Transcripts For CSPAN Capitol Hill Hearings 20130731

Start a business that has been successful employing about 200 people and i have paid millions of dollars in taxes. I am not unique. I am just one of many people out there who have done this once given the legal status. The legal status of one who has paid the price that many of us have had to pay and a lot of us are currently paying deserve the opportunity to be american, the opportunity to be part of this country because the contribution continues to be made. From that perspective, my experience is one that i hope we will see repeated many times over as this process continues and below passes as we hope will be the case. We mentionhe things that when we started off is that our view of citizenship has changed in this country over the years. I know you touched on this in your research. We were talking before this panel started about the idea of a statute of limitations on lawful presence in this country. There used to be that at one point. You could be here unlawfully but you would only be for a certain amount of time and that statute of limitations would pass. If you can tell us a bit about that and how that informs the debate today. Most people dont know this before the 1920s, from the late 19th century through the 1920s, if you were here unlawfully, depending for what reason, between onefive years, theres a statute of limitations. Even after restrictive laws were passed to the 1920s and you had the beginning of illegal immigration people dont realize is that before there were restrictions, there were really no illegals. Everybody was legal or almost everybody was legal. Even after restrictions were passed and you start to see a growth in the number of thecumented people, both department of labour which is responsible for immigration and even the Justice Department later passed down a ways to legalize peoples status because they understood you cannot have an accretion of People Living in the shadows. Even though there was no more legal statute of limitations or executive agencies, they found ways to legalize people. I want to add that mostly they legalized people from europe who were undocumented. This goes back to the question of race. Racism has always been a part of how citizenship has taken different forms for different groups of people. Secondknow the phrase class citizenship comes out of that. After slavery. In my book, i talk about a concept called alien system or alien citizenship. Byill illustrate that to you way of a personal story which ensure every person in this or of asian descent knows this story. You meet somebody and they say where are you from. Jersey. , i am from new they say, no, where are you really from . In their mind, i am not a citizen. I am a foreigner because i am of asian descent. That is a legacy of a long period of exclusion policy where asians were barred from entering the country and barred from naturalization. That that not end until the 1950s. These things have a Lasting Impact of even though i was born in this country and my parents who were immigrants naturalized, they can after world war two, there is still a lasting thisral the fact were to day, Asian Americans the assumption is that everyone is a foreigner. The same goes for latinos and mexican americans even though the majority of people of mexican descent in this country are not immigrants. And certainly not illegal immigrants. 1 3 of mexican born people in this country are naturalized citizens. There is a racism involved where there is an assumption that every person of mexican descent is illegal and that is not true. That is the power of this kind of thinking. A legalcitizenship has meaning which we should not underestimate the importance of the legal status of citizenship. Votehing is the right to and two, the right not to be thrown out of the country. Those of the only two things that legally citizenship makes a difference. Those are not trivial matters. Every person in this country whether you are a citizen or not as subtle rights under the constitution. That is also very important. Discussion,rnings if one thing we cant take away is that historically, immigrants have always been able to become citizens. In, work and if you naturalize you can. The one exception was asians and then people here without status. Youlegalize people now but deprive them of the last step, the right to make the last step to full citizenship. We will create a different kind of country where you will have a permanent secondclass corporate people. I think that is a very dangerous road for us to go down. That is something of like to throw out there to which every one of the ones to answer. We haveuestion of this Immigration Reform bill and the senate that passed this june. That would create a pathway to citizenship or to a green card the would end up taking citizenship 13 years and theyre talking about in the house a bill that would take 15 years. Is there a point where these kind of extensions and delays for citizenship become a second class citizenship in itself . If someone said 30 years, would that suddenly be a problem . How we draw the line . Have we already overstepped it with legislation that is out there . Think about the people that are 6065. Does that mean for them . 60 and you are adding 15 years and youre 75. I think thats where this marriage of the paper itself and what it means, being able to vote, being able to have certain rights that citizens have. And those that have to wait and then period come into play. In my mind, it is a little bit scary that this debate has become about that how long somebody should wait, this punishment and reward system that has been put into it. It is not a debate about humanity and it is not a debate about wanting to welcome people into the country and wanting to have a system that works so you dont have 11 million People Living in the shadows. Theied not to get into debate and i try to talk about the merits of being able to give people the ability to show it is allegiance but also their integration, the full integration into the country. That is, to me, what citizenship is. A lot of the people who are green card holders do not become citizens but they are still part of the country, they are still part of the nation, they are still contributing members. Time that has been given, 1315 years, is just part of a false sense that we have where we want to punish people for doing the wrong thing and want to make sure that people feel the punishment and that we dont look at youre touching giving away things are giving handouts to people. People have to learn. It is this self righteous kind of mentality. I see it in politicians every day when they are deciding and creating leesburg laws which they feel so holloway. They dont realize that these law reasons the change. 