Discrimination is still in issue. You can read the full results at cspan. Org. Up next, the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and immigration cuccinelli spoke to reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science monitor. Good morning, i am linda feldman. Actingst today is ken, director of the u. S. Bureau and Immigration Services. This is his first appearance at a monitor breakfasts. Welcome. Now a bit of background. He was born in edison, new jersey and grew up in virginia where he graduated fromuva and earned a law degree from george mason university. In 2002, he won a special election to this eight senate from fairfax county. In 2009 he was a let it attorney general for the commonwealth of virginia. Mr. Cuccinellis time as attorney general and him a reputation as a staunch conservative, which he parlayed for a bid for the governorship. He has remained in politics serving as head of the Senate Conservative fund super pac, and as an advisor to ted cruz. In june, President Trump appointed mr. Cuccinelli to his current position as acting director of uscif, which brings us back to todays breakfast. Now for the ground rules, we are on record here. Blogging, tweeting or filing at any time while the breakfast is underway. When we end at 10 00, there is no embargo. We will email pictures from this breakfast. It will be as soon as the breakfast ends. Ask a question, send me a signal and i will call on as many as you as time permits. If you would like to make brief opening remarks, the floor is yours. Thank you for the invitation. If i am not wild enough, it is not normally a problem for me, but let me know and i will speak louder. I appreciate the chance to be with you. I do not have a ton to say. I will leave it to your question. Current rolen my for a little over four months. By july i was the senior Immigration Agency head. When mark morgan moved over from stopped andiority started over. As ave worked together good team within the department of Homeland Security. We face rather unique challenges, particularly associated with the southern border. That is not all of our challenges, but it does draw resources. Of theomething of a sign inaction of congress in addressing some things, including some things that have been left over from the Obama Administration whether Trump Administration has the same position as the Obama Administration, yet, congress will not act on those. That leaves us with whatever executive authority we have to operate with. We have been doing that as aggressively as we can. Including the International Stage where the president talked diplomacy at the beginning of 2019. What ire dividends for think is the best partnership with mexico and the northern triangle countries that we have can for as long as i remember on immigration issues. That continues to develop. The secretary has been down there quite a bit, and has been very aggressive in moving those relationships forward, and turning them into his diplomatic and operational relationships. That is the direction we are moving. I will leave it with that. Linda, just let you go to questions. Linda thank you. Expecting thisy question. Any updates on the dhs job . The job of secretary . Mr. Cuccinelli i have no updates on that. Decide. Up to you all to linda when was the last time he spoke with President Trump . Timing of myi the conversations with the president i keep to myself. Whether i have are have not spoken to him on any particular issue, its not something i feel comfortable. , what i wouldhim call regularly. I want to ask you a broad question about Legal Immigration and the economy. Through overriding of restrictions, the Trump Administration has made moves that would push Legal Immigration to the United States. You have the october 7 rule, i guess it was a proclamation for health care being granted. You have the lower refugee admissions task. The new rules around public charge. That was supposed to go into effect. There are lots of bluecollar jobs in the country going unfilled. These, home health aides, are jobs that immigrants could take and do take. Why reduce ilLegal Immigration and take potential workers out of the labor force . Mr. Cuccinelli lets get the whole picture. They deal with Legal Immigration. The other two Legal Immigrations are ice and cvp, which does trade customs and border protection. This last fiscal year we naturalized more citizens in the entire last decade. That, under this president , we naturalized over three quarters of a melian. This year its 800 and some odd thousand. Last year was about three quarters of a million. Which was higher than the five years before that. Slowdown onen no the Legal Immigration side per se. The president has made no secret of the fact that he believes the American Immigration system, first and foremost, is set up to work for america. That means economically and for the people here. To do that we put out invitations and offerings from around the world. Along the lines that Congress Puts in the wall. The agencies make adjustments to those within the boundaries of the law. Space ise employment the regulation change that took affect before i came into the administration. Oft has upped the percentage master degree candidates. Not candidates, but holders who are coming in via that program and need that as a proxy for more economic value from that program. A lot of pressure in various sectors to utilize more immigrant labor for employment, whether it is hightech or lowtech. You mentioned bluecollar jobs being in the middle of that. I would say that the longterm on then for that is not horizon until the Immigration Reform that the president has and weabout passes, restructure