Democrats agree that voter discrimination is still an issue. You can read the full results of the poll at cspan. Org. Up next, the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services talks about Immigration Trends and problems with deportation of undocumented immigrants. He spoke to reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science monitor. Are we good . You should hed. Im linda feldmann, bure rue chief of the Christian Science monitor. Our guest is Kenneth Cuccinelli and this is his first appearance at a monitor breakfast, so welcome. A bit of background. Born in edison, new jersey, and grew up in virginia where he graduated from uva and then he should a law degree and a masters in International Commerce and policy from george mason university. In 2002 mr. Cuccinelli won a special election to the state senate from Fairfax County and in 2009 he was elected attorney general for the commonwealth of virginia. Mr. Cuccinellis time as attorney general earned him a reputation as a staunch conserve ty which he parlaid into a bid for the governorship in 2013. He lost narrowly but remained engaged in politics, as an adviser to ted cruz, our last breakfast guest last month. In june President Trump appointed mr. Cuccinelli to his current position as acting director of uscis, which brings us back to todays breakfast. Now for the ground rules. Were on the record here, but please no blogging or tweeting, in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is under way. And then when we end at 10 00, theres no embargo, so file away. We will email pictures from this breakfast to all reporters here as soon as the breakfast ends. If you would like to ask a question, please send me a signal and i will call on as many of you as time permits. Now, if youd like to make brief opening remarks, the floor is yours. Well, thank you. Thank you for the invitation. If im not loud enough ator end, its not normally a problem for me, but i guess since im working left to right, please just let me know. And i will speak louder. I appreciate the chance to be with you all. I really dont have a ton to say as an open. I will leave it to your questions. Ive been in my current role for a little over four months. I teach matt that by july i was the senior Immigration Agency head because when mark morgan moved over from i. C. E. To cbp, his seniority stopped and he started over. So but weve worked together as a good team within the department of Homeland Security. We obviously face rather unique challenges, particularly associated with the southern border. That is not all of our challenges. But it does draw resources and it is something of a sign, sadly, of the inaction of congress and addressing some things, including some things that have been left over from the Obama Administration where the Trump Administration has the same position as the Obama Administration. And yet congress will not act on those. So, that leaves us with whatever executive authority exists to operate with and weve been doing that as aggressively as we can, including on the international stage, where the president s tough dee diplomacy has paid dividends for what i think are the best partnerships with mexico and the northern triangle countries that weve seen in, as long as i can remember, on immigration issues. Those continue to develop, particularly with the northern triangle countries. Acting secretary macleanen has been down there quite a bit and has been very aggressive in moving those relationships forward and in turning them into productive not just diplomatic relations but operational relationships. And thats the direction were moving there. So, ill just leave it with that and, linda, just let you go to questions. All right. Thank you very much. I have to ask you. Youre probably expecting this question but i have to ask anyway. Any updates on the dhs job, the job of secretary . I have no updates on that. You dont want to make any news . No. Well, are thats up to you all to decide. No, i dont have anything to add there. When is the last time you spoke with President Trump . Well, you know, those the timing and substance of my conversations with the president , i keep to myself. And whether i have or havent spoken to him on any particular issue is just not something i feel comfortable. Do you speak to him regularly . I do speak to him what i would call regularly. It goes in bursts depending on what we have at a given time but, yes. I want to ask a broad question about Legal Immigration and the economy. Through a variety of restrictions, the Trump Administration has made moves that would reduce Legal Immigration to the United States. Youve got the october 7th rule i guess it was a proclamation requiring immigrants to prove they can afford health care being grand a visa. You have the low even lower refugees admission cap, the new rules around public charge, which was supposed to go into effect. At the same time there are a lot of bluecollar jobs in this country going unfilled, hotels, home health aids. Niece are jobs immigrants could take and do take. Why reduce Legal Immigration and take potential workers out of the labor force . Well, lets get the whole picture first. Uscis deals with Legal Immigration. The other two immigration components are i. C. E. , which does removals, and cbp does all the trades and customs and also border protection. This last fiscal year we naturalized more citizens than the entire last decade. And the year before that, under this president , we naturalized over three quarters of a million. This year its 800some odd thousand. Last year was threequarters of a million which was higher than the previous five years before that. Theres been no slowdown in the on the Legal Immigration side, per se. The president