Good morning. Im the executive director of the center for Immigration Studies and we have done a series of interviews with important players in the immigration issue in congress or the administration and this morning we have senator cotten, junior senator from arkansas, harvard law grad who started as army officer in iraq and afghanistan, on several committees, banking, intelligence, Armed Services but we will talk about immigration, the leader of the immigration issue and before the president raised its profile, i appreciate your giving us some time for a meeting on the hill so we will cut this off at 8 15. My first question is, you are a sixth generation arkansan. Arkansas has attract more, but it is not immigration state but getting involved in this issue to become a thought leader and debate leader. Thanks for the center for Immigration Studies for hosting this conversation and the important work on immigration. Immigration is a central issue for the United States, a lot of countries, touching on so many concerns about prosperity, security, community. I remember before i was in Politics Congress trying to pass in my opinion deeply misguided laws in 20062007. 2007 was the only time ive written to my members of Congress Asking them to oppose that terrible immigration bill so it was an issue of personal interest to me, an issue of such important to our country especially a country like america that has fdr said, locked in the mists of time, a primary focus of mine as well. One of my main accomplishment in the house of representatives was to stop the dreaded immigration bill in 2013 after it had passed in the senate,. About this time of year right before the fourth of july through the month of july, how flawed that bill was, the terrible impact it would have on American Workers and families and communities and the forces behind that bill, since i have come to the senate i tried to focus on performing other aspects of the immigration system, legislation that would revamp ilLegal Immigration system to focus on high skilled workers away from extended families and random lotteries and other matters like that. It initial im passionate about. About your legislation to raise that. You describe you have been interested in immigration before it was cool. In other words, the president made it a high profile issue but you were working on this before it was an issue. It was reintroduced this year. Obviously knowing what it was about, moving immigration away from family connections to get rid of chain migration categories but it would have a reduction to immigration. Probably not as much as some people said. It would be a significant reduction in immigration and the president obviously endorsed it at any event at the white house when you first introduced it. This year repeatedly, we need more immigration, the highest levels ever, you dont seem to have gone along with the program but what are your thoughts . Let me go back to why i first wrote the raise act a couple years ago and what we hope to accomplish. There is no lack of people in congress focused on things like security and enforcement or the Guest Worker Programs, things that are immediate or quick fixes, nothing against quick fixes especially when there are Serious Problems like what is going on at the border but there were not that many people focused on Legal Immigration system and to me that is one of the cornerstones of our immigration system because it is not just how we generate workers for our economy but citizens for our country. We should focus on bringing in new citizens who will contribute to the american story and as i study the Legal Immigration system i realize it was just a mishmash of quotas and set asides and policies that are outdated and no one could explain. Only one of 15 workers comes here because of the skills and job, almost entirely at some point in the past a distant relative made it to the United States somehow or another and even those who do come here because of their employment dont really focus on the deeds of our economy. We have all kinds of set asides quote as in the immigration system that make no sense. We have quotas set aside for foreign lawyers to come to this country. A lot of people talk about we dont have enough but one thing we have enough of his lawyers in this country. So that is why i focused on the raise act looking at the criteria, consulted with experts in australia and canada, and easily administered system so we tried to identify criteria that was simple and straightforward the cant be gained but they contribute significantly to success for new immigrants in this country so age, younger americans, better than older americans, you want people to work and be productive and pay taxes their entire lifetime, their education level and their educational field, things like engineering and mathematics. The kind of job they will have in the local economy. 100,000 wage, it goes farther than in new york city so taking account of those differences, speaking was, one of the most important criteria for success in this country, exceptional skill or talent and whether there are nobel prizewinning physicists or worldclass opera singer or 100 mile an hour fastball pitcher and that can be reset and evaluated every few months. That is why we wrote the raise act, in immigration system that we need. As relates to numbers, the numbers we had in the raise act would decline over time because of reduction in extended family migrations, cant bring and send uncles and cousins and all the rest. By refocusing, there is debate about appropriate number of immigrants in the impact the legislation would have. Once you get the system right, that is an appropriate space for legislative compromise. I tend to think we are at historically elevated numbers