our immigration system to prioritize exactly what you are describing as the employment side of immigration. We are right now, as a country, our immigration system and the are both swamped by family immigrations. Quite the reverse, but nearly the reverse of what most of our allies around the world have productively used. The australians in particular are happy to talk to you about what they did in the 1990s and how it has benefited their economy and how they have filled those spots. There is only so much we are going to do by regulation and rule without congresss participation. Congressbody expects to do anything anytime soon, so it is a matter of executive privilege . Mr. Cuccinelli just because Congress Wont act does not we do what we can do, consistent with the president s policies, and he has also made clear it is important to him to protect ordinary American Workers and to not displace them, and is there are some perfect target point . Maybe there is, but we never are going to be able to know it so which side do you err on . He has repeatedly emphasized how important it is to protect u. S. Workers. Now, he has been clear with me as well, and you all have heard him say it, he wants to see Economic Growth and dynamism and that means, you know, growing companies needing to fill slots, so we are just in a constant battle to balance those things. We are working very hard to make some improvements that we think are within reach. Linda so, there is more to come. Mr. Cuccinelli there is more to come, yes. Linda can you give us on a hints on what you are looking at . Mr. Cuccinelli obviously, you have heard the president talk about the reform legislation overall that he is interested in, but i am also hearing about conversations about meaningful bills with coalitions already in place on capitol hill in subject areas that the administration will be interested in working with hill members on. So, you know, hoping to see some bipartisan movement, because none of this passes the law on either side of the aisle. There will have to be some agreement, and that is the history of immigration. You mentioned public charge not going into effect. It is worth looking at that law which was passed in 1986 on a wildly bipartisan basis. It was so uncontroversial, it went through the senate, if i remember correctly, on a voice vote of bill clinton signed it and none of those administrations had put the rules in place for how to implement the public charge piece of it, which we are working to do and working through the courts to make happen. That was a very bipartisan undertaking. That was the common history, politically, of immigration, i think, until a few years ago. It has become a lot more politicized. Linda all right, john from newsmax, to your right. As a followup to that, and my other question. Number one, can you give any examples of where the administration has reached out to democrats on specific immigration legislation . My second question is has there been any discussion within your office of naturalizing citizens of the territories becoming american citizens, say, from puerto rico . Mr. Cuccinelli we have had not had any discussions on that subject, so that is your second question. Tell me the first question again . Can you be specific about any legislation . Mr. Cuccinelli right. The white house takes par on legislative issues, i certainly hope wants the problem in our area, and they all touch uscis in one way or another. So, i am involved in that, but i dont want to get out ahead of the white house. I know that they have had discussions with folks on both sides of the aisle, but the specifics of who they have talked to, i dont know, john. I just know they have had those discussions and they have taken some feedback and i have seen adjustments made. I dont know if the connection between particular conversations and adjustments but i anticipate being made, so i cant really make those connections because im not involved in those conversations directly. Linda all right, steve from the washington times. Have you patched things up with Mitch Mcconnell . What is the current relationship there with the majority leader in the senate who made those comments, i am sure you saw. And then birthright citizenship, the president seems intent on doing this. Is there any action on that, and you as a former attorney general, what is your position on the executives ability to take action on that . Mr. Cuccinelli so, other than being in a couple of meetings with the Senate Majority leader, there has not been a lot of interaction there. If you look back at his comments, not surprisingly, given that i lead the Senate Conservatives hardened, not one of his favorite organizations, which may be the understatement of the breakfast so far, but his concerns were political. I dont know how he would answer, but i think that objective observer would note but i have not engaged in any of that political realm since i have taken this role. When i take a job, i take it with the intent of doing it 110 , and when i saw, i helped Freedom Works as well as fighting regulations. I did that work with pedal to the metal, and when i left those roles and took on my current one, i left those roles and i have done the job i am in now doing the best i can, to the 110 level and havent been engaged in any of the kind of political pugilism that goes on that spf advances in the political arena, in campaigns primarily. So, i dont know whether his view was changed, but certainly what i have been doing now is months removed from those comments you are referencing. Hopefully, and i know different people have different opinions on my body of work, my current role, but the work i