Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

Theres one models in the usa freedom act which allows surveillance to appoint friends of the court either lawyers to argue legal issues and also interestingly an organization that helps the court understand the Technological Development or Something Like that. Thats one example to get the public a little bit more involved in something that is ine secret. Traditionally the Sticking Point has been its all secret staff. Anybody that gets involved has to be clear. Im thinking beyond that, by necessity we have to go beyond that. Even the folks in the government on my left and right might can see if the government doesnt come with lawful mechanisms continue to be lots of people taking into their own hands. Im just throwing ideas. Im not speaking for everybody. And with all due respect, i dont necessarily mean order people like laura and bob once he goes to private service, although theres a role for that. It would simply be like a jury. I know the jury has a constitutional dimension and this doesnt. Another possibility, which i know sounds ridiculous, people get instant feedback, instant poll votes. Theres lots of way none of this would bind the government or the aclu or the freedom, Heritage Foundation or anybody else, it would be a way to get some input from folks, and frankly, maybe bob and dan can address this later, inform people about either what is getting done or the ways that it could be done. That would have e avoided a lot of heartache on both sides with data collection. My thoird third point, im sure you are familiar with privacy by design. Everybody is em braising, fpc is all over it. In one sentence, the concept is instead of coming out with a cool technology, service or product, doing what you do with personal information, trying to build safeguards or guardrails. The idea is plan this ahead of time. Design with privacy in mind and even maybe design those in the products and how you collect data. Thats been a large focus on a number of responsible companies in their new products and services lately. The question i have is to what degree thats entering in the way the government thinks about those things. We have the Fourth Amendment. Im thinking about Something Different which is really beyond the Legal Compliance point to figuring out how are we going to operate the program, how are we going to design it, what authorities we are going to ask congress and part of that might be sort of having a privacy by design presentation, how are we going to build it from the beginning. Part of that should be security by design, too. Any information, collection needs to be linked with the security objective. Those are my three free kicks. They wont be in the headlines tomorrow but i hope they will in the next four, five years. Im going to give a case study, the balance. If years, and youll remember, i dont believe in the tradeoff about the dream, liberty and security. I believe we can accomplish both goals at once. I think people laughed off a little bit. So the specific case that i want to mention is something thats right in the news now, there are a number of legislative proposals on the issue of information sharing and Cyber Security. It was mentioned in the panel before. Basically the question is this, how can we stimulate companies in the private sector to share information about malicious cyber activities or potential malicious cyber code with the federal government so that Government Agencies can be informed and do their work whether their work is to begin investigating a crime or try to help remediate what has happened to that network or the work to spread out the information about that particular malicious activity so that others can defend themselves. Really, what we are trying to do is create a rebust exchanges. Everybody learns and everybody can defend themselves. The house is actually passed two bills on this, and the senate has a bill, as you heard the previous panel, their poise to consider. Now to make information sharing and Cyber Security really work we need a new revolution. We need to have machine machinetomachine sharing. We have a lot of humans involved. We are humans and we enjoy having them but it is not going to work in this environment. You cant have humans taking telephone calls, analyzing some codes. Three days later, theres something here and telling them whats going on. Thats what we have now and its good. Its excellent. We have to take it to the next level. How you make that work . Thats a real problem. The second problem is the problem is how you deal with privacy information sharing . Here is the specific, im trying to make it specific for you. When information is submitted to us, it could include personal information. Youre going to send that personal information in. Your wife gives your personal life. Do you want the department sending to Homeland Security and spreading around the network of whoever is connected to them. It could also have proprietary information. Does the company want their proprietary information sent all around . No, you want to make sure it was anonymousize and you want to make sure share youre going to have no problem with that. You like that because youre going to benefit from that too, youre going to benefit from other peoples bad behavior and learn how to defend yourself. Everyone is confident that my personal information is not being lifted. The problem is that Law Enforcement agencies want that information now. They want that information in realtime. The difcion information comes to the Homeland Security, they dont want the guy from geek squad and theres some guy standing in front, when can i have my computer back. You want to take out the human because they want it quickly. This is a rail real problem with privacy and security are clashing and we are trying to fig figure out a solution. It takes the interagency. Thats the first thing. We are working with people all across government, fbi. We know that were familiar with that in Homeland Security context. The second is it wont work. We get that a lot. It does work. We pour through the issues in the last couple of months. We did a survey of the cyber analysts and we asked them what data specifically do you need, what do you not need, what is critical in the first instance and did a survey of all the guys that do the daytoday. Were able to build a great Technical Work and the fourth thing it takes stake holder relationships. We just worked on those over a number of years developing a number of committees and others and so weve been able to leverage those and learn from people there. Even though the legislation has not passed in january, weve been working in october the fall of october we are going to be able to begin receiving information. By the spring we are going to be able to be sharing back and forth, and about next fall we will have the capability to make all of that Technical Work thats being done available even though they do not have sophisticated cyber communications. What im trying to suggest there are ways to be able to work both the privacy and security interest. Here is one that were really rolling up our sleeves on and the senate dealing with this very specific issue and feel comfortable with it. If congress feels comfortable, we will see legislation. These issues have a really practical meaning and really play out in the daytoday practical issues. Can i make a response . Yeah. Im not sure what nsa when ron was here. We are focused on privacy by design. We have a number of mechanisms by doing that. We have the privacy and Civil Liberties board which i know is represented here today, which has statutory obligation to make sure it takes private account. If it requires legislation, we have to work with congress on it. So people may disagree with the outcome. Its not that we are trying to build privacy in the front desk. I certainly wasnt suggesting that there was a lack of privacy by design at any time in the community. But maybe its a rhetorical thing, it would help bridge of understanding between what the government and the Intelligence Committee does and how people in the private sector think about privacy if they could start to talk in some of the ways that bob was just speaking. In response to the last three speakers, it makes me uncomfortable and rather nervous that the majority would decide individual right. The point of bill of right is to protect the minority. Its to protect minority views against the majority. Along those lines, the reasonableness. In the Fourth Amendment, unreasonableness against reason or against the common law. And the common law at the time bands general braugd collection of information on citizens to use it to find illegal activity. When the Fourth Amendment says unreasonable to go back to hopkins, it wasnt understood in the modern sense, it meant what was against the common law. According to to cook it was against to give the government the power to collect information and use that information to find evidence of illegal activities. There were good reasons for it. Reasons that lead to harm against anybody who objected to the governments policies, any social or political actors they wanted to target. They were also right. The importance of democratic deliberation, intimate relationships, being able to build a social network and have diversity and decide what level of intimacy you wanted. These were values that were recognized from time memorial from the british constitution and later the american constitution. Can i go ahead. Go ahead. I just wanted to respond to one thing that bob said. This existed before the rise, rise of new kinds of data and