as high as we have been since right before the 1924 immigration act, one in 7 americans are foreignborn. Most of those foreigners, low skilled workers, one reason americans with High School Degrees working with their hands and feet all day long have seen their wages suffer for so long. A gradual decline over time while focusing on high School Workers would be beneficial for an skilled and low skilled American Workers but that is an area where the baseline standards for how we are admitting foreign nationals to become citizens the total level of integration is much later compromise. What you described in your raise act did not vastly similar from what we saw with the Barbara Jordan commission, bipartisan commission, bill clinton endorsed the legislation initially and i want to get to the question about todays democrats and immigration. I will word they were more sensible from my perspective, more centrist i guess as opposed to president clinton and Barbara Jordan and others demonstrate. Doing this july 30th and tonight and tomorrow the next round of democratic president ial debates and the Democratic Party seems to have gone bonkers on immigration. The started before Donald Trumps election but it has accelerated, the previous round of debates everyone raise their hand in support of decriminalizing infiltration across the border, they all raised their hand endorsed taxpayer funded medicare for illegal aliens, now congresswoman omar has tweeted demanding taxpayerfunded abortions for illegal aliens which is almost like something Republican Opposition researchers would have dreamed up over a couple years ago on saturday night yet it is a real thing. What is going on with your colleagues across the aisle . You put it well, democrats have lost their minds when it comes to immigration. Barbara jordan, probably wouldnt have agreed on much if we served in congress together but on this she was largely right. A lot of old Democratic Union leaders used to have this view of immigration as well. Democrats to focus less on Kitchen Table issues, what matters to working arkansans when worried about a paycheck to the end of the month or worried about providing with their kids braces for education, they focus a lot more on questions of race, gender, sex, identity, and for them it is or question of identity than economics and security. If you are a rich lobbyist and live in bethesda and live in chappaqua outside new york, mass migrations, immigrants are not here to take your job, giving 200,000es, you dont have to worry about the impact on your local economy. You are not sitting in an emergency room waiting for healthcare, waiting to see a doctor and in the meantime the price of personal services you depends on, child care and housecleaning or landscaping, manicures and pedicures, fusion restaurants as well. The story in bethesda, los angeles, silicon valley, mass migration is an honor lloyd good but in rural arkansas along the border in texas for manufacturing communities in the upper midwest the opposite story but the Democratic Party largely represents those elites on the coast, they dont represent a lot of hardworking communities across the country. It will be interesting, tuning in tonight to see what next thing they will not be doing that, cnn said they will not have hand raising questions because cnn understands the party they represent was embarrassed by the hand raising question. Republican campaign they dont want to hurt their party. Specific issues, senator durbin is expected to bring up the bill for temporary venezuelans. And bringing it up for unanimous consent, whether tps for venezuelans is one that is coming up and some republicans are fleeing a socialist dictatorship but we published results showing informal moratorium on deportation anyway. Only the hardest cases, handful of people deported, and appropriate use of the discretion. My question is what do you think about this issue of tps from venezuelans and more broadly do you think this idea of tps which we are dealing with for salvadorans and others, does the structure need to change . Let me express my sympathy to venezuelans living here, family members or working here for many years, status may be about to expire and let me express my sympathy to venezuelans living under the corrupt dictatorial regime of maduro. This is the kind of situation temporary protected status was created to address, People Living here legally. Cant get it renewed. There education is done but they cant return to their home country safely. There is a famine going on in brutal socialist crackdown or Natural Disaster or what have you. Most americans recognize sensible, sound policy in principle. Thats not the way it is played out in practice over the last 20 years. As you stress, the t in tps stands for temporary. Few things are more permanent and temporary protected status. We have foreign nationals living in our country who got tps protection 10 or 20 years ago when there was a civil war going on in their country and the war has been settled for over 10 years. Ultimately tps is not a way to live in this country permanently and become a citizen. It was a humanitarian gesture so under normal conditions what is happening in venezuela is a candidate for temporary protected status but that is not the commission we live in. The democracy of both parties for decades has been unwilling to send tps status when it should be rescinded now that donald trump has done so, you have leftwing judges basically practicing resistance law that is not letting the president withdraw tps status which is his prerogative under federal law. It is unwise for us to extend more tps protection to other countries when we cant even withdraw it now. If senator durbin or senator menendez would like to include in