am doing is what i ask to be judged on. And i think in terms of pursuing the president s agenda, we have been doing a good job at uscis, and so, that is what i would ask those folks to be judging me on. And i met with some of them yesterday, expect to talk to more of them today, but not the Senate Majority leader. Senators you met with . Mr. Cuccinelli yes. Oh, i have not in my capacity looked at what executive authority to move on that without congress, so i do not know the answer to your question other than to acknowledge that it is a good question. But, have not really reviewed it any to give you a substantive answer. Linda wouldnt we need to amend the constitution to change that . Mr. Cuccinelli no, i dont think so. The question that steve is getting at is a question of can Congress Legislate in the area i should say, is it required, if youre going to act in that area versus can Congress Take steps on its own . I dont know the difference between i dont know the answer to that question. I do know the answer to your question and i do not at least have a belief in it in that. I do not believe you need an amendment to the constitution. I think the question is, do you actionrrection o congressional or can the executive act on their own . Linda ok, anita kumar from politico. A couple of things at the top about legislation. I could not quite hear what you were saying regarding that. I am wondering what happened to, for the lack of a better term, Jared Kushners proposal on meritbased immigration . We keep hearing every couple of weeks it is going to come out. I have not seen the language. Do you support that . Has that gone away now . Really quick since you mentioned the campaigning. Are you going to campaign for President Trump . Mr. Cuccinelli i cant. On volunteer time, you can. Mr. Cuccinelli well, i am caesars wife on the stuff, so my understanding of dhs is that we are more hatch than other people. I am new, as you know, to the federal government. It was a different world in virginia, and i approach all that extremely cautiously. My understanding is that i cannot do that. And to your earlier question, that was our second question, tell me your first again. Jared kushners meritbased plan. Mr. Cuccinelli so, i have been involved in the discussions as theyve put that together. I cannot speak to timing, but to your question about whether i support what theyre doing there, i very much to do. And im looking forward to seeing that final product come out. I think it is easy and common in the policy arena for people to say what they are against. But, it is important to stake out what you are for and the president is determined to do that. He has charged us all with helping, you know, jared you know is on point to do that. That is work we have spent time on in our agency and i look forward to that. What is the delay though . Mr. Cuccinelli i really dont have an answer to that. I dont know the answer. Linda Rafael Bernal from the hill. Going back to the politics, a lot of you are in acting roles, well, from the secretary downwards. From the inside, how much does that hurt your potential for action, to be able to enforce President Trumps policies . And you want to answer that when and we will get to the second one . Mr. Cuccinelli sure. I dont think it hurts at all, really. The practical effect, and ive been asked variation of this question before, and what matters in the working arena is the work and that sounds simple. But, whether i am in an acting capacity or not does not really affect that. The practical effect, not to ignore any of it, i gave you my joke with mark morgan and matt almonds. There is sort of a time in Service Element that there is a benefit to being in a role or in a department longer. Kevin mcaleenan brought years and years of experience to the acting secretary role, and by way of example, it is not that there are not other benefits. Me coming from the outside, i think i have changed how uscis operates and some of the culture there pretty quickly. That is a benefit. But, you know, there are tradeoffs to both, but in terms of getting work done, i have not experienced a problem either being an acting or working with fellow acting directors or commissioners. There is technically a rule about senate approval, i think it is the tsa administrator. This entire table can correct me if i am wrong. Doesnt that limit the political side of you know, naming the next secretary, when you have the limitations of Senate Republicans who have expressed for instance, they havent supported your candidacy so far. How do you pick who is next . Mr. Cuccinelli well, first, on my interaction with the senators, i have not had a problem interacting with any of them, in terms of getting work done. And with respect to the i will call them federal employee laws governing who can do what. Honestly, i have resisted diving down into that and using up valuable brain Storage Space on things like that, and from my perspective, i leave that to the white house to work out and rely on them to do that. I really dont have not looked at it, and i am the farthest thing from a federal Employment Law expert. I do management, i know regulatory law. I can go through a lot of things in a lot of detail, but the rules surrounding the kind of succession you are describing are not one of those things i can dive into. Linda all right. Camille of cq roll call. Hi, thank you so much for coming here. Mr. Cuccinelli sure. So, we have a few reports about the fact that uscis is can training cbp officers to conduct asylum interviews. Can you talk a little bit more about the training involved, about signaling but they are going down. How are we seeing the officers being