the growth of global internet. Two things have changed. One the scope of information and the quantity of information has been changed. So that i think requires us to reconsider some of these rules. I just want to read a quote from the 1978 house report when it passed. There was a debate at the time there was a decision to require warrants for all collection which was covered at the time, which is a lot less covered now. There were a number of congress that objected to the idea that they would apply the collection of data that was targeted at aliens and nonresident aliens. The majority of congress rejected and that the warrant was required not primarily to protect such person but rather protect u. S. Citizens and to ensure the safe guard cannot be avoid by determination as to a persons citizenship. That understand, recognition of the risks of targeted collection based on lower standards of noncitizens located abroad applies with much greater force today and its something that requires us to reconsider some of our thinking about collection. I want to respond briefly. I was not advocating that a majority should decide who advances, what practices get done in the committee. In that way my analysis might have been incorrect, i was suggesting that the public needs to get a better insight and understanding about what the choices are and then the folks that make these decisions can back to that into account. I think its probably not responsible to suggest that people in the government who have to follow the constitution and the laws would simply do whatever the majority of people say in voting, but i have one other point and majority rule of the statutes under the Intelligence Committee and the whole government operates are actually passed by majority rule, and even the federal judges are nominated by the president who is elected by majority and confirmed by the senate which im told can be a partisan process. [laughs] so just in response about collection, i dont disagree that there needs to be rules to protect the information a u. S. Person. I just dont see a way to do that other than some variant backend min procedure. I think the privacy and civil lights oversight on section 702 or some other document that we have released has indicated that under section 702 which targets noncitizens outside of the United States, we are currently targeting tens of thousands of selectors, because this covers a broad scope of intelligence collection. We are never going to require warrants to collect on Vladimir Putins cell phone and what al qaeda terrorist is doing. It would be private collection to a halt. What we need to do, this goes back to the point i made, we need to find ways, number one, two explain what we do, which we have been doing for the last couple of years, and number two, to try to put technological in place to satisfy people that information about americans or information frankly about any persons is being collected and not being misused. In fact, in the last two and a half years of all the information that has come out, there has not been information that people have been per sec in fact, the system is working well. On the 702, i think its important to look at whats put into place. The fbi routinely queries for criminal purposes unrelated for which the information was collected, and i understand that some people might have the view that once that information is legally collected, you dont need a warrant to go back and clear that data. I would suggest that there is a use restriction in the Fourth Amendment and if you collect that information to use it to check out bank robbers in california for purposesly related. So i think the 702 database brings about how peoples information is being used and how that plays out in terms of the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment when applied in a criminal context. Well, as you can see we have some degree of disagreement. Fascinating, i dont know we may have time for a couple of questions if anybody has auburning a burning desire to query the panel. Right back here. Hello, i recently remember hearing hearing the director of the fbi testifying on strong encryption and many believe the fbi is going dark because of the strong encryption and asking for industry, keys to the castle to get one side to the other. It striked me that it might work in america. But if the technology is getting to the point where we cant see whats going on in any way, shape or form, i would imagine that theres a way to all those to one server and thats it. [laughs] we dont know what happens without some sort of encryption. Is that something that needs to be looked at and weighed in some of manner, not Just National but internationally amongst our foreign partners because a lot of their territory can host these sort of services . Of course, those are those who may not want to help us, certain asian powers. Good question, bob, you might can address that. I think the administrations position on this is reasonably year. Strong encryption is a good thing. Its a way to protect peoples privacy. Its a bad thing to the extent it makes communications invisible to us and theres no question that there is a problem for Law Enforcement, not and in terms of Foreign Terrorists but domestically as well. What we need to do is get private industry to come to the table and applying the kind of creativity and technological insight that they use today develop the remarkable tools today to find a solution that protects people policy and allows Law Enforcement to get information it needs when it has lawful authority. I think that, sure, its true sort of truism if theres opportunity for Law Enforcement to get access, you have to some extent weaken encryption. After all, theres currently a statute called colea, a matter to permit interception of communications. Thats a lot of less secure if we didnt have colea. We have determined that thats a risk were willing to take because the overall social benefit. Question is can we find that kind of solution in the encryption space where we say we have a manageable risk here and the overall social benefits are sufficiently great, and thats going to require engage meant engagement with the government and solutions. We have taken back on cloud computing, because of the way u. S. Interaction has undermine competitiveness abroad. To the extent that we drive this as a Law Enforcement or issue domestically theres an economic price to this. That needs to be part of the discussion and equation, not just at an nfc level but problematic level to make sure the interest is i think its definitely right. At the end of the way, theres a reasonable possibility that if American Companies have a transparent environment where its clear to the world where we can do, am i going to google or microsoft or apple where i know what theyre doing or am i going to use some rom anian communication where i have no idea what they are doing. We might still keep a competitive advantage. I want to thank the panel and hope that youll give them a good round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] thank you. Always a pleasure. The American Bar Association continues its Homeland Security Conference Today with former oklahoma governor. Hes discussing lone wolf terrorism, extremism and the Lessons Learned from the Oklahoma City bombing 20 years ago. You can see his remarks live here on cspan2. Today democratic president ial candidates, hail ri Hillary Clinton speak. See it live. Despite hardships and scandals, his death in office, he would help the role of first lady. Cspans original series, first ladies, private life of women who fill first lady on cspan3. Now a discussion on u. S. Immigration challenges and policies. This is an hour. A couple of minutes. [inaudible conversations] we have picked a topic totally noncontroversial. We feel like its probably had to be on our agenda this year and always will be on the agenda. Highly complex issue. And fortunately, he was part ofr team early on as an attorney in the dhs general counsels office, and hes currently a partner with the law firm of Barry Appleman with a practice in both d. C. And northern virginia. He served as the highest ranking legal official and cis as chief counsel for the u. S. Citizenship and immigration services, and he also served as special counsel to senator john cornyn of texas, and were really delighted to have lynden moderate the next panel. Lynden . Thank you. Well, thanks, joe. And before we begin, let me just recognize joe and Holly Hampton and ann kieffer and angela for their tireless work in putting on this event. As joe mentioned, if you came here today expecting a lunchtime food fight over birthright citizenship and building walls down on the border, i think youre going to be a little disappointed today. But what we do have are four of the most thoughtful, leading experts on Immigration Law who represent the government, who come from the hill, advocacy organizations and academia. And were going to hear from them today about the issues that are really going to be going on here in the last year that have of the administration. Last year and a half of the administration. Let me do some quick introductions. Down at the far end is mary geovision knollly at the department of Homeland Security. Prior to that position she was the director of the immigration policy center. For a number of years she served as a Senior Lawyer at, first, ins and then department of Homeland Security, specializing in refugee and asylum law, and she also did a fellowship to the late senator kennedys office during the robust 2007 immigration debate. To her right is professor jill family who