100 years ago in 1920, just prior to that. I am actually thankful for all of you for being here and that we are having this discussion. This is the discussion we need to have in order for us to move forward with real Immigration Reform. What we have in the senate, i dont believe it is real Immigration Reform. There is a lot of great things and a lot of bad things. I could stay here to talk all day about this but even the way we have reworked a point system, we are creating human beings to be a commodity of this nation, not so much being part of this nation. Let me ask you a quick question. In your personal experience, what would it have meant to add a decade on to your path to citizenship . If all law had been the one they are trading today, how would that have changed your life . The issue for me and my family at the time was less about full citizenship. It was about the legal status first. That is the key step. Once you have your green card at once you have legal status in this country, you basically have every right of being a citizen with the exception that you cannot the votes. At that point, it becomes one level of appreciation that you have for the ultimate benefit of citizenship. In my case, i took a long time to do it and it was not because i did not wanted or because i did not value it. It was simply because of other issues related to more practical things in my life. I think getting people legalized is key but when you limit someone i had the ability to become a citizen after i went through the bureaucratic process you have to go through. Momentstimation, from by i was legalized, to put that restriction on people today is crazy. My father is not a u. S. Citizen. He is 85 years old and the only reason he is not a u. S. Citizen is because he could not speak english well enough to be granted citizenship. He tried it twice and failed each time. Now it does not look like he will get it. My father cry over the fact that he was not a citizen and could not get that citizenship. For some people, there is an enormous amount of meaning that carries. I am not suggesting that it did not carry that meaning for me. It was something that was there for me and developer of if i had a restriction of time, probably would have been unhappy and would have been upset that i could not do it. To punish to people, them again so they can feel there was a cost to be paid for this, and agrees is a violation of the law as it is often framed, i think is ludicrous. You want people to do to build your buildings, cut your grass, wash your car, to clean your dishes, to do all the isngs that the labor force already doing with undocumented workers . Recently in austin, texas, there is a new formula one race track that was built, an absolute beautiful wonderful thing. 90 of the people doing it work migrant workers. I dont know their legal status and i never passed but those are the ones who did it and it is a state of the art world class track. Who else would have done it . Assuming they are undocumented, do they not deserve the right to have their status modified and not deserve the right to become citizens . Someone has decided arbitrarily theyve got to pay this price of time and, hopefully, you are alive long enough to see the benefit of citizenship. It makes no sense. Agree wholeheartedly with what has been said but i want to point out that the key difference between 1986 law and was being proposed now is that in 1986 people got a green card. In this proposal, it is not 13 years of citizenship, it is tenures to a green card of being in this strange you cant work here but you dont even have a green card. It is really limited and i think that as a long time of punishment. Tois punishment and it is keep 11 Million People from bolting for 1315 years. From a cynical point of view, that is what it comes down to not a voting for 1315 years. Thiskind of unfairness of long wait is important but what needs to have our attention is the new temporary worker visa and the point system. These are entirely new ideas. They have not gotten enough attention because the 11 million deserve our attention and concern. Andcalled future flows i dont like that term of flow which is technical and reduces people to something that is not inan the idea is that order to not have the undocumented labor emigration in the future, they will have this temporary visa where you can work three years and renew it wants and then you have to leave. Theoretically, you can apply for a green card under the new point system but then you are competing with everybody else who has applied and that is still a limited number of visas. Either you will have a new road to undocumented status, people dont leave and dont get in and dont get a green card for the point system and you will have then a kind of revolving population of workers who do not have legal full legal status. They have no green card and they have no hope of ever getting to citizenship. Of a realcreation permanent secondclass group of people without even the chance of a green card. The point system, i think will require a lot of scrutiny. It is not clear yet how many points the idea that rather it being based on search and family status, you get points and the more points you get, you get a green card. Canada has the system. If you