This is you and you followed for decades. So you really do have some perspective on how things ball. I wonder whether you could start us off with some observations about the degree to which the current era is different from what youve seen in the past or maybe its not different. Maybe it really is what we know which is immigration been contentious throughout our history and maybe this is simply that a version of it. But talk to us about that. Andif theres any observation that you have from what it is weve seen that happen, feel free to share that as well. Somuch for, from andrew and fororganizing this important event every year. Such a fantastic gathering of people who care about the immigration system. Thank you very much. I see some continuities between president from and past administrations, but mostly very start differences. But lets talk about some of the similarities area so border enforcement. I think that the president s rhetoric about a porous border and building the big beautiful wall obscures the fact that border enforcement has been strengthened and fortified with border agents, surveillance technology, military styleequipment , more enforcement since basically the 1990s and particularly under the end of the Bush Administration and president obama. So there is a lot of continuity despite the rhetoric about a porous border, theres a lot of continuity in terms of border enforcement. In terms of internment, i think its always good to remember that by the department of Homeland Security on statistics, president obama deported almost 3 million people. So the history of permanent punitive family separation in the form of deportation is not new with this administration. Theres a legacy there from president obama that i think is possible, impossible to forget aboutin the current environment. I think under president bush, president obama and now congress has failed spectacularly to take on its responsibilities to address the increasingly damaging dysfunction in our immigration system. The immigration system is failing in my view to meet the labor needs of our country, to live up to the United States humanitarian and responsibilities and obligations, failing to achieve social imperative of uniting and preserving and strengthening immigrant families and congress has just been awol on this issue through several administrations so i think its good to remember that and also i think in the absence of congressional actions may be Something Interesting for you, both president obama and President Trump in a very aggressive way have been tempted to use executive power to tinker with the immigration system in the interest of creating more deportation. And generally this kind of executive tinkering, if thats the right word has led to a cascade of unintended consequences and more chaos in the system so the example i would point to, there are many examples of this but the example i would point to is the effort to speed up proceedings for certain people in the immigration courts that started with the rocket docket under president obama and theres a certain law of gravity, of physics in the immigration courts which is when you speed up one case you have to postpone another. This seems to be a basic equation that seems to escape the notice of the executives who want to somehow of these courts deportations done faster. And really all its done is create increasing chaos, increasing backlogs and a situation today where we have more than 1 million cases in the backlog of the immigration courts. Really a catastrophe in the immigration courts. That said am i saying President Trump is, that there continuity for this is somehow more of the same . I am not saying that. This is a radical change and mainly because this president is trying to change the core narrative has animated our immigration policy for almost a century. And he sees immigration as a liability area not a benefit. At minimum, we can say that he regards immigrants and refugees with the session. You could take it further than that i think at minimum we can say that. This is kind of an unabashed nativism, empowered by the full authority of the white house that really we havent, i tried to go back in history and try to remember when we had this particular set of principles governing our immigration policy and i want to just look at a detailed that emerged from this extraordinary story of my colleagues mike scheer and julie davis had last week. I detail in the story that drew less attention than the moat filled with snakes and alligators that the president had proposed but it was that steve miller who was the president s policy advisor, he was seeking to replace francis, frank cisne as the head of us is in check and Immigration Services and those of us in this room familiar with franks record would not necessarily describe him as a softy. But the millers idea was that he wanted, he didnt think the system was doing enough as he put it to change the culture at the United States citizenship and Immigration Services and this is the agency that delivers approval of jesus. This is the agency that when a person qualifies is supposed to put out the welcome mat. Instead what this administration is seeking to do is turn this agency into the agency that protects people , that keeps people out you cant imagine a more profound cultural change philosophical change in the system and i want to cite one example of that, there are many but its one that doris referred to which is the onslaught, systematic dismantling is a ministration about a silent system with respect to the southwest border. So i want to mention briefly what happened here and im probably leaving a few things that former attorney general sessions and the current attorney general william barr have used their authorities over the immigration courts to revise decades of caselaw and shutdown the availability of asylum to specifically to the people who are coming from Central America with claims having to do with Gang Violence and sexual predation. The ministration as sharply limited the discretion. Ability of judges. In the immigration courts for dealing with these asylum systems to give prosecutorial discretion or to exercise its ability with the way they are handling dockets and the way they are handling these cases. The ministration has moved to denied bond asylumseekers and increase the attention of asylumseekers. Administration applied zerotolerance criminal prosecutions or unauthorized border crossings even to people who were intending expressed an intention to seek asylum area the administration attempted to force migrants to request asylum only at ports of entry at the same time that they were as they call it metering people who came to the ports of entry they were restricting access of people to come to the ports of entry and asked for asylum. So some of these things have been subject to legal challenges but im just trying to give you a picture of all the things that have happened here area the administration as we all know as return now some 50,000 asylumseekers to mexico with no support, virtually no provision to provide counsel, no, not even a basic notification system to await their hearings after theyve been served notices to appear. And the ministrationimposed , attempted to put through a rule for indefinite detention of women and families and children seeking asylum and now to, we have a unilateral was essentially a unilateral declaration became mexico a third phase country know mexico is consistently refused to sign an agreement to do that. And this is basically a provision that as far as i can tell is going to shut the system down lately people coming from Central America. So these things have faced Court Challenges but this just gives you a idea, just if were looking at the asylum system, this consistent relentless focus on shutting down opportunities in the immigration system area and so is this different . Yes, this is different. Youre on the ground on this. We stand back and do analysis and look at the read the reports and etc. But your living and breathing it in your reporting all the time so id like you to talk about what it actually feels like down there. What do you see happening with the flows and circumstances at the border now in your reporting. Could this flow and what has been taking place with Central Americans, they have been anticipated to mark out that the government have been so unprepared to deal with a sharp rise in the numbers. And the classic question now that reason, is this a manufactured crisis or isthis , has this been a crisis question mark. The realities on the ground kind of going off what julia said have changed so drastically since may, mainly because of two of the trumpet ministrations most significant policy facts that have unfolded since then that are really keeping all migrants from entering the southern border. And there are also the two policies that have really received the least public attention. Even though journalists and activists have done an exceptional job covering them. The one is a migrant protection protocols which refers migrants to mexico to wait there for the durationof their court date. And as julia mentioned, the policy of metering which limits how many can cross at ports of entry in many cases now only two or three and sometimes none day. So these policies have the most dramatic impact that has not fueled nearly the same type of outrage that we saw with family separation last summer and i think a lot of this because its playing out out of sight, out of mind. But the consequences have really been or if. I was when mpc just expanded i was in a shelter, a Church Shelter when some of the first asylumseekers are returned and this is at the