their bill measures that would overturn those Court Decisions and say the decision to recent tps status by the president , by the political and security is not reviewable in federal courts i would be open to review that, but we shouldnt grant more discretionary status under tps when the president cant even unwind grants of tps status even though the conditions for granted that status have been gone for years. To follow up on that, one of the rescinded status never happened. Have you given thought to reforms to the tps statute itself . One way to do it rather than an affirmative grant or affirmative step the president take to rescind it as donald trump did in 2017, review the status, the affirmative step has to be to extend it again, things like that, if we dont want to send hundreds or thousands of foreign nationals back to a country that has been wracked by an earthquake or hurricanes, they cant process them or socialist hellholes like venezuela but at the same time conditions change and when the civil war is waging when the civil wars over you go back to your country. When the infrastructure has recovered from an earthquake or landslides or hurricanes you got to go back to your country. If you want to stay in this country, theres another legal avenue to stay in the country. Another piece of legislation the senate is likely to deal with is the fairness for high skilled immigrants act. The house past this recently and it would remove the caps in the law in order to ensure certain diverse city so one country doesnt take over the immigration system. This would remove those caps and critics said even though it will not increase the overall level of immigration it doesnt do anything to that, it would bring about the takeover of the whole employmentbased immigration system by people who are waiting for these green cards. You are one of the cosponsors of the bill and i wanted to know what you think your answers are to those critiques, what is the rationale . The fundamental reason i think this is a step in the right direction, a step in the right direction, it moves away from the immigration system we have now to assist in the doesnt care where you come from. It cares what you bring here. That is a step in the right direction. The raise act for those country caps and quotas as well, we want to treat people as individuals no matter where they come from. The practical matter for a few years it would result in significant higher number of powers going to indian nationals but it wouldnt increase total, it wouldnt increase, my of decreased the number of Foreign Workers on an annual basis, new Foreign Workers being added to the economy. The large number of those are here working on h1b visas. As a practical matter they can be extended but im not the biggest fan of those either. As i said it is important we bring new workers into our economy and we will produce new citizens that believe in america or share the american dream. I tell Tech Companies this a lot because they are the beneficiaries of these visas. They come to washington and lobby for it and i dont want give you more h1 b visas. I want to give you more citizens, people who will come here and be citizens and participate in our country and become americans and also have better bargaining positions as relates to lawyers. I understand some employers would rather have an h1b worker than an american citizen because the h1 b worker is almost an indentured servant in terms of bargaining power, ability to ask for higher wages or to leave and go to another country. If you have an american citizen who dont like what they are being paid it is a hot job market they can always take their skills to another company so that would be another positive step in the right direction. The way the lobbyists for Tech Companies referred to that is h1 bs our loyal. It is not just h1 bs. That the case with a lot of guestworker programs and that is why even though my legislation doesnt focus on the Guest Worker Program i would much prefer to have citizens come into this country working as opposed to people who want to come here and work in our jobs and send their money back home and go to their countries as well. Not to say that is never appropriate but theres a lot of abuse in that system and generally american jobs to go to American Workers first and that is one of the benefits and good news stories we have from this economy between an economy that is very strong and an immigration system that is focused more on the needs of American Workers you have for the first time a lot of people coming off the sidelines, the People Democrats say they want to represent that they want to get a fair shake whether they are minority workers or teenage workers or disabled workers or excons, people getting jobs we need done in our society to get off of pipelines. Better to hire those americans whether this tech job or landscaping job then import Foreign Workers. Next question we have cards if you want to write down the question, taking questions from the audience in a few minutes. The administration, the thirdparty agreement with guatemala. Guatemalans the point is the deal at the border crisis where people are using bogus asylum claims as a means of ilLegal Immigration. The details are not really clear yet. We havent found the English Version of the text but part of the arrangement is more guest worker visas to guatemala. Not as a bribe but it is a bribe. What do you think of this idea of quid pro quo to get guatemala to cooperate and more broadly what should we do about this border crisis . We have a border crisis right now because wellintentioned laws and misguided Court Decisions have transpired along with activists in the United States and latin america to drive this bogus and fraudulent claims of asylum