trained . Mr. Cuccinelli first off, all we have trained, i want to say 60 up to this point, and three classes, there might be a fourth in process, i dont remember exactly. And as a former attorney general, i have a lot of Law Enforcement interaction, so let me give you just a comparison that i found surprising. So, it is not uncommon for a Law Enforcement officer to do line training. For instance, Mental Health training, they can spend a week doing that. Active shooter training, they can spend three days doing that, meaning they are pulled off the line to do these kinds of trainings. The classroom and practical part of our training for Border Patrol agents is three weeks. For every single Border Patrol agent i have talked to, and ive talked to a number of them, it is far and away the longest, most thorough in Service Training my term, not theirs of their entire career and they are deployed both in person by the Border Patrol and by phone, because credible interviews and some other things can be done by phone, can be done remotely. And, i do expect that to continue. It is really more up to the Border Patrol. We are perfectly willing to continue to do the trainings and the practicum, when i say practicum, i mean part of it is a week where they are doing interviews with oversight and so forth, hands on. And of course, they are trained in making legal decisions already as Law Enforcement officials, particularly in the roles theyre in at cbp, so its not like a new subject area to them. It is just a new element of it. And, i do expect to see more of this cross training. I would look backwards for part of my answer, all the way back to when ins was one agency. I think that breaking ins up into three agencies, and there are of course some other shifts that happened, trade being one example, was a mistake. And i say that just bureaucratically, structurally as a manager. We work intimately with ice and cbp, and agencies, as agencies make their own decisions, so to some extent, we grow apart over time, or we can, and that creates communication and operational challenges. The kind of cross training that you and i are talking about would have been thought nothing of under ins, but now we are two different agencies so it looks at least different. And, it is from the last 15 years. And, we are trying to build those kinds of connections back up again at an i. T. Level and at an operational level. This is one very important piece of that, and it has been to my mind very successful. Morgan would say it has been very successful. I think he probably would, but from our perspective, it has been a successful partnership. Quick followup. When you say oversight, is there supervising cpb agents while the conduct these interviews . Mr. Cuccinelli for their initial interviews, yes, and, you know, it is not practice, they are real, but it is done with close oversight. And not surprisingly, we borrowed from the training we use for our own on border asylum officers and tailored it to the Border Patrol agent situation. So, once they leave that three to five weeks, two weeks of reading, three weeks of classroom environment, they operate like anyone else in our agency, doing credible fear interviews, for instance, but those are always under supervisory oversight. I dont mean somebody else on the phone with them, but the case is reviewed, typically. Linda all right, at the end of the table. I dont your name, sorry. Oh, of course. San francisco. I have two questions. I wanted to follow up on that and then switch to another subject, but you mention that in your view, the concern is because you are two separate agencies, that the criticism is actually that the asylum interview is not designed to be an adversarial interview, that Law Enforcement officers have a role of apprehension and asylum officers are trained for a completely different purpose, which is taking people who may be traumatized from what is happening in their home countries, putting them in a situation where they are going to be at ease, and the concern is not that you have two different agencies working on the same thing, but rather that you have a completely illsuited role being switched. So i wonder if you could respond to that criticism instead of it being a bureaucratic issue. Mr. Cuccinelli we expect them to perform, and they know this, they are told this, in the same manner as an asylum officer when they are undertaking this role, and an awful lot of this is done remotely by phone. And so, the other participant, they know the name, they hear the voice, but they do not have any idea for most of these that they are even dealing with a Law Enforcement officer. So, it almost cant come into play for most of these situations. But, they are not, they are not let me put it in the affirmative. In this role, they are stepping in in the same way and are expected to as asylum officers would do credible fear interviews and performing the function in the same way. So, i understand and appreciate the concerns, but we think the training they are getting is very thorough and their performance of their role has been done on a very professional manner, so we really dont have any complaints. Of course, supervisors give them suggestions, just like a supervisor would for any person for whom theyre responsible, in terms of their case work, to help them improve and do a better job. But, that is not unique to the Border Patrol agents participating. Supervisory asylum officers also do that for asylum officers, so dont think that is a problem in practical impact. I understand that people may have a concern, but in the real world, we do not see him playing out. Switching to another topic. As im sure you are