is an International Expert on Immigration Law. She focuses on procedures used to adjudicate immigration cases, still an to pick topic to me an opaque topic to me, but she directs the program at widener university, and i do recommend for any attorney whos going to tackle Immigration Law that you read her article called Administrative Law through the lens of Immigration Law. To her right is greg chen who is the director of the american excuse me, director of advocacy further american Immigration Lawyers association. [inaudible] [laughter] well get there. They have, i believe, at least 13,000 members these days. He has a long history of advocacy. He is one of the most respected voices on very controversial issues and has testified before both the house and the senate. And finally but not least is gary her seven who recently assumed the position of democratic chief counsel for the subcommittee on immigration and Border Security in the house of representatives. His underlying, Fulltime Position is chief of staff for the ombudsman to citizenship and immigration services, and gary also has a background in an advocacy role for the american lawyers immigration association. So quite an esteemed group up here. The topics were going to cover today are the ones that are most likely to drive immigration policy mt. Final year and a half in the final year and a half. So as expected, were going to cover the president s signature action on daca, the overhaul of enforcement priorities announced in the last six months, the challenges that the administration is facing on the southern border with often accompanied minors and, finally, the recent president ial announcement regarding proposals to modernize the visa immigration system. So with that, im going to sit down, and were going to turn to daca and dapa, and jill is going to take the substance, and then ill chime with in with some questions. Thank you so much, lynden, and thank you as well to the aba Administrative Law section for hosting this institute. I am happy, always happy whenever i can do thinking with the Administrative Law section. It really is a wonderful group, and its great to be here this amp. This afternoon. So my task is to fill you in very quickly on one of the most controversial immigration aspects of the last year or so, and that is the president s starting of these two things called daca and dapa, and i often have to top and think to stop and think and if you dont think about Immigration Law all the time, that must sound kind of funny. Daca stands for deferred action for childhood arrivals, and dapa for deferred action for parents of americans and lawful permanent residents. Since both of those terms have the words deferred action in them, im going to explain really quickly what deferred action is in Immigration Law, and then well move into how this has all ended up in the headlines. So deferred action is a temporary reprieve from removal. Its an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, and its a signal that an individual is a low priority for removal. Its important to note that its revocable, and it doesnt provide a lawful immigration status. It just is a revocable statement from the government to a particular Foreign National that they are not high priority for removal for a certain period of time. Deferred action has been around in Immigration Law for a long time. Its not new, its not something that president obama came up with himself. In fact, john lennon received deferred action this the 1970 in the 1970s, so thats our cool, hip, beatles Immigration Law connection there. [laughter] [inaudible] thats right. Marys singing over here. What is new, though, is that the Obama Administration is using deferred action in a slightly innovative way through daca and dapa in that its trying to harness the equitable re4r50e6 thats available through deferred action in a more transparent way. Before daca and dapa even back i remember when i was practicing Immigration Law, deferred action was not always clear to private Immigration Attorneys who you asked for deferred action. You knew it existed but how exactly you got it and how the government decided who was eligible was a mystery. So its a little bit less of a mystery through daca and dapa because the Obama Administration released a memo that said here is some criteria you should consider when deciding whether or not to grant deferred action in these, within daca and dapa. So this med allows individuals this med allows individuals a better area to apply. And so daca has been in place since 2012, and that is aimed at individuals who arrived this the United States as children. I wont go through all the criteria, theyre this the powerpoint, i think, who arrived as his honor and who dont have lawful status. And what daca gives them, again, is not a lawful immigration status, but a signal that they are not a high priority for removal and also makes them eligible to apply for an employment authorization document. So daca, the one with the c, is three years old, and some data tells us that approximately half of those who are eligible have applied. The number i saw was about 750,000, and that 83 percent be of those who had been granted originally, its good for two years, had applied for renewal. Now dapa, the one with the p, is a proposed initiative similar but not the same as daca that would apply for parents of u. S. Citizen children or of children who have lawful are permanent residence. Same thing, it would grant deferred action to those parents. Dapa is estimated there are about 3. 6 million individuals who would be eligible for dapa, but we dont know yet how many might apply because dapa hasnt been implemented yet because a u. S. District court judge in texas preliminarily enjoined dapa and also some proposed changes to daca, and the judge concluded that dapa violated the administrative proceed your act because the Obama Administration erroneously invoked the policy memorandum exception to the, into the rulemaking requirements. So for those of you, im sure, in this crowd are familiar, but if youre if you not want to use notice and comment rulemaking, you can use a guidance document, but you have to use it correctly. Now, i should say, as lynden said, this issue about guiding documents and the nexus between Administrative Law and Immigration Law is something that ive spent a great deal of my time thinking about. So on the one hand, i was sort of excited that this case turned on something i had spent so much time thinking about. On the other hand, i was really disappointed because i disagree with a lot of the District Court judges conclusions both on the Administrative Law and Immigration Law aspects of his decisions. One thing i disagree with is the judge concluded that there was judicial review under the apa. He concluded that dapa is not purely agency prosecutorial discretion. I disagree with that conclusion. Also the District Court judge concluded that the Obama Administration erroneously used a policy document, and i disagree with his reasoning there as well. Just something to think about going forward, and im happy to take any questions about daca and dapa, or if you want to know more about why i disagree with the judges conclusions. Just one sort of more general point i want to make in terms of thinking about the future of Immigration Law is that, to me, the litigation over dapa sort of solidifies, in my mind, that Immigration Lawyers and Administrative Law lawyers can no longer operate as though they occupy two separate islands. That the District Court judges opinion, to me, reflects the misunderstandings both about Administrative Law and Immigration Law, and i think that its going to be very important and up to Immigration Lawyers to be fluent in general Administrative Law principles so that we can help bridge this gap and sort of make bring Immigration Law back into the mainstream of Administrative Law. Thank you. All right. Well, well do a few questions up here and then time permitting at the end well open it up to the floor. The first question, and this is for you, jill, but also the other speakers. Tell us a little bit about the timing for the right now theres a decision pending with the fifth circuit. Where do you see it going in terms of timing with the fifth and possible Supreme Court after that . Sure. So the fifth circuit refused to grant a stay of the District Courts preliminary injunction, and so now the appeal of the actual appeal of the preliminary injunction is before the fifth circuit, but its before, i believe, the exact same panel . Two of the three, yep. Two of the three . The two who ruled they wouldnt grant the stay. [laughter] right. So i dont im expecting probably the same result from the fifth circuit. So my guess is that this is something that will end up before the Supreme Court. Okay. A major part of the litigation, you know, the lawsuit was, as you mentioned, brought by texas and a coalition of states there opposed to the possible, and the District Court found that they have standing. And the basis for the court to find standing was that the grant of deferred action and that nonstatus resulted in their, the individuals ability to apply for texas drivers licenses. Each time you apply for a texas drivers license, theres a small cost that the state absorbed to issue the drivers license. So the narrative that texas brought to the litigation was that through the grant of deferred action texas is incurring costs when they issue drivers license. Its a relatively narrow focus in terms of harm, and weve seen how the government and briefs filed by interested parties have sought to broaden the economic discussion and