to the border. Guatemala and honduras and el salvador have many problems. However, there citizens do not face persecution based on who they are or what they believe that our assignment refugee laws were designed for. We designed the laws, christians from syria. Those are the kinds of people, they are being persecuted for being a woman, worshiping god the way they choose, belong to a certain ethnic or political group. We didnt pacify them refugee laws to alleviate the worlds suffering. Living in a poor country or country that is dangerous is not grounds for asylum or refugee status. If it were we would have to bring 6 billion people to the country. Only the arbitrary fact that those countries are the same landmass as we are has created this crisis in the first place. We need to take immediate steps to resolve the crisis on the border. The president has tried to do that by working with mexico and deploying the National Guard to the border, northern and southern border, mexico, trying to get guatemala to recognize itself as a country. These leftwing obama judges have a hairtrigger anytime aclu or other activist groups come in to file an injunction with no basis whatsoever which we saw overturned by the Supreme Court, that needs to stop. I hope the Supreme Court steps in sooner rather than later and takes a stance against these activist judges and let the president execute the policy he and the department of Homeland Security and attorney general william barr in terms of trying to tighten the standards for asylum, longterm guatemala and el salvador and honduras send fewer nationals here if they were better faces so there are things we can do to help and try to crackdown on crime or information sharing or Technical Expertise and training the fbi or dea can provide them but we have to recognize that is not going to happen next week. Those countries in Central America are not going to become norway next year or next decade. Those are good longterm proposals but we need to take immediate action to stop the fraud. We are all dead so we cant wait for the long run. It is true. We are not the only country facing this but if you look at what is happening in europe over the last 5 or 6 years with the refugee crisis, the Syrian Civil War has generated in the libyan civil war. Europe cannot be a refuge to every Single Person who lives in africa and asia the doesnt have the standard of living europe does, not possible. It is not in my opinion a moral policy to do what Angela Merkel did, if you survive the journey you can come. Encouraging people to make a dangerous journey across the mediterranean through syria, turkey and the balkans or in our case through Central America and mexico. If she wanted to she would send plane after plane to syria and bring all these people back. Shes trying to ameliorate the problem on her border and that is where a lot of democrats want to ameliorate the individual cases, the longterm policy implications of what you were saying. What democrats it in the debate, we will decriminalize, illegally, create a serious felony and pay for your healthcare as well and that is the definition of open border policy. Next month we will have a Panel Discussion on the National Security challenges from large foreign Student Programs and you have introduced the target of legislation on one part of that, students or researchers who are working for, sponsored by the chinese army or intelligence should not be getting student visas. Maybe specifically that, what do you see as the vulnerabilities are large unlimited Student Program created for us . Lets not be naive. The Chinese Communist party purposely infiltrates americas universities and Research Laboratories with agents to try to steal National Security secrets. Not to say every Chinese Student who comes to america is an agent of the Chinese Communist party or Liberation Party but we should always error on the side of National Security as opposed to benefices on behalf of foreign students. One way to handle that is to do thorough background checks for students who come here. Another is to focus on the programs they want to study, Chinese Students at National Laboratory or affiliated institutes, Chinese Students at Major Research universities studying advanced scientific and engineering programs at the department of defense. If Chinese Students want to come here and still you a great books of the western tradition so they can learn more about constitutional democracy and individual liberty i could support that. Is there a broader issue, iranian students, not just chinese but the narrow security is there a broader issue that we are atrophying our own ability to grow our own expertise because theres only so many seats in the lecture hall . That is right and too many universities have become reliant on Chinese Students, chinese money. That is part of chinas deliver it policy. Even if you are not an agent of the chinese government, sending Chinese Students to places like mit or what have you to study Artificial Intelligence or quantum computing, coming back to china and working in chinas industry is better for china than it is for the United States and something we need to be attentive to as well. We have questions from the audience. We talk about the raise act but what are the prospects of some kind of legislation . This congress doesnt seem very likely but is there a realistic scenario for Something Like the raise act to be passed . When i introduced the raise act two years ago it would be a slow and gradual path to build support for it but we added two new cosponsors, growing support from congressman in the house of representatives. I have measured expectations passing major immigration legislation with nancy pelosi in charge of the house, amazing nancy pelosi is