Central Americans and asians are a larger share. That is sort of the shift in dynamics. That happens all the time. Most of todays Illegal Immigrants, each year new ones settle in the United States, the ajority of them now are visa overstayers. Even among them, is the largest single country. But there is also much more diverse. What youre talking about is there is a different spread of ilLegal Immigration. If you go back to the debate again. Marco rubio brought up this point. I was wondering what difference that makes to the immigration debate overall. Talking about people from mexico or people from central america. I think it matters particularly from the per spebt objective evenive of what is a olution . People are not coming over as they have in the past. It is a consequence of our 1996 immigration laws. We have deported a larger number of individuals convicted of Gang Activity in the u. S. Were sent back to central america. The violence there has skyrocketed. Were now seeing people fleing that violence. We have people talk about comprehensive Immigration Reform. Frankly there is nothing comprehensive unless youre looking at farm policy and economic investments. Want to address future flows, we have to look at what is the kind of aid being invested in sending countries to try to diminish that. People dont want to migrate. People in other parts of the country, latin america, are on the movement there is a right to remain in your home country but people are being pushed out because of economic reasons. It would be 4,000 pages long instead of 2,000 pages long. Way in the back was a gentle man. I represented immigrant per ers who earn 1 to 5 hour and they are afraid to speak at for their rights because of the fear that that will lead to incarceration and deportation. It sounds from the panel that there is a consensus were not going to legalize or double migration or anything like that and we are not going to take a big, bold federal action through an act of congress in the next 12 months. If the question is, what can be done now . Its clear that what can be done now is protecting the civil and labor rights of legal and undocumented immigrants so that their standards of the workplace o up and so that the standards of American Workers who work alongside them. I would like to hear from the representative of the chamber and the intermittent time while you have a respite and not running up to congress to pass Immigration Reform or be against it. Whatever could we see some action from you to get your high road employers to come out in favor of basic Worker Protections for immigrant workers . That helps them and gets rid of the problem that it creates for them. I would love to hear specific policy initiatives now that can raise immigrant worker standards ike the power act. Mark, we talked during the hershey strikes in pennsylvania. And i am clear for what you are against. It is harder to tell what you are for. The one million guestworkers in the country, about one million work alongside 24 million u. S. Workers. The 11 million work along side 150 million u. S. Workers. What could you do to help immigrant worker standards rise so we are released from the race to the bottom . Love to hear thoughts from the panel. Lets start with randy. A longterm solution to i want to make sure there is the n late ining of conflating of the undocumented workers and it sounds to me that part of your work is representing people who are legally here in guestworker programs. The legal guestworkers on visas very often are told by their employers or just assume that upon termination, they will be deported. We have rescued workers from bus stops for they are being put forcibly on buses back to mexico. With regard to legalization, thats the issue because of if they are undocumented, they are going to be in the position to be deported. Employment laws apply to all these workers whether they are undocumented or not. I have had many arguments over his. Here was a case that came down that said you had the protections but you could not get your back pay. We supported reversing hoffman plastics as part of senate negotiations. We have always put into negotiations making a crystalclear what is already in existence that these people have these rights get private counsel, the same rights as American Workers. If they are not being paid the minimum wage, go to the department of labor. Tom perez who are going after my mine employers for more frivolous things where we have examples of independent contractors not paying the minimum wage. Go file a complaint. There are times when thats not easy to do. Thats true about our american jurisprudence generally. How hard is it to exercise your rights . One of the risks, anybody who goes through discrimination has to deal with that. If the laws apply, we have robust enforcement agencies. If you want to google Certain Companies under the jvisa program, they have had to pay huge fines because certain employees employers have had to pay. You can google this. The Washington Post runs these articles all the time. Also, if youre found to be in violation of the rules of these guestworker programs, you can be disbarred. There are examples if you look on the department of labor website, there have companies that have been debarred. There are bad actors in any kind of program and we are a big country, 185 million workers. People have to exercise their rights. As you know, there are mechanic niches to do that. As far as the undocumented, there is certain protections when you file a complaint from deportation while that is being processed. That was part of the senate egotiations as well. In this area, there is a lot that can be done administratively. It is fortunate that the administration is putting together a task force that includes a lot of parts of the administration that normally talk to each other. The department of labor folks and eeoc folks are talking in and there are things a they could be doing that dont require legislation. Having to go through. One of those things would be for workers to be able to come forward and apply for deferred action when they are in terrible cases like the ones you see. There are ways we hope recommendations will help them make their way to the administration can be enacted before the end of this administration. This is probably something that would be good to work on together. I think that high road employers are supportive of these things. Those employers that are violating the law are undermining employers that are playing by the rules. Along those lines, one of the parts of the executive action of the president included this interagency working group. While the daca is blocked in the courts, we would urge the administration that they do everything they can to use existing regulations for individuals for workers in a labor dispute or are being exploited to come forward and get deferred action and get Work Authorization and be able to pursue their legal claims. Legislatively, thats not an option now. You referred to the power act which is part of the senate bill would give people a uvisa. If they are a victim of labor violations on a civil rather than just crimes. I think we are out of time. I would suggest that maybe you and the questioner chat afterwards. Let me say one thing guestworker programs are inherently exploited. They cannot be fixed and should be abolished altogether. You can do all the enforcement you want but it doesnt matter. Some guest workers, from a study a few years ago, looked forward to becoming illegal aliens because they would be able to earn more and have more rights basically in the workforce. Than they did as guest workers. The solution is get rid of guestworker programs. They have the same rights as American Workers do under labor laws. We will wrap it up now. Thanks to the Bipartisan Policy Center for hosting this. Hanks everyone for coming. Thank you, francine. Thank you for the great questions. The live stream of this panel will be archived on her website. You can go back and revisit anything anyone said and it will be available there. Check out our website at bipartisan policy. Org. Hank you all for coming. Cspan is in des moines for the iowa state fair and road to the white house coverage of president ial candidates. Our live coverage is on cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org as the accounts walk the fairgrounds. Here is the schedule. Thursday morning, starting at 11 30, republican Mike Huckabee followed by democrats jim webb and Martin Omalley. Then friday, republican jeb bush. Noon saturday, Rick Santorum at noon. Followed by democrats lincoln hafee and then bernie sanders. Cspans campaign 2016 taking you on the road to the white house. The rev represent John Richard Bryant says the u. S. Has a love affair with guns and the issue of gun violence needs to reverend bryants remarks came as he spoke about race in america. A gunman killed nine people at an a. M. E. Church in South Carolina in june. This is an hour. It has been almost two months since the mass shooting in charleston, South Carolina. Nine worshipers including the pastor were killed during a weekly bible study inside the historic mother, ame church. Quickly after the tragedy, Bishop Bryant called the nation to prayer. And barely 24 hours later, there was a vigil in a packed and sweltering moyers brown ame church blocks away from where the shooting occurred. That day, reverend bryant invoked the africanamerican legacy of resilience. He said that the shooting suspect, dylan roof had picked the wrong place and the wrong Bishop Bryant then discussed the problem of gun violence. The days that followed showed a massive outpouring of some of the and a Global Dialogue on forgiveness, faith, race, and guns. Since those early days after charleston, much has happened. The Confederate Flag was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina state capital and from other public places. The nations continuing struggle with Racial Division has continued to play out in the streets of orbison, missouri