has made no secret of the fact that he believes the American Immigration system, first and foremost, is set up to work for america. That means economically and for the people here and to do that, we put out invitations and offerings to people from around the world. Along the lines that Congress Puts in the law. And the agencies make adjustments to those within the boundaries of the law as we go along. One example in the employment space is the h1b regulation change that took effect before i came into the administration. But that has upped the percentage of masters degree candidates. Not candidates but holders, who are coming in via that program. And that is a proxy for more economic value from that program. There is a lot of pressure in various sectors to utilize more immigrant labor for employment, whether its hightech or lowtech. Various parse of the economy. You mentioned bluecollar jobs being in the middle of that. I would say really the longterm solution for that isnt on the horizon until the Immigration Reform that the president has talked about passes and we restructure our immigration system to prioritize exactly what youre describing as the employment side of immigration right now. Were right now as a country, our immigration system and the proportions humanitarian, which is higher than employment the last couple of years, both swamped by family immigration, is sort of not quite the reverse but nearly the reverse of what most of our allies around the world have productively used and the australians in particular are happy to talk to you about what they did in the 90s and how it benefitted their economy and they filled those slots. And so theres only so much were going to do by regulation and rule without congresss participation. But nobody expects congress to do anything on this any time soon so it really is a matter of executive discretion, right . Just because Congress Wont act doesnt mean the executive branch has more legal authority. You know, we do what we can do consistent with the president s policies and he is also made clear its important to him to protect Organization American workers and to not displace them. Is there some perfect target point in every industry . Maybe there is but were never going to be able to know it. So, which side do you error on . He has repeated emphasized how important it is to protect u. S. Workers. Now, hes been clear with me as well that, you know, and you all have heard him say it, he wants to see Economic Growth and di dynamism, and that means growing companies needing to fill slots. Were in a constant battle. Were making hard have make some improvements that were that we think are within reach theres more to come . There is more to come, yes. Can you give us any hints on what youre looking at . Obviously, youve heard the president talk about reform legislation overall and im also hearing about conversations about meaningful bills with coalitions already in place on capitol hill that are in subject areas that the administration would be interested in working with hill members on and, so hoping to see some bipartisan movement on that front because none of this passes in the law on either one side of the aisle or the other. There has to be some agreement. Thats the history in immigration. You mentioned public charge not going into effect. Its worth looking at that law which was passed in 1996 on a wildly bipartisan basis. And it was so uncontroversial, it went through the senate, if i remember correctly, on a voice vo vote. Bill clinton signed it. None of those administrations have put the rules in place for how to implement the public charge piece of it, which were working to do and now working through the courts to make happen. That was a very bipartisan undertaking. That was the common history politically of immigration, i think, until a few years ago its become a lot more political sized. All right. John from news max to your right. As a followup on that, general, and then my other question. Number one, can you give any examples of where the administration has reached out to democrats on specific immigration legislation . My second question is, has there been any discussion within your office of naturalizing the citizens of the territories becoming american citizens, say, from puerto rico . You havent had any discussions on that since i arrived. So, thats your second question. Tell me your first question again. Could you be specific about any legislation oh, oh, right. So, the white house takes point on all the legislative issues. I certainly help them out on the ones that fall within our area and all of the employment ones do and they all touch uscis in one way or another. So, im involved in that. But its really i dont want to get out ahead of the white house. I know they have had discussions with folks on both sides of the aisle. But the specifics of who they talked to, i dont know, john. I just know theyve had those discussions and theyve taken some feedback. And ive seen adjustments made. I dont know the connection between particular conversations and adjustments that i anticipate being made. So, i cant really make those connections because im not involved in those conversations directly. Steve dinan from the washington times. Two questions. Have you patched things up with Mitch Mcconnell or what is the relationship with the majority leader in the senate who made those comments, im sure you saw . And birth right citizenship, the president seems intent on doing this. Is there any action on that and you as a former attorney general, whats your position on the executives ability to take action on that . So, other than being in a couple of meetings with the Senate Majority leader hasnt been a lot of interaction there. If you look back at