aware, many of us watch your twitter feed, which is different than many government officials, lets say. But, one of the things that you see there is you engage a lot on i. C. E. s mission. Uscis, it had been more of a visa granting agency as opposed to necessarily an enforcement agency, and really saw itself that way. Whereas, under this administration, starting with your predecessor and now under you, it seems to be there is a much heavier focus on rooting out fraud, but also carrying out the enforcement from cbp and i. C. E. Into uscis. So, i was just hoping you could talk a little bit about your thinking on why you are so engaged with the other missions and the redirection. Mr. Cuccinelli a good question. A couple of points about it. First of all, my predecessor really focused, i will say at the vision level, on the question of who is the customer . We are not a dmv just issuing something to someone who comes to the window. We are first constituency of service, the American People, not actually most of the immigrants coming. We serve the American People by conducting the immigration business fairly, efficiently, etc. , and doing all those things as well as we can. A focus for me has been that we are first a vetting agency before we are a benefits agency and that is a cultural question within the agency. Im a strong believer, as a manager, in the importance of corporate culture. We have about 19,000 people at any given time at uscis. We are authorized for i would say over 20,000, and so, im never going to meet all those people, right . Even in the Attorney Generals Office of 450 people, maybe i met all of them by the time i was done there, but it is a slowgoing process. And so, how do you structurally manage an organization and a lign the culture with the mission . Those are things that is why francis asked the customer question, its why i emphasize the vetting piece that i do. I noted to you, you know, the 10year high of the citizenship grants, which beat last year which was three quarters of one million, which is better than the five years before that. There are things that we are doing quicker, faster, and we are adjusting. The visa grants are down. Mr. Cuccinelli some of their em are down, some of them are up. I grant you that a lot of our resources are being drawn away from traditional visas. The way we operate, it is worth noting, is more like a business than most federal agencies. We are at 96plus percent fee funded. We could carry money over yeartoyear like a business. But, the result of that is we are not in the appropriations game. We dont just go to congress and say give us x more money so we can do more of this or that. Weve got to operate within our boundaries and people dont pay for asylum and refugee and credible fear and reasonable fear all of that is free. And so, to them which means that the fees coming from all the other Immigration Services cover that cost, which is supposed to be that way, theres not anything new. Congress set us up that way a long time ago. But, what it does mean is that when we have a pull on our resources like we have with the southern border crisis, it does inhibit our ability to do other things. For instance, we are in a hiring surge right now. We are in a hiring surge in the asylum portion of the agency. Thats the only place where we are on a hiring surge, because we have a 340,000plus cases backlog there, and we are determined to try to get at that. But until the numbers, until we get the numbers coming across our border to report, we are completing more cases than we are getting each year which has not been the case for a number of years now, we will not be able to knock that number down. We will not be able to get that backlog, true backlog where over half the caseload is over two years old. That is something that im very determined to try to attack. But until we can see these numbers keep going down at the border, were going to have a hard time not in the overall number down. And that affects a lot of the other things that we do. I believe ive seen some tweets from you on our volunteer force. The dhs has asked components to help contribute people to deal with the work rush at the border. We have done that. Uscis has been very generous about that, it has been on a volunteer basis. We are still doing that to a limited extent. When we crossed the fiscal year, some of that changed and dropped. That is the kind of focus that we have to have as an organization. We are part of the department of Homeland Security. It is not just the immigration component. The coast guard has been fantastic in providing medical support. The tsa has sent a lot of people as volunteers, and we are part of that, and it does draw us away from our other tasks. I dont deny that. We are trying to modernize. It feels, i have to say it, a little silly in 2019 to be talking about finally going to Electronic Filing for everything in terms of opportunities, but that is what we are in the midst of. Im hoping that we will have all our forms capable of Electronic Filing by early calendar year 2021. The internal target is still the end of 2020, but i am a pessimist or a realist depending on how you want to look at that and i think that is probably going to slip a little bit. As we get some of those pieces in place, and then integrate them with the rest of our systems, we are going to be able to speed things up. We are literally still a paperbased agency, overwhelmingly. You are all sitting here pecking away on your laptop, you are not sitting here with typewriters, you know . It is hard to imagine an agency that still has to call out to missouri and say, hey, send me this file and it comes in the mail, but