have 1 million, you get enough points and you can get in right away. The last on a point system was proposed in 2008, if you had 1 million or an advanced degree, you spoke english well, youve got points easily. If you are not skilled and did not have a College Education and you had a Family Member in this country, you would not have enough points to get in. It is not clear yet how these points are going to be allocated and yet people with low skills, would never have i hope to get in on the point system. There is a thinking it will be more possible than in past proposals but i think this is something everybody has to Pay Attention to it. You set up a system where you have temporary of labour with no hope of getting a green card except the right point system and if that system is biased to people with education or capital, then we are said dog were setting up a very different kind of political situation in our country. Then we will really have a permanent underclass of workers. Think this is something people dont realize. Yes, it is not right to ask people to wait 13 years but theres a whole other thing going on. In 13 years youll have another mass and i dont think we have paid enough attention to that. Let me ask a question based on the comments on congressman becera. It is the idea that immigration authorities could really go after whoever does not legalize. In his words, these are the people selling your kids drugs, these are terrorists and do you have a reaction if an emigration bill like this past, is there a fear there could be some people who dont qualify that immigration authorities will go after the more seriously . Politicsk that was that we heard. I dont know. I think that will go after the people with temporary visas to see if they are expired or not. That is the corroding of our system and how we see human beings. There are two terms that i dont like that we use a lot. In our little talking points and lists that we used to get people to understand. One, people say children who were brought here through no fault of their own. Are is where the children the innocent people, the victims who is to blame . The parents. The evil parents. The criminals. That is the second term that i dont like that people use. I am not a criminal. Criminal, we have been using it in such light terms were currently, the Administration Says that 70 of the people that they had deported from the 1. 7 million are criminals. The first question is who are the other 30 . Crimes oftantly, what these people done . What have they created or what was their reasoning for deporting them . Sometimes it is as simple as being called and asked on their an absconder, a fugitive of the law. This was a person given a notice by an immigration judge to present themselves to start their immigration case. A lot of times people dont go because they moved and they never receive their notice. The notice could have gotten lost in the mail or people just were afraid and did not have an attorney and did not go. People we are calling criminals. What will happen when everybody is showing them the new number that says from the current immigrant population we have that are not documented or unauthorized in the country, one out of four of those are not going to be able are going to be able to get through this 13 year path. One out of four. What will happen to the other three . Are we going to label them as criminals because these were the other percentages . Are these but less deserving ones . Going back to the point system, the other day with friends, we took the point system test. We did it. Getsee how much we would right now currently and we did with their parents when my parents came originally to the United States and put in a different scenarios. Our little study showed that it of 37les under the age with a certain amount of money and a certain amount of education were the ones that were at the top. The ones that were going to be let in. If you were a woman, if you were over the age of 37 and if you were poor, forget it. Areare the people we fighting for . Who are the three out to four . C of people who leave their farms because we have nafta that now sell corn and subsidized corn in mexico and these farmers . All of their lives, their education is farming. Nobody knows how to farm like they do or how to grow corn. They were the ones that got pushed appear. People from places like guatemala who do not even speak spanish. They speak a mayan language. They are here cutting the chicken that we eat, plucking the chicken, working in chicken farms and are doing a job that i could never do. That is something you have to do standing at a conveyor belt. What will happen to the people who are going to be left behind and whats going to happen to this note immigration system we will do which further degrades and corrodes the way we look at our community as criminals. It is very scary and as an activist and advocate for this that were fighting for, sometimes i dont even know how to move forward. I know the sense of urgency. For the nexte couple of days, i will be going home finally this week, i have to go work and to what the fact that my parents and my sister that a deportation order over their heads that every year we have to figure out how to keep them here in the United States. That is the sense of urgency, that is the sense of reality see in our community. What are the stakes . It is citizenship and what were asking for is it the cost of corroding our immigration system further . What we arenship, asking for, is that a portion of the population good enough or is that the trade off that we want to do for the rest of the people . That will be left behind . Those are the questions that i am asking myself. When you ask me best, this comes to mind. There is the argument against legalization of people. Two things people frequently say that it would be a magnet that would draw more people to the u. S. And then you sometimes hear people say where do you draw the line . Do you tell the whole world they can come to the u. S. . I want to