his comments, not surprisingly, given that i led the Senate Conservative fund, not one of his favorite organizations, which may be the understatement of the breakfast so far, but his concerns were political. And, you think, i think i dont know how he would answer but i think an objective observer would note that i havent engaged in any of that political realm since ive taken this role. When i take a job, i take it with the intent of doing it 110 . And when i signed on to scf, i helped Freedom Works as well fighting regulations. I did that work at a with a pedal to the metal. And when i left those roles and took on my current one, i left those roles and i have done the job im in now to the 110 left. And havent been engaged in any of the kind of political pugilism that goes on that scs advances in the political campaigns primarily. So, i dont know whether his view has changed but certainly what ive been doing now is months removed from those comments youre referencing. Hopefully and i know different people have different opinions on my body of work in my current role. But the work ive been doing is what i ask to be judged on. I think weve been doing a good job. Thats what i would ask those folks to be judging me on. And met with some of them yesterday, expect to talk to them again today. But not the Senate Majority leader. Talking about senators you met with . Yes, yes. [ inaudible question ] i havent in my capacity, i havent looked at what executive authority we have to move on that without congress. I dont know the answer to your question. Other than to acknowledge that its an open question. But havent really reviewed it any to give you a substantive answer. Wouldnt we need to amend the constitution to change that, if thats what it is . I dont think so. The question i think really is steve was getting at is a question, can Congress Legislate in the area i should say, is it required if youre going to act in that area that Congress Legislate versus can the executive take steps on its own. And i dont know the difference between i dont know the answer to your question. I do know the answer to your question and i at least i have a belief on it. I do not believe you need an amendment to the constitution. I think the question is, do you need congressional action or can the executive act on their own. Anita kumar from politico. You mentioned a couple things at the top about legislation. I couldnt quite hear what you were saying regarding that. Im wondering what happened to, for lack of a better term, Jared Kushners proposal on meritbased immigration. We keep hearing every couple of weeks its going to come out. I havent seen language. Do you support that . Is that gone away now . Are you going to campaign for President Trump . I cant. On volunteer time you can. Im cesars wife on this stuff. My understanding of dhs is were more hatched than other people. Im new. The federal government was a different world in virginia. And i approach all that extremely cautiously. My understanding is i cannot do that. And to your earlier that was your second question. Tell me your first again. Jared kushners meritbased plan. You have been involved in the discussions. I cannot speak to timing but your question about whether i support what theyre doing there, i very much do. And im looking forward to seeing that final product come out. I think it is easy and common in the policy arena for people to say what theyre against. But its important to stake out what youre for. The president is determined to do that. Hes charged with helping jared, as you know, hes to do that. That is work weve spent time on in our agency. And i look forward to that. Whats the delay, though . I dont have an answer to that. I dont know the answer. Raphael bernall from the hill. Going back to the politics, a lot of you are in acting roles, from the secretary downwards. From the inside, how much does that hurt your potential for action to be able to enforce President Trumps policies and do you want to answer that and well get to the second one . Sure. I dont think it hurts at all really. The practical effect ive been asked variations of this question before and what matters in the working arena is the work. That sounds simple but whether im in an acting capacity or not doesnt really affect that. The practical affect, not to ignore any of it. I gave you my joke with mark morgan and matt albines. Theres sort of a time and Service Element that there is benefit to being in a department or role longer. Kevin mcleanen brought years and years of service to the acting secretary role. By way of example. And, you know, it isnt that there arent other benefits. We coming from the outside, i think i have changed how uscis operates and some of the culture there pretty quickly. Thats a benefit. But there are tradeoffs to both. But in terms of getting work done, i have not experienced a problem either being in acting nor with working with fellow acting directors or commissioners. And now that macaleenan is leaving, theres a role about who is the next Senate Approved that can show up. I think its tsa administrator. This entire table could correct me if im wrong. Doesnt that limit the political side of naming the next secretary when you have the have the limitations of Senate Republicans who have experienced for instance, they dont they havent supported your candidacy so far. How do you pick whos next . First, my interaction with the senators, i havent had a problem interacting with any of them in terms of getting work done and with respect to the ill calm them sort of federal employee laws or governing who can do what, honestly, i have resisted diving down into that and using up valuable brain Storage Space on things like that. And from my perspective, i leave that