that is how we are operating on the overwhelming proportion of our workload. And in my own mind, i think, in terms of desperately trying to move away from that, because we are going to become a better, more efficient agency, eight, were going to be able to do better analysis and so will you. There will be better Information Available to just look at the work that has been done and consider the policy implications and all of those kinds of things that frankly are an overwhelming task when you are a paperbased agency. Linda sorry mr. Cuccinelli yes, i just view, i will comment briefly. As inc. As bein view us orporated mark morgan said in a meeting, notice the difference. Now, you are at this table knows the difference but ordinary americans cannot name the eighth component agencies of the department of Homeland Security and they dont necessarily know how we operate and so, well, some people have asked, here you are talking about i. C. E. Stuff. It is because ordinary americans do not know, nor do they care about the difference. They care about what is being done, what is not being done, why. Is it being done well . Is it being done fairly . All those kinds of questions. And, we try to address that at the meta level in some of those communications, including with a little fun through twitter. Linda so, we have a lot of people who have questions. 20 minutes to go, so one question each. And im sorry, your name is claire hanson. U. S. News. I want to ask you about the cooperative asylum agreements that the u. S. Has signed with northern triangle countries these last couple of months. Are you able to give us more details about those, specifically the more recent one signed with el salvador and honduras, and others going to be able to use to send people back to this country is . Can you give us the status on those agreements . Mr. Cuccinelli i dont know that i can give you any more details on the agreement themselves. I can talk to you about the operational efforts being made in cooperation with those countries, which are going on continuously, and have been very positive from a diplomatic standpoint. And we are not only bringing our own expertise to the table, but we have engaged unhcr in this effort, and their expertise in doing this all around the world, building capacity for asylum and refugee work, as their name suggests, and they are deeply involved in it as well. Assessments are being made of the capacity of each of the governments to carry their responsibilities under these agreements, because we will not proceed operationally with them if that box is not checked, so to speak, if they are not able to demonstrate their ability to carry this, which leads to the last part of your question, which, the answer is yes. The point of these is that if people seeking asylum come to the u. S. Border and they are amenable based on the agreement each country, and each agreement is a little bit different, then they would be then sent for asylum consideration to one of these three countries. That is when all three are in place. They will not all come online at the same time. Just for claritys sake, for those of you not following me, i will just use guatemala as an example. The guatemala agreement is online. Guatemalans will not be going back under that agreement. Hondurans and el salvadorans would be going back under that agreement. You know, a guatemalan does not seek asylum in their own country. But, the International Consensus on dealing with refugees and asylees has always that you try to deal with the problem as close to home as possible. This is consistent with that theory, and obviously, it has other implications for us in terms of the southern border, given the massive proportion of the rush we have seen in the last few years that has come from the northern triangle. Linda the washington examiner. There are cases, especially Montgomery County, where the sanctuary efforts in the county have allowed the release of some illegal aliens who have gone on to commit some pretty terrible crimes. Is the situation with sanctuary cities, counties, states getting better, getting worse and what can you do about it . Mr. Cuccinelli well, there is no single element to it. With the 10th amendment, states and localities have a substantial range of free decisionmaking, but it is not without consequence, as you note. Some of the people Montgomery County had a nineweek string there where they had basically a Sexual Assault a week by a deportable alien, and some of them, and these are the preventable ones, repeat participants in the Montgomery County Justice System. Those are the preventable crimes, and as you note, to children sexually assaulted, you have attempted murders, if it did not happen and we talk about afterwards, people would say, oh, you are just being hyperbolic, but here it is and the consequences are terrible and the one and only excuse that i hear from these localities is they want to preserve the community of interest from fear within the community. Let me tell you something. I have worked on criminal Justice Reform for many, many years i know a lot of the statistics about crime, and one of them is that, pick your type of criminal, by race, by ethnicity, however you want to do, statistically they most victimize people like themselves. So, whether it is black, white, hispanic, asian, the most likely crime victim is black, white, hispanic, asian. So in fact, the excuse given on a Public Safety level for the sanctuary policies is just that, it is an excuse. If you want to actually keep the community safe, you remove dangerous criminals from the community, and i. C. E. Gives him the opportunity to do that. They decline for political