know if you have thoughts for that. Is there a place where you would draw the line or out that how should that be done in an immigration policy sense . Think it the things i is ironic about a lot of the opposition to legalization or to raising the ceiling and immigration is a lot of the opposition comes from people who consider themselves free market supporters. But they do not trust the Labour Market to regulate immigration. All of the fencing that was put on the mexican border, all the Border Patrol we heard about the increase all of the technology that is down there. What stopped immigration from mexico was the 2008 recession. That is what stopped it. Now it is starting to go up again because the economy is doing better. Personally, i believe we should not regulate borders. I think people have no control over where they were born, nobody was born an american because they were better than anybody else in the rest of the world. It was chance that if you were born here, you were born here. It is the same chance that somebody was born in china or mexico or guatemala. I dont think there should be restrictions of people pursuing opportunity and their dreams. I dont think that will happen in my lifetime anyway but as long as nations do regulate immigration, i think that have to do it fairly. And recognize the benefits that immigrants bring to their country and to treat people secondand not create class of people. Of ining we lose sight this debate is that the form of the debate is usually are immigrants could bad for us . I think that is the wrong question. Emigrants are part of us. Emigrants are not we have seen now it was interesting in the debate this morning, it was about interests. The different sectors of Society Benefit from emigration but nobody talked about the immigrants themselves. Immigrants are part of us. Not only that, immigrants have always been the one who made changes in the immigration laws and their children. As much as i appreciate and see the importance of winning over business people, conservative evangelicals winning ever went over to our cause, it is the immigrants and their children themselves making this change. We would not be having this conversation had not been for the change in the electoral be 2012into thousand eight and and that is the bottom line. I would remind people that the last big reform of emigration in the 1960s, which eliminated the National Origin as, that was made possible because the children of the european immigrants became important electoral constituencies in the United States. Italian jews, americans, greek americans they were the ones that drove the Civilrights Movement that they themselves thought was a cousin to the African American civil rights movement. That is what drove Immigration Reform and yet they needed a lot of allies. They were the main force and today, it is the dreamers, is the latino community, Asian Americans that are really behind the change in our environment. I think we need to remember that. The darker sides or maybe look at ite want to as a history of inclusion, that is because each group has fought its way into be included. Nobody just open the doors. People had to fight their way in and thats what we see again today and thats whats great about this country because people will fight for their right to be at the table. Theres of this lady political reality in congress and the different Interest Groups aligning. There is obviously the political reality in congress and the different Interest Groups aligning. Are there things that need to be changed in the framework on a personal level . Are there things people can do that do not need 1 million to lobby someone with . Is there something you can do in your everyday life . To see the issue differently or needs to be done to see this issue differently . I dont know what kind of things you can do. What i have done that i think works is pick up the phone and call your elected officials. Typically they answer. I have been very surprised started doing that. They listened. Will that have an impact, i dont know. I want to go back for a moment to the idea that you mentioned earlier regarding those that use freemarket as the reasoning for some of the decisions they want to make. , i think believe that we would have a different mind set. Ae only reason why you have number of people here who are searching for opportunities is because the jobs are there. There are jobs that no one else wants to do. I remember a few months ago when all alabama situation took place in the past that roll and all of a sudden, hispanics just left of the state in droves. There was a guy there were interviewing who owned a family business, i think it was a farming business, that had been in his family for a couple of generations and he talked about how he was about to declare bankruptcy because the 300 employees he is to have left. Left. Used to have he has been challenged by the reporter about what he did to try to replace those people. He said i want to jot theres and talked about my jobs and he had a lot of applicants. He said the first day that he was going to get the people, he had over 30 people on one particular day, they showed up and the moment he finished describing with the job was, only one was left and that one said i will do what i need to do. The guy worked for one day and did not come back the second day. He said i went back to zero employees. All of the people he hired or nonhispanic americans that needed jobs and this was an opportunity. Here that be jobs people are going to need to take. Who is going to take those if you create to these restrictions . If you dont think of this population the way and is to be thought of for me, the free market idea, if youre going to go free market, take the time to be fair about it and see through it. Where there is a need, there will be people willing to do what it takes to meet of the need. That is what free market is about. We need to make those jobs better for the immigrants . Absolutely. Totally. Ith that if august and september passed