say, well, there might be cause for a drivers license, but theres also other economic benefits of them being able to work, pay more in taxes and texas benefits in other ways. Where do you see the factual discussion going as this case moves through the courts and into the policy realm about the narrow versus broad view of economic sure. I should start out by saying im not an expert at standing. But i can tell you but i still will tell you something about it. [laughter] but, no, i can tell you a that what the fifth circuit said when they denied the stay of the preliminary injunction is they said that being pressured to change state law is a redress bl injure. They said that the implementation of dapa would have a direct and predictable effect on the states drivers license regime. Beneficiaries will almost definitely apply for drivers licenses, and they didnt seem very impressed by the offsetting benefits argument. They did consider that in the state for the preliminary in the stay for the preliminary injunction. Well see what the fifth circuit says next, and i would imagine if and when this case goes to the Supreme Court, that this standing argument is going to be huge because this has repercussions way beyond Immigration Law. Lynden, if i may, just one other point to what jill had very clearly described in terms of the time frame here, if the case is going to be brought to the Supreme Court and their going to seek cert and that, the Supreme Courts term for the fall and the spring will start filling quited quickly. Quite quickly. As we all know, it only handles 7, 0 maybe 80 cases in a given term, and that decision will have to be made fairly soon. Theres a window of opportunity where the final decision from the fifth circuit has cotom down and has to come down. This is certainly a case of tremendous are import, so that would be waived, but theres no guarantee. And if it misses that, if they miss the window for this term let alone just being denied cert, then they wouldnt be heard until the next term coming around starting the fall of next year. So thats just a thing to think about for the timing of this. And if they dont get heard later on this the term, decisions not to come until the summertime, so i think were looking at if it goes up to the Supreme Court something not until earlier, midway through the next year of the Supreme Court. Midway through an election year. Okay. And so with the additional time, so its been on hold, the governments been working up scenarios of how to imelement the program. All of you have experience within the government or work on the adjudication side. If the government does get a green light whether its this fall or next year after a Supreme Court case, will they be better positioned today to be able to implement quickly, or is there just a leadup time and a rampup time no matter when, you know, when you pull the push the firing gun . [laughter] everybodys looking at me and then, of course, the attorneys from dhs are looking at he in a completely different way. [laughter] i think that, i think that probably is a better answer for you all to speculate on in terms of readiness and such because we really have taken the courts order extremely seriously in terms of, you know, not really freezing everything in its tracks with respect to dapa implementation. So i think that the good thinking that is going on and the conversation that goes on needs to be one thats in the public realm. I think it certainly helps as it opened up that in 2012 they did launch a program. Theyve done 700,000 applications. Theyve worked out some of the kinks. Theres always going to be new surprises and new challenges and staffing issues. But unlike the prior debates in 2005, 2006 and is 2007, this is not an unknown administrative challenge anywhere. Why dont we stick with you, mary, then while youre in the hot seat. The president and the secretary announced really major changes to the enforcement priority system, and those have been ongoing for a number of months, and then we had this issue about sanctuary cities really explode onto the scene with a high profile killing out in california. But aside from the emotional part of the murder that occurred in california, the enforcement policy changes, i dont think, have gotten enough mainstream attention of how significant they are. If i could look to you to walk us through what those changes are and how you see them impacting immigration policy down the road. Sure. I mean, i think the important place to begin is that for any number of years and certainly in the last five years dhs has very carefully used explicit priority enforcement guidelines to help to shape the nature of the Enforcement Actions that we undertake. And many of the things that the secretary did in november of 2014 were to, i think, refine and identify those places in which those guidelines could not only be improved, but i think could sharpen some of the broader policy points that really the administration wanted to, wanted to emphasize. And so, you know, weve always made those who threaten our National Security and Public Safety or threaten our borders chief among the priorities. And none of that really has changed. But i think that what you saw in november of 2014 was an attempt to go in and with greater precision and with a slightly tighter gauge say heres how this, you know, sort of lays itself out in the context of draw to day daytoday Decision Making. And i cant emphasize enough that when i look at all of the november 2014 announcements and memos from the president , from the secretary that this notion of Decision Making is actually really critical to, i think, what dhs is about. The idea of discretion, the idea of enforcement priorities, the idea of, you know, the programs that are enjoined, other programs that were attempting to do in innovation and modernization of our vis a vis system visa system. All of these things often turn on making the best Decision Making and the best judgment possible in the context of good government. So i often like to say that really the goal of the enforcement priorities as well as Everything Else is exactly that. How do we really enshrine sort of the best standards of making good judgments about individual cases in the context of a massive, you know, undertaking . And this is particularly important in the enforcement context. So thats enough opining, lyndens like get to the facts. Some of the basics are actually available for you in the outline, but i think the critical things to sort of know and understand are that we moved from a broad set of priority categories to a slightly more targeted one in which greater emphasis was placed on serious criminals and less emphasis on minor traffic violations because both of those in prior iterations could essentially put someone in the path of a removal action. We focus more on the future, so targeting lean Border Crossers and persons issued an order of removal after january 1 of 2014. So theres a bit more of a bright line. Numbers in that context will change as we move further and further from that date, but still theres a bit of, i think, a future focus as opposed to a retrospective focus. And then finally, rereally deemphasized the or [inaudible] unless they fall into one of the priority categories. So still the people who are most likely to want to do us harm or who have committed serious crimes are priorities for removal. Its really many of the people who fall into the category of the 12 million undocumented immigrants most of whom, 60 or more of whom, have been here in the country for ten years or more and who may or may not have fallen into other more discreet categories of discretionary action. Its really those folks or who are the administration, i think, was attempting to sort of say these folks are not going the priority. Going to be the priority. The overall recognition is that we get more benefit and is more value to our communities by recognizing that these people in many cases very much are deeply embedded in it. So thats sort of the overall philosophy. But the sort of key and critical part is a memo that the secretary issued that, for all intents and purposes, ended the secure communities program. And secure communities, of course, had been and remains a very controversial part of enforcement priorities of the last few years in part because irrespective of what it was designed to be, what it became and this is actually noted in the secretarys memo what it became was sort of emblematic of everything thats wrong with the immigration system today. And that is that somehow or other people get caught in a system that is designed, that has no grace, frankly. Sort of once youre in the immigration system, there really are very few options for getting out of it. And so many of the complaints, so much of the opposition, so many of the city and state ordnances that were being passed really amounted to the fact that people felt like their communities were getting trapped in an enforcement system that a sort of chewed people up and spit them out rather than gave any careful consideration. And im not in any way attempting to malign my, you know, brothers and sisters in i. C. E. Or cbp or anywhere else, because were talking about institutional, systematic issues that the secretary was attempting to address. So even in the course of all this, there were, of course, good, individualized decisions made. But the critical thing is that we had to find a way to turn off this particular form of sort of enforcement and come up with something new. And so the new program is the priorities enforcement program, p. E. P. , weve always got good acronyms. Where secure communities