reasons and they have the Political Freedom to do that, but again, it is not without severe and tragic consequences and a lot of reporters have said their rate of crime is no higher than this or that. And, i dont even engage in that discussion because you are talking about literally crimes that never should have happened in this country because they are people who upon their first interaction with the Justice System should have been deported after the punishment for whatever it is they initially encountered the criminal Justice System as a criminal over, and we would not have the later crime. We would not have the later victims and unfortunately [indiscernible] mr. Cuccinelli not nothing, but it does take a high level engagement. You need congressional action on some of these things. Weve seen some cases, this is one area where i would say that the administration has not fared as well in court as i would have liked, necessarily. It is not a regulatory arena per se, it is a dispute about who has what authority to begin with, but we do take these things into account. I certainly i use the twitter account to point out to Police Officers in these departments that there is a tip line they can call confidentially and identify deportable aliens themselves without themselves being identified, as we saw in fairfax county. Some of these departments will take action against officers who strangely enough attempt to enforce the law at the federal level. Linda Mark Turnbull from the monitor. The administrations policies of favoring the more educated immigrants are coming at a time when the world has a lot of refugees and asylum seekers, not just to america, but worldwide. Do you think there is a risk of backtracking through this policy on americas tradition as a beacon of hope, a land of opportunity that anyone can come and make a better life for themselves, and with the public charge in particular, many of the safety net programs in america are for not just known working people, people often have a job and qualify for this program. So, im just interested in your thought on whether it is fair to shift the policy so much towards the educated. Mr. Cuccinelli there are few different elements in there. One, even though we have been having different discussions about a refugee number for this coming year, and that humanitarian relief is the same Legal Standard as asylum, it is a question of where we pick up in a system. Outside the country, at our borders, or inside the country. And, the United States as a permanent resolution to more of those people last year than the next three countries combined, by a lot. We continue to provide the most money and the most longterm permanent relief in the world, so our position as the number one most generous country in the world is not at any risk under President Trump. We have continued that tradition and the president , i know he is aware of that and takes that seriously and i would know note, similar to our earlier discussion with the anticipation of a refugee number under 30,000 right now. The draft proposal was 18. The same people work refugee cases as work asylum cases and they are both under the humanitarian umbrella. Those same people are going to be working the same humanitarian workload. It will be on the asylum side rather than the refugee side for some of it. That generosity and our position as being first in the world and the most generous country in the world is not at risk. The focus i used the h1b example earlier on educational attainment, certainly that is to drive economic benefit to the United States of that portion of our immigration. On the public charge peace, we iece, we have this 140 or so year federal tradition of maintaining self sufficiency, and thousands and thousands of potential immigrants have been turned away under it in the 140 years of that history. The most recent iteration of it being the 1996 law the bill clinton signed that i mentioned past very strongly on a bipartisan basis, including people like nancy pelosi, Chuck Schumer voting for this law. The Clinton Administration put a temporary memo in place that said rule to follow. Well, the rule never followed. The Bush Administration did not put out a rule. The Obama Administration did not put out a rule, so we have done that. It is complicated in part because of the growing complexity of the modern welfare state. Being a public charge in 1882 meant something very different than it means today. Today, it means someone likely to go on welfare, and the way we talked about the rule. Back then, it really meant becoming a burden on the Community Organizations that carried the load of the social safety net. And it is the same legal tradition, but very different ways that the burden can land on us. So, to a certain extent, we intended to send the message that we expect self sufficiency among family and employment immigrants. It does not apply in the humanitarian space or to refugees and so forth, and it will have an impact when we work our way through these court cases, however long it may take. It is telling to see some of the language of some of the judges. It reads more like a hotlyw ritten oped by a political activist than a legal decision by a neutral arbiter. I am thinking of michelle actually who have this quote from one of the new york judges that i am taking off as i say that. It really looks like they are just engaging in activism rather than making a neutral legal decision. Just because it is complicated does not mean it is illegal. We have done this well within the boundaries of the law to set these boundaries and have them be enforceable by immigration officers. When we get to that point, i expect to add