in the moderate wing of the party in the house of representatives and with democrats running for president all wanting to decriminalize ilLegal Immigration and get healthcare to Illegal Immigrants. The issue percolates for many years before traditions become rights in congress. Do the yeomans work from daytoday to educate my colleagues and ring them around to our point of view. This is not one of the questions submitted but it occurred to me one of the targeted changes, the rays act as a broad rewrite of the whole Legal Immigration system for one of the things that everybody seems to be four, president obama is for, everybody is for, was mandatory everify in other words, when you hire somebody you you are able to check online, you are already able but you are required to check on whether the person is lying or telling the truth. What are the prospects of Something Like that passing . Because like i said thats targeted, everybody said they are for it and yet it just keeps not happening. This is an example of where you have something of a silent conspiracy between the left and republicans who kind of favor the interests of big business. Obviously everify would make it much harder to employ Illegal Immigrants, and stories about false positives and glitches in the system, those are 15 years old. Everify is extremely easeofuse, very effective. Failure rate is infinitesimally small. Do you use it at your office for hiring . Cis uses it. I have to ask. The point is the kind of thing it is not used, required for government contractors. In fact, we looked at the numbers and it seems the majority of new hires are actually now already being screened through. And the sense its reached a tipping point. Its a selling point. Its already widely used. And i speak to Senior Business executives and industries that do in certain parts of the country rely heavily on immigrant labor like hospitality and they the prickly tell me le think we need more workers, we use everify. We want to make sure every person who works here is legally authorized to be in this country and to work. Part of the reason we do that is because when we say we need more workers we want to be able to say and all of our workers are legal as well. Theres still plenty of employers who would rather not do that, would rather look the other way and benefit from more control, more loyalty as you said, h1b context and lower wages and also people on the left that they are kind of devotion to identity politics dont want to do anything that smacks of internal enforcement. Again last month the democratic debates we saw that not only do they not want to enforce the law against anyone who is in this country illegally where the vaping or 30 years or 30 hours, they also dont want to enforce the border either. This is an arkansas specific question. Walmart is based in arkansas. Do you presumably its an important interest, have they weighed in on immigration issue . Walmart is everify, they are a good corporate employer. Pay a good wage. I think their new wage is up to 11 11 or 12 an hour. Not just in arkansas with that was mandated that around the country. They would like to see an immigration system that works for our communities in terms of the employment practices, there a good corporate good. Heres a question from the audience. In your tenure in office how less attitudes towards enforcement change among your colleagues . I would focus out on how have republican members attitudes changed on immigration issue . Have you seen a shift . The old line is the left wants immigration because the cheap votes and the right wants it for the cheap labor. It seems like theres been more, the consensus has developed and expanded among republicans more that theres been come even those republicans who may be used to be kind of relaxed and lacks on immigration issue have become less so. Is that something you have noticed . The president has affected that to a degree. I would save a long the gentlemans time has expired. To a lot of republicans especially those not intensely focused on immigration issue have always focused on ilLegal Immigration because its the issue that is maybe easiest to talk to voters about an focus on. But it also allows them to focus on ilLegal Immigration system that really rewards large employers in terms of guest workers and lots more green cards that are going to benefit big businesses without benefiting American Workers. We have situations like at the border now that is truly an crisis. I think most republicans do want to solve that. Its just democrats dont. I would look at the enforcement attitudes of about of my democc colleagues. I mean, you know, the model of those bills i opposed not only when i was in houston but just when i was a private citizen goes back to 1986, and it was amnesty and mass migration up front in terms of promises of enforcement. The reason why those bills come one reason why those bills failed is because 1986 bill hill. You got amnesty immediately and, of course, you got the large increase of immigration which a lot of republican constituencies love but you never got the enforcement. Bureaucrats delighted. Congress defunded it. People keep talking about comprehensive immigration reform, which is the code word for the kind of bill, mass amnesty upfront, promise of enforcement later. I dont think you could have that compromise today because the democrats are no longer credible. Theyre raising financing we will he criminalize crossing the border and not Deport Anyone unless they commit a violent felony. I do see how you could even negotiate in good faith and have that kind of compromise with democrats anymore given how radical the attitudes towards Immigration Enforcement have become. Not only is danceable as now