to the white house to work out and rely on them to do that. I really dont have i havent looked at it and i am the farthest thing from a federal law employment expert. I do management, regulatory law. I can go through a lot of things and a lot of detail, but the rules surrounding the kind of succession youre describing are not one of those things i can dive deep in with you. Camilla of d. C. Roll call. Thank you. Theres been a few reports about the fact that they can training cpb officers to conduct silent interviews. Is this a longterm solution, apprehension numbers are signaling theyre going down. How are cbp officers being trained . First of all, weve trained, i want to say, 60 up to this point. And three classes. There might be a fourth in process. I cant remember exactly. As a former attorney general, i have a lot of Law Enforcement interaction. Litd let me give you a comparison i found surprising. Its not uncommon for a Law Enforcement officer to do line training. For instance, Mental Health training, they can spend a week doing that. Active shooter training. They can spend three days doing that, meaning theyre pulled off the line to do these kind of trainings. The classroom apart of our training for Border Patrol agents is three weeks. For every Border Patrol agent ive talked to, its far and away the longest, most thorough inservice training, my term, not theirs, of their entire career. And they are deployed both in person by the Border Patrol and by phone because credible fear interviews and some other things can be done by phone, can be done remotely, and i do expect that to continue. Thats really more up to the Border Patrol. We are perfectly willing to do the trainings and practicum. Part of it is a week where theyre doing interviews with oversight, so forth, handson. And, of course, theyre trained in making legal decisions already as Law Enforcement officials particularly in the roles theyre in at cbp. So its not like a new subject area to them. Its just a new element of it. And i do expect to see more of this kind of crosstraining. I would look backwards for part of my answer all the way back to when ins was one agency. I think breaking ins up into three agencies, and, of course, there are other shifts that happened. Trade being one example. Was a mistake. I say that just bureaucratically, structurally as a manager. We work intimately with i. C. E. And cbp, and agencies as agencies make their own decisions, so to some extent we grow apart over time. And that creates or we can, and that creates communication and operational challenges. The kind of crosstraining you and i are talking about would have been thought nothing of under ins but now were two different agencies and so it looks at least different, and it is from the last 15 years. And were trying to build those kinds of connections back up again, both at an i. T. Level and at an operational level. This is one very important piece of that. And its been, to my mind, very successful. I dont know whether mark morgan would say its been very successful. I think he probably would. But from our perspective, its been a successful partnership. Just a quick followup. When you say oversight, is there someone supervising cbp alle lie while conducting theyre interviews . For their initial interviews, yes. And, you know, its not practiced. Theyre real. But its done with close oversight. And not surprisingly we borrowed from the training we used for our own onboarding of asylum officers and tailored it to Border Patrol situation. So once they are once they leave that three to five weeks, two weeks of reading, two weeks of classroom, environment, they operate like anyone else in our agency doing credible fear interviews, for instance, but those are always under supervisory oversight. I dont mean somebody else on the phone with them but the case is reviewed typically. At the end of the table, i dont know your name. Of course, san francisco. I have two questions. I wantedcourse. And so i wanted to follow up on that and switch to another subject. You mentioned that in your view the concern is that because you are two separate agencies, but the criticism is that the asylum interview is not designed to be an adversarial interview, and the officers have a role of apprehension and asylum officers are for a different view which is taking people who have been traumatized in their home countries and putting them in a situation that is at least and the concern is that you have two different agencies working on the same thing, but you have a completely illsuited role being switched. So i am wondering if you could respond to that criticism as poe opposed to being a bureaucratic issue . Yes. We are told they are to perform in the same role as an asigh lu asylum officer when they are doing this. And so a lot of this is done remotely by phone. And so the other participant, they know the name, and they hear the voice, but they dont have any idea for most of these that they are even dealing with a Law Enforcement officer. So that, almost cant come into play for most of the situations. They are not, and it is let me put it in the affirmative. In this role, they are stepping in, in the same way as asylum officers would doing credible fear interviews and performing the function in the same way. So, i understand and appreciate the concerns, but we think that the training that they are getting is very thorough, and their performance of their role has been done on a very professional manner. So, we really dont have any complaints, and of course, the supervisors give them suggestions and just like a supervisor would for any person for whom they are responsible in terms of the casework to help them to improve and do a better job, but that is not unique to the Border