by and there is no immigration bill or one that does not too many things youre talking about, what is the impact of leaving a population of people in that position in the shadows without legal status . Even on a reallife lovell, what does it mean . Even on a reallife olevel what does it mean . It is what we have now and i dont know when the chance will come around in the congress. So inot a political expert cannot predict that. I think there is an opportunity here. Think it will get fixed but i dont know how long it will take. For the people waiting, it is terrible. People. On is a lot of besides the Economic Impact and the numbers and all the justification for doing it, the one piece that was brought up that is important is that this has to be a moral imperative. There are a lot of people out there who are suffering now, who are making a significant contribution and, at the same time, they are suffering and undergoing hardship and pain because they are not legal. Thatr no other reason, should be a reason to do it. These are people that need the opportunity to represent themselves and need the opportunity to engage in a political process that helps shape their own future. They cannot be in this limbo living in fear and looking over their shoulder every day. It is wrong. It is not consistent with what this country is all about. The frustration of senator mccain is probably the best example of why this needs to get resolved soon. I agree ed has to be the moral aspect. I want to thank people like the dreamers because thats what they did. They did that for all of us. We have by little bit more time but maybe i can take some questions from people. Raise your hands and yes, sir . Mr. Lloyd and i would like to touch on the issue of language. Why are they requiring english language . We are born and raised in the u. S. And all the people will whole of our live, it is only the english language. Can we say right now with 99. 9 that we can save the english language with correctness . Now if you can say that you can memorize the english language. Do you have perfect Language Skills . Do you have perfect writing skills and vocabulary . You detach the language from the people coming from all over the world, coming from east, west, north, south, you are detaching the very humanity from themselves. If they speak mandarin or vietnamese or hispanic or whatever language, you are trying to detach the greater part of their life and culture from them. Of aerica a country melting pot of races . What are we detaching this from other people when we ourselves cannot even claim perfection . We have a holier than thou attitude. Who can stand right here and speak perfect language. . I dont know if we want to talk about the history of how that came to be part of immigration law. Is that something you can answer . Around the time of world war one, there was a big debate over a literacy test. That was vetoed by four president s. When they finally implemented it over president wilson possibly tell, it was very simple but it was in the persons native language for a person coming from china lets not use chynna because they could not come lets say person coming from poland took the test and polish, not in english. We have not made that requirement to enter the country or to get a green card3. You now have to take an english test to get a green card after the tenures, that is new because you do not have to take an english test that to get a green card. You do have to take one to become a citizen. I dont think it is that high a level of english. I am not against that on principle. I think the most emigrants want to learn english they know that you need to know english to get around this country, to get a better job, to navigate the society. The problem is that dont have the opportunity to learn english. There are not enough glasses. All the programs that offer english class is in immigrant communities are packed to the rafters. You have to wait to get into one of those class is great many people have the kinds of jobs and responsibilities that they dont have time to take those glasses. People do want to learn english but that does not mean they want to give up their own language or culture. You can be bilingual. That is a good thing. More englishspeaking americans should learn spanish or another language. This is the country that has the least amount of bilingualism in the entire world. I think we should be fair and the test should not be onerous. I think this requirement now in the 13 years you have to take an english test and get a green card, i think that is wrong because we have done it before. I am not opposed to any moderate english test coming this requirement for citizenship. I am not against it as well. The reason why it is important for people to learn english is because the business of the United States is done in english. Our laws are in english. If people are going to be citizens, part of being a citizen is serving in a jury. When youre in court, you have to be able to read the laws and so forth. Education and i did a lot of courses teaching people a second language. Chomskyhe things noam talks about learning a new language is that when you are a child, it is really easy. Easier able to absorb and our brains are kind of like where they are d they arerawers. Thater, learning english, door closes around the age of 13. A lot of the Adult Population and people trying to learn english, it is difficult and hard for them to do it. And theto moderate balanced and the approach where we tell people you have to learn english. There are some people in some areas where it takes years and years before they are able to come in and learn english and sit in a classroom and do that. You have people who are working two and three jobs to feed their family. We have to make sure the expectations of people to learn english makes sense for them. I am not against i am not necessarily opposing, but making sure that people have opportunities and making sure that people in what is the integration of being in the United