the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, president obama is much more in a sense almost a moderate democrat because he obviously understood that dynamic to some degree and early arguments of those a lot of sleightofhand, they do try to make the point theyre committed to they intentionally said repeatedly as a selling point for obama. That Illegal Immigrants would not be eligible for obamacare. Now you have poor joe biden the attack on the stage by democrats who say they deported to many Illegal Immigrants. Just goes to show you how radical the Democratic Party has become on the question of immigration. Congressman wilson who called out, you lie, was proven correct. This is a question on the southern border. What are some of the measures you think we could take in the event of another big caravan approaching the border . The measures the president has taken have maybe had some effect but they havent solved the problem. We will have to see on a monthtomonth basis for the numbers are. They have declined somewhat. I hope thats because of the policy which means its durable and lasting and not just because its hot in june, july and august in the southern border. But some of these policies are still early. They still have to be fully implemented. They still have to be implemented. [inaudible] if a court has enjoyed it. I was encouraged last week by the courts decision to overturn one of his leftwing injunctions in california. I hope and expect department of justice will continue to seek appeals to prevent on his leftwing judges from trying to intervene in places where they have the business. Theres zero role for a federal judge to enjoin a decision between the government of mexico and the United States government about whether mexico will keep more nationals on its own soil. There is zero grants a federal judge to intervene in that kind of decision. Thats part of a broader issue, is this injunctions that District Court judges essentially have veto over not only the executive branch but over every other District Court judge because there were those two doing decisions were one District Court judge upheld the administration policy, the other enjoyed the one who enjoined at one acyclic. So is there a place there for congress to anything since all of those courts i would like to see Congress Passed legislation that would roll back District Court judges and local communities from enjoining laws nationwide. Again thats not even adjudicating the question on the merits. Thats giving an injunction upfront before you even get an adjudication the merits of a particular policy or law. Justice scalia used to say that nine unelected judges in washington ought not be setting critical policy for our country. The out to be interpreting and applying the law. Its much worse now. Now were letting unelected lawyers in San Francisco who nobody is ever heard of set immigration policy for this country. I was heartened by the Supreme Courts decision last week. I hope they act on exeter to deals by the department of justice will continue to send a clear signal that they ought not be trying to set immigration policy from the courtroom. Thank you, senator. I know you have to run. The senate as has important business to do, and i appreciate your getting a short time. We will be posting this to the internet as well to our website, and hopefully we will have you back when the raise act passes. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] if you want more information on members of congress, order cspans congressional directory Available Online at cspan store. Org. Reagan is an intellectual. Hes an intellectual turkeys comfortable with ideas. He understands the power of ideas and with that kind of foundation, the kind of intellectual foundation, a political leader can do all kinds of marvelous things. Author and historian lee edwards will be our guest on in depth sunday from noon to 2 p. M. Eastern. He is the author of just right, plus a collection of biographies of william f buckley, Barry Goldwater and ronald reagan. Join our last conversation with your phone calls, tweets and facebook questions. Watch in depth with lee edwards life sunday from noon to two p. M. Eastern and be sure to watch our live coverage live ce 2019 National Book festival on saturday august 31 on booktv on cspan2. Next, representative mike levin and breadwinners to discuss Veterans Issues and how lawmakers are working to improve services and programs at the Veterans Affairs department. From the American Enterprise institute, this is one hour and 40 minutes. All right. Lets try to get started here. Good morning. Welcome to aei, and welcome to our program today, the value of our veterans, a conversation with mike levin and bread when strip. Im gary schmitt, im a senior scholar here s in strategic studies at the American Enterprise institute and director of the program on american citizenship. Im going to skip the introduction since were trying to pack in quite a bit in the next two hours, less than two hours. So for those joining us here and or online or watching on cspan, if you want lengthier buyers please go to aeis website and go to the link for the events page and you will see everybodys biographies. So it may begin by just giving a quick overview of the proceedings today. From representative mike levin, the recent elected congressman from californias 49th district, a district that runs along san diego to southern Orange County and quite frankly i have a niece that lives out there, im not sure why he decided to move to d. C. , a patriotic act on his part. He is the chair of the subcommittee on Economic Opportunity with the house of Veterans Affairs committee. Following his remarks we will hear from former utterance Affair Committee and the congressman that represents ohio