Patrol agents participating in the advisory, because asylum officers do that for the asylum officers, and so it is not a problem in the Practical Impact and i understand that people may have the concern, but in the real world, we dont see it playing out. And then switching to another topic, as i am suhuure you know that many of us watch your twitter feed which is different from other government officials, be one of the things that we see there is that you have engaged on i. C. E. Mission, and cpb mission, and historically, it had been sort of the visagranting agency as opposed to necessarily an Enforcement Agency and really saw itself that way was under the administration starting with your predecessor and now under you, there is a much heavier focus on rooting out fraud, but also carrying out the enforcement from the cbp and i. C. E. And why you are so engaged with the other missions, and the redirection there. So, it is a good question and a couple of points about it. First of all, my predecessor francis sisna focused on the vision level of the question of who is the customer. You know, we are not a dmv issuing something to someone who comes to the window. We are first constituency of service is the American People and not actually most of the immigrants coming. We serve the American People by conducting the immigration business fairly, efficiently, et cetera, and doing all of those things as well as we can, and a focus for me has been that we are a vetting agency before we are a benefits agency, and that is a cultural question within the agency. Im a strong believer as a manager in the importance of the corporate culture. We have about 19,000 people at any given time. And we are authorized for over 20,000. So, i am never going to meet all of those people, right. Even in the Attorney Generals Office of 450 people, maybe i met all of them by the time i was done there, but it is a slowgoing process, and so how do you structurally manage an organization that big and align the culture with the mission . Those are things, and why francis asked the customer question, and that is why i emphasize the vetting piece that i do. I noted to you, you know, the tenyear high of the citizen grants which beat last year which is 750 million and more than five years before that. And so there are things that we are doing quicker, faster and were adjusting. And the visa grants are down. But some of them are down and some of them are up. I grant you that a lot of the resources are drawn away from the traditional visas. The way it is operating is worth noting that it is more like a business than federal agencies. We are 96 defunded and we can carry money over year to year like a business, but the result of that is that we are not in the appropriations game, and we dont just go to congress and say, hey, give us xmoney so we can do more of this or that, and we have to operate within our boundaries, and people dont pay for asylum and refugee and incredible fear and reasonable fear, and all of that is free. And so, to them. So that means that the fees coming from all of the other Immigration Services covered that cost. Which is it supposed to be that way and that is not anything new, and congress set us up that way a long time ago, but what it does mean is that when we have a pull on the resources like we have with the southern border crisis, it does inhibit our ability to do other things, and for instance, we are in a hiring surge right now, and we are in a hiring surge in the asylum portion of the agency. That is the only place where we are on a hiring surge, because we have a 340,000plus case backlog there. And we are determined to try and get at that, but until the numbers, and until we have the numbers coming across the border to the point where we are completing more cases than we are getting each year which is not the case for a number of years now, we are not going to be able to knock that number down. We wont be able to get at the backlog, and true backlog where over half of the caseload is over two years old. That is something that i am very determined to try to attack, but until we can see these numbers keep going down at the border, we will have a hard time knocking the overall number down. That affects a lot of things that we do. And so, i believe that i have seen some tweets from you that are on our volunteer force. And dhs is acting opponents to deal with the work at the volunteer basis. We are still doing that and to a limited extent when we crossed the fiscal year and some of it change and dropped. So, but you know, that is the kind of focus that we have to have as an organization, and we are part of the department of Homeland Security and it is not just the immigration components that are asked to do that and the coast guard has been spectacular in providing medical support, and the tsa has sent a lot of people as volunteers, and we are part of that and it does draw us away from the other tasks, and i dont deny that. We are trying to modernize, and it feels, and i have to say, a little silly in 2019 to be talking about finally going to Electronic Filing for everything in terms of at least opportunities, but that is what we are in the midst of. I am hoping that we will have all of the forms capable of Electronic Filing by early calendar year 2021, and i know that the internal target is still the end of 2020, and i am a pessimist or a realist, and depending how you want to look at that, and so i think that is going to slip a little bit. As we get some of the pieces in place, and then integrate them with the rest of the systems, we will be able to speed things up. And i mean, we are literally still a paperbased agency overwhelmingly, and that is, you are pecking away on the laptops, but you are not