States, learned. We will take questions on this microphone. This is my second chance. I think this form is great. You bring reallife to our discussion. It is important. Whether youre a citizen of the world or a citizen of the United States or noncitizen, we have the responsibility to change society. We must allow people to speak. There is a sort of hidden agenda to appropriate funds to benefit a few Interest Groups. Thats the way they want to victimize us. We ask can you work 10 months from now, 12 months from now, 12 years from now . We are giving them a hope and we are educating them and nourishing them said they can have a Good Opportunity and productivity. That is called emigrant production. When you take the opportunity away from them, they take away your money. They know your family income. What we have to do is we have to have a responsibility to improve our society and not label us as inferior. I think you bring up a good point which is why i am here. Why am i not afraid and at home hiding and not participating . I could be deported. Immigration came to my house looking for me to try to deport me in 2006. That is why my family is in deportation process but i live with my family and they found them. Because i understand that this it is is also about fear, about change and how this country is changing in the face of the country and the face of the country is changing. Are they ask where you from, that comes from a sense of fear, the change that people have not made in their minds. People does when you go inside a dark room, you feel something. There is a sense of adrenaline that both for your body because it is a dark room and you dont know what is happening in there. I think that is how many people feel. For me and why i am in this debate is because i believe in this country and the values of this country because i love this country and because, in my mind, i want to make this country better. I want to continue the legacy of those that fought before us, the people that stuff for civil rights and that has been the history. Our country is really young. Back in the day, we had a law that said slavery was ok. We have laws and we changed them. There was fear around what would happen when the change of those laws. We have laws that said women could not vote. That was ok. And we changed that. We are a country of change, we are a country that goes through a lot of fear of what will happen with this powerful women voting we changed that. Nothing happened, we just got better. [laughter] important that we think about what will happen that day that people decide that they do not want to come to the United States anymore because this is not the country they want to be in. What will happen to the economy of this country . What will happen to the fabric of the foundation that this country was built on . When you have made of americans who are here but we barely talk about them. We only talk about them in the sense that they did not ask for papers. We dont talk about the history of that. I am here because i believe that an order for me to bring a child into this world and in this life, i want to make sure that this world and this country is a country that my child would deserve to live and. And that our future generations can see that once upon a time we looked as at immigrants as a commodity or resource. Getshe whole us vs them washed away. I am here because i love this country and feel the values we have in this country are beautiful and i want to maintain the band like that and i want to find change. Currently, a loss we have on the books in the way we treat immigrants is wrong. That is not our america. That is not the one we know. Another question . Yes you started answering my question but i wanted for you asamplify a little bit why, tremors, we need this now . The fight is not for us but it is for our parents and families. Not settle for some what some of our congressmen in the house are proposing with talks about kids acts and toying with the idea now after so much talk about the dream act and forgetting about a comprehensive Immigration Reform . Why do we have to focus on our families and not breaking them apart textbook. That is a false debate which is a distraction. To the work are doing. It is a debate that was to divide us and we are falling for it. I think is great and good that republicans are talking about Young Children and are talking about making sure they have a path to citizenship. Third weeks ago, they were trying to fund a program that allows for Young Children from people who can a young age to have an opportunity to get that. I think we should be celebrating the fact that republicans are talking about this. Even if they are trying to use this as a political ploy or trying to create distraction themselves, they are on record. A week ago at the hearing, i felt like i was in the twilight zone. I have been following this debate for almost 10 years. We are finally starting to talk about it in the way that is responsible. I think it brings it to where we need to be. I feel good that republicans are talking about this and are trying to create a kids act or whatever it is. Last year, it was a republican, marco rubio, who started talking about that that allow for a debate and room so that the president could do this. Think is thing i important is that i am not in this for legislation. Im not here to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform. I think i am here to bring to light a story of one person and one family that is asking and begging for a chance and an opportunity to remain in this country, the country we have be set roots in and i think it is important that people know and understand that i talk to republicans all the time. And i talk to them because they are part of the equation. Youorder for us to get two need one plus one. You need democrats and republicans to get there. I talk to people that dont look like me because they matter. They are important because i believe in them and i believe the opportunity they have to understand this issue in a different