to the value of selfsufficiency. Linda joel rose from npr. I have a question about daca. The Supreme Court will hear arguments that a few weeks. If you prevail, does the Administration Want to deport Daca Recipients . Mr. Cuccinelli the president was having some discussions with members of congress, i guess last year, and they seem to have stopped. I fully expect that to recommence, as we close in on november 12, the date of argument for that case. But, presuming that law is found to be as illegal as president obama said it was over 20 times before he signed it, then it will depart the legal world, and those people will be in the position as they are today. They are here illegally under whatever circumstances they may have come. They will join the ranks of millions of people in that circumstance. But i rather expect to see some discussion at the congressional president ial level over that, i think the president has already publicly signaled that he is willing to do that, as of members of congress on both sides of the aisle, so i think you could see some movement in that direction. I would not want to get out in front of that. What if there is no deal . Then what . Mr. Cuccinelli well then, there in the same pool as the 22 Million People who are here illegally. They dont have any orders against them, but they are not here with legal presence and they are under the same legal potential as others in that state. There is a little over one million removal orders already in place for people in the country, and those are the ones that i. C. E. Operations go to remove. It is not that they are starting a case, but that they are finishing one when you see those operations, typically. I. C. E. Has their prioritization which still top of the priority list are criminal aliens and people not in that circumstance are basically in with the rest of the pool of approaching 20 Million People. Linda molly otoole from the los angeles times. How do you answer the concerns from your asylum officers, the union that represents asylum officers and usgs personnel at large, because many of us have spoken to these rank and file officers and their concerned that many of these policies being handed down by the Trump Administration, particularly targeting asylum. Whether it is protection protocols in mexico, the safe third country agreement, whatever we are calling it these days. How do you answer their concerns about its policies being handed down are in fact illegal, that they are being ordered to implement policies that are illegal, given that you have emphasized in this talk that you believe there are boundaries to executive authority when it comes to immigration. Given their stance that these are in direct contradiction with immigration laws passed by congress . Mr. Cuccinelli well, they are not in contradiction or we would not be utilizing them, and the last administration implemented policies that they believed were within the boundaries the law. We are doing the same thing. 19,000 people. Expect many all of us to quickly agree on all of this, but i do expect that the professional employees uscis will implement the policies in place. We have course, when courts tell us you cannot go down that path, they know very well because they have been suddenly stopped from undertaken particular courses of action in the professional duties, that we stop doing that, but they are part of the executive branch. And so long as we are in a position of putting in place what we believe to be legal policies that have not been found to be otherwise, we fully expect them to implement those faithfully and sincerely and vigorously. Linda so, it is 9 59. Can we squeeze in one more . Mr. Cuccinelli i will do one more. Linda lets see, your name is i want to ask you about the recent proclamation regarding access to visas and the ability to get health insurance. How do you plan on assessing that . I think there are a lot of questions about implementation of what that will look like. Mr. Cuccinelli so, that will be by the implemented department of state. Obviously weency, will abide by that as well. I will make one statistical point. I keep jumping over to the left side of my brain. As much attention as there is at the border, and i talked about it a lot today, of the millions of people here illegally, most of them did not come across the border illegally. They came here legally on a visa and illegally stayed. That has been true for a long time in terms of the numbers. I dont know how the last couple of years play out on that, but in the balance of the people that are here legally, that is still the majority. The president obviously does not want us in a position where we could be caught carrying the burdens of people who are either visiting or doing business here or doing all those kinds of things. So, a policy which i wholeheartedly support. In terms of implementation, when we see requests for extensions, that is more likely where we are going to see it. Thatll design guidance seeks proof of insurance from folks who are here legally, as they seek those extensions to stay with my example. That is how we would do that. That is all in process to prepare for now. Linda thank you very much for coming. Sorry for those of you who did not get your questions in. I hope we will come back sometime. Mr. Cuccinelli glad to. Linda all right. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the white house did not release it weekly address from the president. U. S. Representative Donna Shalala gave the democratic address, highlighting House Democrats recent legislation named the lower drug costs now act. Im donnala hello, shalala
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