sitting there with typewriters, and it is hard to imagine an agency that still has to call out to missouri and say, hey, send me this file, and it comes in the mail. But that is how we are operating on the overwhelming proportion of the workload. And in my own mind, i think that in terms of desperately trying to move away from that, because we are going to become a better and more efficient agency, and do better analysis, and so will you, and i mean, Better Administration available to just look at the work that is being done, and to consider the policy implications and all of those kinds of things that frankly are an overwhelming task when you are a paperbased agency. All right. And sorry, could we we have a lot of yes. I just view, if i will just comment briefly, i view us as being incorporated and mark morgan said jokingly in one of of the meetings that we are at. And nobody knows the difference and you all here at the table know the difference, but the ordinary americans cannot name the eight component agencies of the department of Homeland Security, and they cant necessarily name them, and here you are asking about the i. C. E. Stuff, it is ordinary americans to whom i am trying to communicate dont know nor do they care about the difference. They care about what is being done and not being done and is it being done well and fairly and those kinds of questions, and we try to address that at the metalevel in some of the communications with including a little fun through twitter. So we have a lot of people who have questions and about 20 minutes the go. All right. I will be shorter. One question each. And your name . Claire hanson. From u. S. News. I wanted to ask about the northern cooperative agreement, and can you give us more details about those, and the more recent ones signed with el salvador and honduras, and are they going to be eventually used to send the Asylum Seekers back to those countries and can you give us a update on the status of those agreements . Well, i dont know if i can give you any more details on the agreements themselves, but i can talk about the operational efforts being made in cooperation with those countries which are going on continuously. And very diplomatic from that standpoint. And so we are not only going to bring our own expertise to the table, but we are engaging unhcr in this effort and their expertise of doing this all around the world of building capacity for asylum, and refugee work of course as their name suggests. And they are deeply involved in it as well. And assessments are being made of the capacity of each of the governments to carry the responsibilities under these agreements, because we will not proceed operationally with them if that box is not checked so to speak, and if they are not able to demonstrate their ability to carry this, which leads to your last question or last part of the question which is the answer is yes. The point of these is that if people seeking asylum come to the u. S. Border, and they are amenable based on the agreement with each country, and each country different, then they would be then sent for asylum consideration to one of these three countries, and that when all three are in place. I mean, they are not going to all come on line at the same time, and for clarity sake for those who are not following it, i will use guatemala for example. The ga wau uatemala agreement i online and they will not be going back under that agreement, but the el salvadorans would be going back under that agreement, and guatemala does not seek asylum in their own country, but the International Consensus of dealing with refugees and asylees has always been that you try to deal with the problem as close to home as possible, and this is consistent with that theory and obviously other implications for us in the southern border given the massive rush from the triangle. And now from the washington examiner, paul. And now, we are in the county where the sanctuary efforts in the county have allowed some of the illegal aliens who have gone on to commit some terrible crimes, and is the situation of the sanctuary cities for the counties or the state Getting Better or worse . What can you do about it . Well, there is no single element to it. I mean, with the 10th amendment, states and localities have a substantial range of decision making, but it is not without consequences as you note, paul. Some of the people, and Montgomery County had a nineweek string there where they had basically a Sexual Assault a week by a deportable alien, and some of them, and these are the preventable ones, repeat participants in the Montgomery CountyJustice System, and those are the preventable crimes. And i mean, as you noted, there were two children sexually assaulted and i mean, attempted murder, and it is just if it did not happen and we were talking about it afterwards, people would say, you are being hyperbolic, but here it is. And the consequences are terrible and the one and only excuse that i hear from any of the localities is to preserve the community and interests from fear within the community. And let me tell you that i have worked on criminal Justice Reform for many, many years and i know the statistics about crime, and one of them is that pick your type of criminal by Race Ethnicity and however you want to do it, and the statistically they most victimized people like themselv themselves. And so whether it is black, white, hispanic orati asian, th most likely victim of crime is black, white, hispanic or asian, and the most clear point is that it is just an excuse. So if you want to keep the community safe, you want to remove the criminals from the community. I. C. E. Is going to give them an opportunity to do that, and they decline for political reasons, and