was frequently criticized as something where people in the communities had no control over the decisions that were made or who would end up in the immigration stream, p. E. P. Actually is designed to engage with the communities from the beginning. So i think this a number of ways its actually a really Exciting Development in Law Enforcement was its an attempt to marry up the important Immigration Enforcement needs that we have with the recognition that community engagement, community policing, Community Involvement are equally important parts of creating aingful and a successful and working enforcement strategy. And so with that in mind, i think the primary things to know and understand that sort of are a rip off of what a riff off of what you have in your materials are that it maintains the basic idea that was the founding of secure communities, there is a need for information sharing so that when people are arrest ared, the tbi receives the information the fbi receives the information about the biometrics, and that information is shared with i. C. E. That part doesnt changed. But, it then theless is governed by this general philosophy. So i. C. E. Officers spend a great deal of time looking at the information they get and making decisions about who should be sort of tagged, i guess, as someone whos an enforcement priority. And only then are they going to reach out to the communities and say this is somebody who we really do want to bring back into our system and put into the removal process. Its not triggered by, its not triggered by the mere fact that someones arrested, but instead that someone is convicted. And thats a huge difference from the past and secure communities. But, again, sort of a critical juncture in Decision Making, that were looking at people who actually have been convicted. The general pattern will be and is that we ask jurisdictions to notify us 48 hours ahead of time when someone who weve identified as a pyrety is going to to be released as a priority is going to be released. And in some cases, if the jurisdiction agrees, we also can put a detainer against that person. Unlike in the past when detainers were the default mechanism, today the default is to seek the engagement and the involvement of the communities by notifying us. And in particular that means then that our folks are going out and our i. C. E. Officers are going out, and theyve working with individual communities to even figure out what the actual dynamic of that will be. So we recognize that not all communities are going to have exactly the same priorities that the department does. So theres a negotiation that can go on. And so its a radically different process, but its done well, and i think we can do it well. It will allow us to maintain the need to enforce Immigration Laws against those who seek to do us harm, but at the same time insure that we have a much better handle on creating that mechanism of grace and that mechanism of discretion that will allow us to insure that people who arent priorities arent inadvertently caught in the system. And i think ill end with that. Largely based on the impacts on the impacts in the well as legality and constitutionality of the request being used on a very wide races for immigration and Customs Enforcement would request a locality would hold somebody for a longer period of time for an immigration purpose even though local Law Enforcement he was done with criminal justice or other purposes. So ultimately opposing concerns lynden was saying, were sort they pleased that secretary is had signaled a need for a reboot of the program. The memo the secretary issued specifically referenced concerns that several federal courts have issued decisions concerning constitutionality and they use the detainers as we are glad there was the recognition of the constitutionality being one of the issues. As where we stand now we have initiated an opposition from aila about that. The analysis we are looking at the issue from specifically concerns the legality and constitutionality of the program. The use of detainers will no longer be the default mechanism. There is at least some shift away from holding people, depriving them of their liberty without probable cause is the basic framework for the amendment analysis and backgrounds but that is the basic framework and at least it wont read the default package. The memo itself from november 20th was not Crystal Clear about what circumstances it will still be in an circumstances decanters will still be issued. What are special circumstances. We dont really know yet from sub twos, the way decanters had been issued without a judge repairing decisions in criminal justice, a warrant for somebody has never been the case and that should be the part disappeared we are waiting to see how it is done in the challenges we know i. C. E. And dhs are not proactively meeting with Law Enforcement sheriffs to sell the programs and there hasnt been any transparent fee as to what is the baseline for what is acceptable for the constitutional and because there are certain cities that new york or chicago will think about how to detect its community members. Others like Sheriff Joe Arpaio where there is no concern for the constitution and a possibility they would allow detainers to be issued by i. C. E. And respect those decanters about a concert to protect those that apply to them. I would be her concern. The last thing ill mention is the issue of sanctuary cities and a murder incident that happened in San Francisco which happened in my own home town of a young woman shot walking with her father. That blew up the issue in the media and also forced congress to look at this carefully during the month of july will be a similar conversation through the upcoming month and they will be looking at it again. The big picture perspective is some kind of coordination is going to be helpful between state and localities. The question is how you do that without scary to integrate communities to think if they were quiet, report crime, go to the police for protection that they will be reported on trade deported. A woman from Washington State word for many years came and testified before the senate in july and said there were several example she is aware of, but one that sticks in my mind is the 5yearold girl in colorado who was sexually assaulted by somebody in the parents werent documented and the parents and talking with other immigrants decided not to report it because you okay deported if you go to the police. Not only was the tragic in its self but a year later the same perpetrators sexually assaulted another young child and it was only at that point the families came forward and reported it. That is the other side of the question of how you keep communities safe. If theres too much collaboration from the perspective of the community between Immigration Enforcement and local Law Enforcement because it is community safety, not necessarily immigration. That doesnt help anybody. Just because i think it is really important to recognize and understand people are taking these issues very seriously within dhs and the effort to find that right balance is one of the reasons why the notification component is so important and offers that sweet spot for many communities. I think we also have to cap back and recall one of the reasons why the ongoing issue of trust is so grave is again part of the systemic problem that we dont have comprehensive immigration reform. Occasionally people are like you are going back to the pollyannaish that solves everything. But we all know if i got comprehensive immigration console other thing would need to be fixed. What we need to do is recalibrate the balance between enforcement and benefit related issues that exist in the law and as long as we have a system where even with our best efforts they really are few alternatives for people once they are in the removal process. Those fears greg is identifying our very real and in the most perfect of growth we are not going to be able to fix all of those problems but we can make a great advancement towards it if we started looking at pep program and other initiatives the administration is trying to do as a way to reach some level of consensus. We have heard what the administration has done, a bit of a waitandsee approach. Gary, you are new on the hill and the prioritization of what you see happening in the fall. Since the Emotional Energy translating to legislative act as if he priorities stacked up right now. Before i start im supposed to say im here not acting on behalf of this committee or its members. So i can basically say anything. Let me rephrase my question. Working for the ranking democrat , a vocal opponent of secure communities and is heading in the right direction. To gregs point, we continue to have concerns the constitutionality and so we will be monitoring that as its implemented. In terms of legislative action, prior to my arrival did take action on a bill, h. R. 3009. The House Democrats were nearly unanimous in opposition to the bill. It would have taken money away from local Law Enforcement for those tourists diction jurisdictions that did not cooperate because of the community tries Law Enforcement issues great talk about. The senate has a market graduate for september focused on its own legislation and we will see how that comes down. You know, we will maintain our opposition to legislation and the legislative proposals that underline community Law Enforcement and to deal with the constitutional issues that they are. Out there. We will also see whether anything else trumps the issue. Just a followup at the end of the fiscal year they are