context that has not been portrayed to them. Lastly, because i believe in 2016 and this and issue will not go away and the issue will not be a real issue until we change the paradigms and Start Talking about this stuff we have talked about today. Is it working . Ok, my question is if legislation is passed that provides a formal path to citizenship but is still this long, arduous process, do you think that might do more harm than good . Right now the way things are, there is this a legally authorized second class and once legislation is passed, we can still try to point to this de facto second class and say this is still a problem. At that point, opponents can point to legislation and say you already have your legal remedy and that is the end of the conversation. Do you think because of that there is a chance that notslation that it does provide the quickest, the best bet to citizenship might be might do more harm than good . A thought from anyone . I dont know if it will be more harmful. I know we need something. Might ignorance of the political angles and help people work of those but ultimately, if you have reform that passes and that has some of the most basic and important things or elements that we need, i suppose theres always an opportunity to go back and to refine it and have people fully engaged to continue to put pressure and that was and that is what will make things improve. I think has been plenty of cases before things get passed that are not quite what they need to be and they make them better. That would be my hope. At this stage of the game, to the extent that we have platforms to express their point of view about improving the existing bill, we need to do it and we need to do it as aggressively as we can and then hopefully, by the time the final bill is ready, a lot of the things that were issued today will not be as big at that point in time. I think we need to get something passed, that is the most important thing. I agree with that. There is a lot in the bill what ever comes out is not going to be as good as the senate bill and the senate bill itself is a mixed bag. There is a lot of distasteful things in that. Is some bad things and a but there is some pretty good things in it. Clearing the backlog, allowing Family Members of permanent residents to go outside the quota system that is a lot of people. There are some really good things. Nots very hard i would go so far as to say it is all bad. Swallow some of that stuff but on the whole, i agree with al hunt wrote. Outlaw hundred. Alejandro. I do see the good and tight reclaim the good as a victory for us. If you look at the history of all the different legislation for the last couple of maybe 10 years, there has been worse legislation that has been introduced. As to why this legislation is better is, at the heart of the debate, prior to other legislation, it has been more forceful from the community. I think that has to do with the voices that have spoken out and the people who were in the room having this discussion. I think that is a question that howle with every day do you support something that you know is bad for future generations . I feel we always somehow get it right. I believe that ultimately, this nation will get it right and i will fight and continue to fight to get it right and i will speak out against the things that are bad and the bill. Militarizing our border is bad for a further criminalization of emigrants is bad. Giving a points system to human and putting a dollar sign as a value on a life is bad. I will speak out against those things. I will continue to push because i know we still have opportunity to move in the house and have opportunities next year and a year after that. Me say one last thing i want to publicly thank the aflcio. I think they have done a tremendous amount to change public opinion, to influence whats going on on the the hill. I know they have done a lot of work to make parts of the bill that could have been worse a lot better. I think they are not given enough credit for what they have done for this. Member fore a union a long time before i became a historian. I remember the first, walked into this building and Samuel Gompers did not have a good reputation in chineseamerican communities. As 25 yearsntly ago, the aflcio did not have the greatest position on immigration and i think there has been a tremendous change, not just a change in position, but a change in a leadership role in the fight. I just want to take this opportunity to thank them for inviting us here today for this conversation but also for all the work that unions are doing. Thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] on cspanup today 3, the Senate Judiciary committee holds an oversight hearing of government surveillance programs at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. At 3 00 p. M. Eastern, you will see a u. S. Capitol ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the august, 1963 march on washington. Speakers will include democratic representative john lewis of georgia. Moments, a look at todays headlines plus your calls and tweets live on washington journal, the house is back in session at 10 00 for general speeches with legislative business at noon and the agenda includes work on the bill to Fund Transportation and housing programs. Minutes, we will be joined by Republican Rep Steve Scalese of louisiana for his perspective on emigration, the debt ceiling, and implementing the federal healthcare law. At 8 20 eastern, stephen cohen, executive director of the Whistle Blowers Association will discuss the decision by a military court on Bradley Manning. Well also talk with michael jersch with the national journal. Is next. On journal good morning and welcome to washington journal on this last day of july, july 31, 2013. A meeting with house and timid democrats. Later this afternoon, both chambers leaders will hold a 50thony for the anniversary for the march on washington. Verdicte announced the in the Bradley Manning case. He was found guilty of espionage nott