they have the Political Freedom to do that, but again, it is not without severe and tragic consequences, and a lot of the reporters engaged, well, their rate of crime is no higher than this or that, and i dont even engage in that discussion, because you are talking about literally crimes that never should have happened in this country, because there are people who are upon the first interaction with the Justice System should have been deported after the punishment for whatever it is that they initially encountered the Justice System as a criminal, and we would not have the later crime, and the later victims and unfortunately, and [ inaudible ]. Not nothing, but you need high level engagements and you need criminal action on some of the cases, and this is one area where i would say that hasnt fared as well in court as i would have liked necessarily. It is not a regulatory arena, but it is who has a dispute, and we do take the things into account. I certainly used the twitter account to point out to Police Officers in these departments that there is a tip line they can call, and confidentially, and identify the deportable aliens themselves, without being identified themselves, and as we saw in Fairfax County, some of the counties will take action against the officers who are strangely enough attempting to enforce the law at the federal level. Mark trumball from the monitor. The policies are favoring the more educated immigrants coming at a time when the world has a lot of refugees and Asylum Seekers and not just to america, but worldwide. Do you think that there is a risk of backtracking through the policy on americas tradition of the beacon of hope and land of opportunity that anyone can come and make a better life for themselves and with the public charge in particular many of the safety net programs in america are for not just nonworking people. People often have a job, and qualify for those programs, and so i am just interested in your thought on whether its fair to shift the policies so much towards the educated. So there is a few different elements in there, and one, even with, you know, we have been having recent discussions of the refugee numbers in the coming year, and that humanitarian relief is the same Legal Standard as asylum, and it is a question of whether we picked them up from the system outside of the country or at the borders inside of the country, and the United States is granted permanent resolution to with more of the people last year than the next three countries combined by a lot. We continue to provide the most money and the most longterm permanent relief in the world. Our position is as the number one most generous country in the world is not under any risk under President Trump, and we have continued that tradition, and the president i know is, you know, he is aware of that and he takes it seriously, and i would note, you know, similar to our earlier discussion with the anticipation of the refugee number under 30,000, and right now the draft proposal is on 18, and the same people who work the refugee cases as asylum case, and under the umbrella, they will be working on the same umbrella, and some of it on the refugee side than the asylee side, and so from our position, this is the being the most generous country in the world is not at risk. The focus and i used the h1b as an example of the Educational Attainment to drive the economic benefit to the United States of that portion of the immigration. On the public charge piece, you know, we have this 140 or so federal tradition of maintaining selfsufficiency, and thousands and thousands of potential immigrants have been turned away under it on the 140 years of that history. The most recent it eiteration a people like Chuck Schumer and steny hoyer voting for the law, and then the Clinton Administration put in rule to follow and the Bush Administration did not put out a rule and the Obama Administration did not put out a rule, and we have done that. It is complicated in part because of the growing complexity of the modern welfare state. And being a public charge in 1882 meant something very, very different than today. Today it is somebody who is likely to go on welfare under the rule, and back then it was a burden on the Community Organizations that carried the load of the social safety net of the time, and it is the same legal tradition, but very different ways that the burden can land on us. So, to a certain extent, we intend it to send the message of we expect Family Employment and it does not apply to the refugees and the asylees and so forth, and it is going to have an impact when we work through the court cases however long it may take. But it is telling to see some of the language of some of the judges. It reads more like, a hotly written oped by a political activist than a legal decision by a neutral law abider. I am thinking of michelle down there who had the quote from one of the new york judges that i am thinking the of as i say that. It is really going to look like we are engaging in activism than making a neutral legal decision and just because it is complicated does not mean it is illegal. We are setting the boundaries of the law to set the standards to be enforceable by the immigration officers and when we are to that point i expect it to add to the core value of selfsufficiency. And now, over to you, joel. We are getting to hear a case on daca and does this Administration Want to deport the Daca Recipients . Well, the president was having discussions with the members of Congress Last year, and they seemed to have stopped. I fully expect that to recommence as we close in on november 12th, the date of argument for that case. And that law is found to be as illegal as president obama said it was over 20 times