expiring authorizations and immigration rao. Our folks started looking at those of their own issues in terms of if they sense that the impact on immigration program. Way for programs that to some that september 30th. People can invest a Million Dollars or 500,000 to get a green card for their individual spouse and family members, children. They have a medical program served in areas. There are discussions going on right now it has been a real focus around new integrity measures making sure the projects and also addressing the targeted employment areas with gerrymandering and crazily drawn i guess it is cautiously optimistic that the programs will be extended. Another option or possibility is continuing resolution for a shortterm extension and atl to extend online. Lets turn down to the challenges. I know this is tough to read on the screen. Nothing short of a significant increase in unaccompanied children apprehended in the southern border became the end of 2013 and the end of 2014. Just to clarify for our father, guatemala and honduras. They did not see a similar spike from the american countries. We will turn to greg now to give us a little insight of whats going on in the challenges for the administration on the issue. Banks, lynden. If this initiative placed it in frustration in a difficult path in terms of policies and great picture of what happens ordered immigration policy are those assigned here in the United States. United states. What happened in Central America on the board in terms of statistics is what most what we saw in 24 team was not just an increase in the numbers of unaccompanied children come into the United States from those three countries can all solve the door, guatemala and honduras but also family units in much larger numbers. 70,000 k. Last year it inlaid talking about a pretty sizable, but not hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands of people come here. Despite was already anticipated by those state department or International Crisis areas largely due to the crisis happening in Central America from an inability of gang violence, Domestic Violence and the murder rate now and honduras and el salvador are higher. The capital of the cities are in the top two or three murder capitals of the world. Theres very little capacity for government to respond to incidents of Domestic Violence and reporters go completely uninvestigated or sanctioned by Law Enforcement. That is the crisis that fueled the large migration out of the countries. That is the root cause that needs to be looked at here. What happens with this bike last year that the Obama Administration a difficult place. Increased border restrictions and tightening misapprehension, placing a families in detention commented violation of the 2008 law designed to protect trafficking that dems coming to the United States. I will say for an association of 14,000 Immigration Lawyers we tend to be lawyers that are rather stodgy on any issue. Were not the rabble resting crowd but ive never seen an issue galvanized more than this in the use of words for aila. Weve seen on a continuing basis families, mothers and young children, toddlers and infants still nursing being detained on the level of thousands of people and facilities set up very quickly since last july and one step in new mexico were shut down in november that had five or 600 people and the facilities and conditions were not adequate enough to operate in texas and have about 1500 people, families detained there. To give you context, 2009 facility was shut down because of lawsuits brought against the conditions in the inhumane situation for detaining families angelic circumstances. That continues now. Aila and a few nonprofit organizations have been trying to provide some kind of Legal Counsel for the families there. It is heartbreaking. Im on the phone regularly with volunteer staff working in texas near san antonio and these are lawyers who dont do immigration fulltime and have decided ill take a week, go down there and work with families. These are attorneys crying suicide after. Children are losing weight. 12 pounder 15pound babies have lost a third of their weight at risk of their health. It is tearing apart the diocese of my own association the gravity of the situation. It really generates from political pressure to demonstrate the borders and control will not let hundreds of thousands of people, cross and thats directly intentioned with our asylum law to protect those kids are rates at which people are qualifying in initial interviews is extremely high. 70, 80, 90 of the people interviewed to see a credible fear demonstrated is much higher than the National Average which is to be typically. These people are fleeing for their lives. Where we stand now is the administration has continued and wont change anytime soon and there have been two lawsuits filed by beverage decisions. One of february the court issued a junction and more recently a few days ago federal court in los angeles issued a decision. I wont go into the details because of the time, but the summary is that theres real concerns needs to change how it is treating these families. It cannot hold them long term. He needs to release them on an expedited basis and it cannot be Holding Families on the justification it wants to deter. The tension has to be done whether the person poses a threat to the community or a flight risk. You cant say we are afraid more people will come. That is where it stands now. I just want to quote from mrs. Lofgren. The writing on the wall is unacceptable, unamerican land. I do think its important to point out that throughout the entire issue there has consistently been the governments approach and attention to these issues. The vast majority of people have not been detained that have been released under a bond or otherwise the detention and the categories of the folks whod been at issue as the lawsuits and other things were progressing, the secretary was moving more and more towards using facilities as Processing Centers to quickly address the issues in terms of the high level of credible fear of reasonable fear people were getting. These are difficult issues but there is a great deal to the way the government has attempted to reassess what the needs are. I want to say real quick i want to commend itself to any attorneys who have volunteered at the centers. Ive been following the process as an interested person but also an academic. They really created a whole new model of providing pro bono survey says greg mentioned attorneys instead of taking one case they take a week and go down and are being onsite. Gym facilities are often in the middle of nowhere literally. Theres no lawyers around lovable and Immigration Attorneys. Thinking broader, the issue highlights the need for counsel in immigration proceedings. There is no right to the governmentfunded lawyer moving a little bit in terms of mentally incapacitated individuals, but the crisis shows us we need to work towards a broader right to government funding count of an immigration removal cases. And close in on the topic i will point out the greeks comment was. This is a policy issue the Bush Administration struggled with and the Obama Administration has struggled with. Criticism has been from zoe lofgren and others pretty striking in the courts. Sometimes you see congress appear has to do in a couple to move around and disputes about what the funding level could be. Is this a multifaceted issue or is there a Silver Bullet out there for congress to deal with on a third try . Theres a Silver Bullet. [inaudible] this is a very serious topic. I thought it would lighten a little bit. One, the congressional attention as gary already mentioned this during the past summer there is a letter signed by about 160, 170 members of the house and i think 30 senators call attention to family detentions. A lot of pressure from congress. There is rules and laws regarding how children who arrive through unaccompanied without it. But, how they should be treated and screamed. The idea being children should be not held in jail but a last rooster being environment more suitable. Theres been discussion whether or not lost me to be improved. The most recent in 2008 which is up on the screen there. There was discussion about what the standard should look like. Theres a double standard that treats mexican children different from children from central American Companies. Some choose recommendation is that they be improved to bring them on par. On funding, this is right up to date regarding not just handle it on the borders. There is request for facilities of 300 million. Feed the is concerned about spending more money for detention for these families. Also more attention paid to the need for funding overseas. Foreign Aid Assistance to build the capacity to improve conditions there. Lets wrap up at the very end of the reforms quickly. You heard on the earlier panel from the Regulatory Team at the department of Homeland Security about a few priorities. The visa modernization recommendation report included 50 different recommendations for enhancing Legal Immigration focusing on efficiency and accessibility, streamlining the Legal Immigration system and particular helping people stuck in a green card and cloth making it easier for employees to change employers strengthening the humanitarian system through the use of perl and Authority Speakers have talked about today. Final question for the panel is here when you look at the regulatory agenda, these are significant major controversial complex rulemaking which involve multiple agencies. As it does in immigration it does in immigrations alone teed up and ready for the department. Let me start with you, gary. Do you see Congress Looking to help them prioritize and weighing in on the process . Legislatively . For regular pressure to save prioritize as versus prioritize. We certainly are. We continue to weigh in. Certainly around employment issues another hardship standards. For example, waivers nearing completion right now as we speak in the employment site as well. In a final lots in terms of priorities, do you see the list evolving as you go into the last year and a half based on litigation or political campaigns or is the roadmaps that it is no implementation for the final year. You never say never or you never say yes. I think these were very, very serious effort to identify what we could really get done with the time remaining and in the context of Litigious Society posed by resources and time. We have spent a lot of time looking at the implementation of framework for this very document the white house issued. Our goal right now is to get them done. The faster we can move on base, the better. The plan right now is full steam ahead. I would say that aila applauded so many different recommendations that came out november 20th and has gotten the most attention the media. The other proposed reforms would have dramatic, mostly positive improvements and i will mention two very quickly. One of the programs that will provide parole for business entrepreneurs and investors start a business in the perl program is something Immigration Lawyers and businesses wont for a long time. We are pleased to see it come out. Our hope is it will be implemented in a flexible way. We are still waiting to see this happen and we are hopeful it will come soon because we see that as one real improvement. Another program is a provision that would allow for waivers to be given to people in the United States they need to leave the country to obtain a visa to return to the United States because they have unlawful presence. A few years ago the government created a system for allowing somebody to get a waiver to come back here and now they ask him a to a larger group of individuals. We are looking forward to seeing the change come forward because they will help thousands of families. Theres just a lot of work to be done. We are looking forward to dhs and other components that have been proactive in having stakeholder conversations and phone calls about the open process. We look forward to that. I hope all of you will join me in thanking our panelists today. [applause] we do not have time for questions but we will linger outside in the hallway for a couple minutes and make room for the next panel. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cover in this National Book festival. We have a beautiful sunny day and i hope the camera behind me as huge crowds and im excited about that. One thing to remember is they are the exception. [laughter] hispanic thank you for coming today. It has been said heaven is a a library. Well if that is the case, heaven is going outside today and we are in heaven of this National Book festival. People are not the leaders for tomorrow. You may say to yourself, i am a leader for today. That is an article trying to show the red roadmap. The divide is not a chasm. The divide was a little divide. They were political scientist in town. The i. T. Of the country itself is as polarizing as washington is just wrong. I dont know a single political scientist who believes that. I hope all people realize whatever theyve done in life is something not to be recorded and passed on to the next generation. We learn for the future by trying to understand the past. Saipan, tunisia and bob will be focused on saipan. Why did you do that . This is a great question that goes to the heart of almost all the questions were talking about. We realize there is no way we could tell the whole story. No way we could be short of an encyclopedia for having a story read like the telephone book. Of course the telephone book is not a story to do justice to everything. All the opportunities are open for women now. When i was in moscow i graduated 1967, today the law schools are fit a 50. Key to understanding if he never posts people who put off at about the public good in his view was the parks and wilderness belonged to the American People for generations unborn and they need to be handed on in places to awaken the spirit. I made a career out of my love for books. I hope they found the texas book festival in the National Book festival. While i love reading, i never thought i would write a book, certainly not one about myself. The goal is in some ways is a sense of the to go to the oldest people in our families and find them and get the story before its too late. Ive had a father and daughter in los angeles who came together after hearing the talk but doctors say to the father, and taking you to the coffee shop now and you will tell me the story. History looks back and says 30 plus Million People and the Health Insurance role is quite a change. Martin luther king said it is slowly towards justice. There are things wrong with the health care bill. He wouldve said the civil rights bill is also a theory fluid loss. Its easy to go back and fix it. I believe the narrative historians true calling is to bring back the dead. I try to do that not only with the outside speakers youre familiar with, eisenhower and patton of the war but also general Ted Roosevelt junior. At this stage i can afford 10 years and theres no big person to go back to the silly celebrity and all my guys in the room at the same time and i will write about leadership. Thank you. We just started. Cspan will have questions and cspan will now where you live this friday morning as we await remarks from oklahoma governor Frank Keating talking about the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. This is part of the American Bar Association homeland care to conference. Live coverage here on cspan2 should start in just a moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good morning. Welcome him to our second day at the Homeland Security institute. It is my pleasure to welcome you here this morning. My name is josh snavely. Many of you met me yesterday. If you are new here, i am the dean for external relations at Oklahoma City university and also director of the center for homeless security law, by shared the program and joe asked me to kick us off this morning. It is my honor to introduce the man who doesnt need an introduction that would give him one that probably doesnt did all he he has done in his career. Governor Frank Keating took office as governor in january and it is 95 and 100 days after taking office was the morning of april team and at 9 02 a. M. As many of you know, the bomb exploded outside the building. Governor keatings career in government and the Reagan Administration at treasury and u. S. Attorney and a numerous amount of things prepared his memoirs day for that day. As an oklahoman, he will hold a special place in my heart because i remember those days and all that we went through and he was placed as our governor for a reason. Out of everything that happened in those times, he was certainly a leader, but he was more than not a servant to the people of oklahoma and we were fortunate and it is my privilege to welcome our governor, our leader and my friend and mentor, Frank Keating. [applause] josh is a very special person and we have the 20th anniversary of the tragedy in Oklahoma City in april. President clinton came. Im a couple years older than he. He is a force of nature. I say that as republican in a complementary way. He showed up in literally every member of the cabinet who have some or in the water, joe whitley and the National Security space, k. Johnson, homeland secretary, director of the fbi, customs commissioner, the whole gang showed up and we were u. S. Attorneys together. Were a much younger in those days. I was a heck of a lot older than he, but nonetheless he was attorney and making, georgia and i was u. S. Attorney in tulsa. A conversation, the debate, the discussion about preparation very much in the suite, commented denominatdenominat or of what this distinguished group of people, aba members are doing with all the conversation. If youre an okie come theyre always apologizing. I dont mean to say that. The reality is that its really dynamic and very, very interesting and i was happy to participate. First off, i represent the other aba. Of course ive been a member of the American Bar Association a long time. The last five years the president in american bankers says the nation. And the Life Insurance pays i had 400 reasonably happy state regulated ceos that i represented. Today i have 5500 reasonably unhappy federally regulated ceos. Im departing the scene on 1231. I want to be a maltre d someplace. I could do Something Else with my life. The horror of april 19 i want to say an event that occurs and theres far too many bad events. Its just astonishing and discomforting and agonizing. But today and i hope it always is this way because then that suggests we wont have another tragedy. As a former fbi agent, Oklahoma City remains the most significant and largest criminal investigation in the history of the fbi. You say what about 9 11. As you know, the conspirators of everyone who participated in that died. There wasnt any criminal investigation as there was in Oklahoma City. Secondly, the largest act of domestic terrorism in the country. Hopefully neither of those undistinguished achievements will be trumped. I dont mean donald trump, but trumped by another tragic event. When i look back upon i can say with pride he dont anticipate something awful happening but most people dont remember or know much about oak city. We had 168 neighbors and friends killed including 19 children. 