before he signed it. So it is going to depart the legal world. And so they are going to be here illegally and however they came, they will be joining the ranks of millions in that circumstance, but i rather expect to see some discussion at the congressional president ial level of that. I think that the president has sort of publicly signaled that he is willing to do that. As have members of congress on both sides of the aisle. So i think that you can see some movement in that direction and i would not want to get out in front of that. And a quick follow, what if there is no deal, then what . Then if they are in the same pool if m. I. T. Is correct, the 22 Million People here illegally, they dont have orders against them, but they are not here with legal presence and they are under the same legal potential as the others in the state. There is a little bit over a million removal orders already in place for people in the country, and so those are the ones that ice operations go to remove. It is not that they are starting a case, but they are finishing one, and starting those typically, and so i. C. E. Has the top of the priority list, the illegal criminal aliens and people not in that circumstance are in basically with the rest of the pool of the approaching 20 Million People. All right. Molly otoole from los angeles times. Thank you. How do you answer the concern from some of the asylum officers, the unions that represent the Law Enforcement officers and the usdaid personnel and we have seen some of the briefs and there are concerns that many of the policies that are being handed down by the Trump Administration particularly targeting asylum, whether it is protocols to remain in mexico or the rule of the thirdworld country bars or whatever it is being called these days, and how do you address concerns that it is illegal and that they are being ordered to implement policies that are illegal given that you have emphasized in this talk that you do believe that there are boundaries to executive authority when it comes to immigration. Given their fair stance that these are contradictions. Well, they are in direct contradictions or we would not be utilizing them. And, you know, the last administration implemented policies that they believed in and were within believed within the boundaries of the law, and we are doing the same thing, and we have 19,000 people who work with the uscis and i dont expect any two of ous to completely agree on all of this. But i do expect that when the professional employees of uscis will implement the policies in place, and we of course when the courts say that we cant go down that path, they know very well, because they have been suddenly stopped from undertaking particular courses of action in their professional duties that we stop doing that. But they are part of the executive branch and so as long as we are in the position of putting in place what we believe to be the legal policies that have not been found to be otherwise, we fully expect them to implement them vigorously and sincerely. And so it is 9 59, and can we squeeze in one more . Yes,ly do one m li will do o and your name . Erin from the national journal. I wanted to ask about the National Proclamation of the visas with the Health Insurance and the medical costs and how do you plan to assessing that, and there have been a lot of the questions of implementation and what that will look like. Sure. So that is going to be largely implemented by the department of state. So within our agency, obviously, well abide by that as well, but i would make one statistical point and i keep jumping over to the left side of my brain, but as much attention at the border and i have talked about it today, that of the millions of people here illegally, most of them did not come across the border illegally, but they came here legally on the visa and then illegally stayed. And so, that is, thats been true for a long time in terms of the numbers. I dont know how the last couple of years play out on that, but in the balance of the people who are here illegally, that is still a majority. The president does not want us in a position where we could be caught carrying the burdens of people who are either visiting or doing business here or doing all of those kinds of things. And so, a policy which i wholeheartedly support. In terms of implementation, when we see the requests for extensions, that is more likely where we will see it. Well design guidance that seeks proof of insurance from folks who are here legally as they have been seeking the extensions to stay with my example. That is how we would do that. You know, that is all in process to prepare for now. Well, thank you very much for coming, and sorry for those who didnt get their questions in, and i hope that you will come back some time. I would be glad to. Pleasure. Thank you, linda. All right. Cspans campaign 2020 coverage continues. Today at 6 00 p. M. Live on cspan, Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall in norfolk, virginia, and Live Saturday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, senator Bernie Sanders at a bernies back rally. And watch any time on cspan or cspan. Org and listen wherever you are using the free cspan radio app. Facebook ceo and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg testifying next week about the companys libre cryptocurrency. That is going to live here on cspan3 wednesday at 10 00 a. M. And you can also listen with the cspan. Org or listen free with the cspan radio app. Up next, the House Committee on the modernization of congress is heard from congresswoman anita lowey, and this is held before congresswoman lowey announced she is going to retire from Congress Following this term. The committee will come to ord