500 people injured and throughout, 302 buildings were damaged or destroyed. If you go boom in one place, you will knock down a lot of brickandmortar break a lot of windows. It was amazing to me and character in response to a tragedy have to be a firstorder concern. It is amazing to me everybody chopped everything and rush towards the fire you if you will. The government and government agent entities that lived here working for president reagan at justice and treasury. But i didnt know the mayor. I was in office a very short time. At another police chief in Oklahoma City, i didnt know the fire chief and thats a big problem that is in charge of a response, whether mayor of the city for governor of the state, thats a big problem. What we had done, the most natural, disaster that can befall the country as a tornado. We had exercised if you will police and fire authorities, First Responders, government at all levels in others on together to respond to a natural disaster. This principle number one, that important. When i was u. S. Attorney and had a luncheon for all the sheriffs and the federal district. I was in a sheriff but what astonished me and i think will astonish you as professionals in the spaces and they showed up and said were introducing themselves to each other. I said to myself these are sharers from neighboring jurist diction so they dont know each other. What happen if something goes boom in one county and flees across the line for a theres a natural disaster. Its a multicounty disaster. Youd better know each other. Unfortunately because of the tornado preparation, all the professionals knew each other and to say there was no good name was true to say firefighters, rescue workers, First Responders, urban search and rescue people, that is all true. Everything was provided and because i was the character of the community. Polk city had a thousand firefighters at the time. President clinton called me and said that helps decrease services to report to me a tf customs, virtually all the federal law forced the establishment. He called and said what do you need . We have a thousand firefighters and in eight hours they will all be exhausted. To the extent you can help us. She said well get to phoenix using them right away. Back to me was a wonderful relief knowing others had come and help us that knew what they were doing. At that time under James Lee Witt, i cant say how good it is today or how good it wasnt during katrina, but fema, new york, montgomery county, maryland, virginia, florida, california, they were splendid. The issue we face and i was in a part of raking tice initially and i didnt find this out until our conversation was in a view from york i dont mean to be offensive, that they were in charge. The deputy chief was killed on 9 11 or ray said we are in charge and fortunately James Lee Witt or somebody. But these Oklahoma City people are highly professional. They are in charge. So everybody lined up and it is handled with enormous gill and professionalism. The reason i tell the story is because you contrasted with katrina and i think the world, and another into my wife and i. , everybody had their honeymoon in the new orleans area. To have the governor start crying on television when everybody is looking for assurance, reassurance and hope and to have the command and control center underground basically in a basement when you are below sea level to start with, you would think it would be in the seventh floor of a building or some vague was not good. Fema was dysfunctional. I remember mayor nagin showed up at the military uniform on india to stars, three, whatever in his uniform. I looked at this like this is sick. Somebody said excuse me, but why are you wearing a military uniform. He said this is an honor. How that have to do what is beyond. That is a good time. He better have the very best professionals in charge of fire, police, First Responders and government or something that happens it will be big time dad and all fall apart. Everybody will be pointing at each other. Im not going to do that. You cant tell me what to do. It wasnt because everybody anticipated it shouldnt occur and wouldnt occur. It is not that way because ive nothing to do with it. The city of Oklahoma City had a firefighter is chief and professional as chief of police and the federal family of tix together. We lost in one day we lost six agents. That has never happened. Of those people are federal employees largely are people applying for Social Security or night didnt kid in a day care center. If you have a lot of a lot of professionals and they know each other and trust each other they say joe, you are in charge and it all works. I would say the most significant Lesson Learned was not to get the equipment in the equipment and then yes we can do that, make sure you have a competent fema. We have no control over that too is on accordingly but to respond to highly skilled, highly professional people. One morning i went out to the commissioner of Public Safety and chief and i walked in and everybody was smoking. Et cetera we having fun this morning . Everybody putting out their cigarettes. Within a month they were gone. I knew that was the weak link or they shouldnt be sitting in bands, smoking and telling stories. I selected as the National Guard a democrat in a blue suit a guy that was a Major General. I thought got a lot of grief for my fellow republicans. Steve cortright later became head of the National Guard nationally in association. Court right now exactly what to do and everybody trusted him. He was a general. He was in a political officer who is a nature that all of a sudden becomes a Major General because hes the National Guard commander. He was a gifted professional and for example things like this happen where they pop up. We have too many dead people. In new york everybody was black powder. In new york city, everybody was there. Except for people who jump off buildings in new york, everyone he was incinerated say you had enormous stress ecologically and families on the verge of rebellion wanted their loved ones. My daughters in there and i know shes not living and my child is in there. So we got the people from the military to come in very professional makes the care of everything, expedited in a matter of a few days and the rebellion stopped. You could tell the families were on the verge of despair trying to get access after four days of their loved ones. Did i know anything about registry . No, but Steve Cortright did and he wasnt the person that had to be trained. Here he knew what he was supposed to do. When it was all over, my reaction was this how to work well because we were surrounded by highly professional people. The morning after the tragedy i went down to the bomb site with my wife and i had all these search lines which was busted in half. As josh notes, the Federal Office Building when i first saw that i think it is federal courthouse. The federal judge at the time and i said no but it is even worse because the building was nine or 10 stories and filled with lots of people. That morning i noticed a firefighter coming up the street and he has his coat over walking up the street by himself. I stepped into the street instead thank you for being here because i could tell his uniform was an Oklahoma City firefighters uniform. He stopped in february you. Im the governor of the state. Youd think nice to meet you. He took his finger and stuck it in my chest and kept beating on my chest and he said you find out who did this because all i pulled from the rubble was the childs finger an american flag. He was completely in shock, totally freaked out because we saw all of these kids. It is my conclusion at that time. I was going to be down there making sure that the best males, clean laundry, free anything we would take care of those hundreds and hundreds of people. When the Fairfax County virginia crowd last, a new group would come in and there was a firefighter they are a set hey, everybody took a dollar bill out of his pocket and said see this. Governor, do you know what this is . Im in politics. Thats a dollar bill. He said now, its not in a dollar. Its an oklahoma dollar. A dollar i brought with me that week ago and the same dollar and living with. Everybody laughed. You contrast that to the New York Times who told me we had to pay 5 for a sacrifice. So the lesson there behind the highly competent leadership is treat these people like heroes and we did and they wanted to help. Everybody was dead. We didnt know it at the end of the first day. The recovery operation that looked like a collapse. There is nobody here. We had to knock it down and did people out. Thats not what they did. I was astonished at the willingness of people to do things because we treated them so well. What they mention two other brief point. Before 9 11 there is this thing called dark winter. It is at Andrews Air Force base, sam nunn, senator from georgia at the time was president. I was the visiting governor of oklahoma. I said, no, no, no i was play acting, of course, didnt have a script. I said, its my state, and youre not bringing smallpox out of my state or into my state, where im going to have then we couldnt get any doctors to show up because they thought theyd get smallpox, and guess what . Everybody admitted, the medical personnel, they didnt know what the exercise would be. Doctors and medical professionals dont know what smallpox is because it was wiped off the face of the earth, allegedly, in the early 70s