Chomsky is a professor of history and coordinator of latin american studies at Salem State University in massachusetts. Her new book, undocumented how immigration became illegal, is a comprehensive and provocative look at the history contradictions and shifts in u. S. Immigration policy ooh ive lost my page. And how it has both lured and punished the illegal immigrant population. Her previous book on the topic was they take our jobs and 20 other myths about immigration. She is also coauthor of a study of the history of cuba and the castro revolution. To my near left is alberto gonzalez, a former u. S. Attorney general and white House Counsel under president george w. Bush. In his job as attorney general, he became the highest ranking hispanic to hold federal office. That tenure was marked by some controversy over executive actions in the war on terror, but today we will confine our discussion to immigration. His new book is called a conservative and compassionate approach to Immigration Reform, coauthored with david strange, which offers a number of specific prescriptions for reforming and improving Immigration Law and policy. Judge gonzalez, who previously served as a Texas Supreme Court justice, is currently dean of the Belmont College school of law in nashville. Welcome to you both. [applause] thank you. Thank you. [applause] at first glance a reader might assume that these two books come from opposite points of view and reach opposite conclusions. They would be wrong on both counts. Both of these authors p grapple with the same fundamental conundrums facing u. S. Officials and society as it tries to deal with the phenomenon of ilLegal Immigration. And both make pact call suggestions practical suggestions as to how these contradictions can be reconciled or at least managed. Both authors agree that there has been excessive hostility and harshness toward Illegal Immigrants, and both agree that some form of broad Immigration Reform is needed. Neither advocates radical solutions, though they differ in emphasis and degree. I would first like to ask both authors to discuss two of the major issues raised in both of their books. We will have about 30 minutes for this discussion after which we will open it up for questions for about 15 minutes from the audience. I hope thats agreeable to all and, please, be brief with both your remarks and questions because the time is very short. So heres my first question. One of the major issues you both address is the fact that undocumented immigrants play critical roles in Many American industries from meat packing to construction from landscaping to fast food. Some critics argue that they are taking away jobs from americanborn workers and that if they were forced to leave the United States wages would automatically rise, and americans would be attracted to these jobs once again. Both authors disagree with this argument, but they offer different explanations for the phenomenon and different suggestions for how to deal with undocumented workers. I would like both authors to briefly explain their approach to this issue. Judge gonzalez proposes both stricter workplace and border enforcement against Illegal Immigrants while at the same time acknowledging that many sectors of the u. S. Economy now rely heavily on their labor. I would like him to address this apart contradiction. And professor chomsky offers strong evidence that Illegal Immigrants are crucial to the u. S. Economy but in her case she portrays them as victims of a deliberately unjust system that followed the end of the [inaudible] program in the 1960s a system she says criminalizes Illegal Immigrants to make them docile and exploys bl workers exploitable workers. I would like her to describe what happened to the meat packing industry and the federal raids that followed. Judging would you like to start . Okay, ill solve this in fife minutes. This is a difficult issue, of course, and from my perspective just given the positions ive held in government and the fact that im hispanic from a border state, i think i approach this from a fairly you nook perspective in terms of what works and what we need in this country. I believe in the rule of law and i think in a post9 11 world its very, very important that we know whos in this country and why theyre here. My perspective is that the right immigration policy is not only going to be good for our border security, but its also going to be right for our economy. Its going to promote our economy. We talked about the possibility of deporting 11 12 million undocumenteds when i was in the white house, and we believed it was not possible, we couldnt do it. But even if we could do it, we believed it would have been devastating to certain industries, and we believed the better approach and the approach thats talked about in this book with my coauthor, david strange, is to find those people that are qualified and put them into some kind of legal status so that they can stay here work in america, produce in america and i think by working here and being productive, its going to enhappens our economy and actually enhance our economy and create our economy and create additional jobs for american citizens. So i think this is something thats very, very important for our economy again and very important for our National Security, and i think putting them into some kind of temporary legal status i think is the way to go. And from there i have no problem with someone walking into a Government Office and saying i need a drivers license. Once theyre given some type of legal status i think they should be entitled to most of the privileges that all of us enjoy as american citizens, and we can talk in a few minutes about whether or not does that mean at some point they become american citizens, an issue which has become very politicized, in my judgment, but one that i think can be dealt with in a respectful way and would be agreeable i think to most americans. So im a historian and so its inevitable that im going to answer by talking a little bit about history. And i think what were seeing today in the United States is a dual labor market and that the United States has always had some sort of a dual labor market. And by a dual labor market, i mean that we have some workers who are protected by the law who have stable and safe employment conditions, who have benefits and who have job security and the security that they will be working under safe and healthy conditions. The other sector of the labor market which economists call the secondary labor market is the unregulated, Informal Sector of the economy. It exists outside of this protection of laws that protect most workers in this country. And since the founding of the country or even before, we have had this dual or segmented labor market and we have maintained it with different legal regimes. For the first 100 years of this countrys life the legal regime that maintained the dual labor market or significant labor market was slavery. That is, it kept a senate group of people who were a Significant Group of people who were working in this country outside the protection of the laws while creating a system of Legal Protections for other people working in the cup. After slavery was abolished weve been through a number of different types of legal regimes that have kept a secondary subordinate sector of the labor market, workers who do not enjoy the same protections as other workers. One way this happened was with the new deal labor legislation that explicitly excluded agricultural and Domestic Workers from the protections granted to others; the right to organize unions the right to minimum wages the right to maximum hours, the right to workplace protections unemployment insurance, later workers compensation. Domestic and Agricultural Workers were excluded from that body of legislation. They were not protected. And guess what . Domestic and Agricultural Workers were primarily people of color. So there has been a racial aspect to how the dual labor market has functioned in this country. Next step, the brasero program through 1967 as it was phased out, a Guest Worker Program that brought mexican workers recruited workers in mexico to work primarily in agriculture as second class workers as workers who did notten joy the same rights enjoy the same rights as other workers. And for a brasero worker to complain about your working conditions meant that you would be fired and you would be deported. You were almost an indentured servant because your right to be in the country depended on your working for this particular employer. I argue in my book that since is the 65 since 1965 this secondary labor market has been maintained pri mauerly through the use of undocumentedness where workers are still deliberately recruited and brought into the United States with sort of a wink from the law and work in this status as undocumented. And the meat packing industry is one of the industries that has taken full advantage of this undocumented labor force. Its not the only one. In the particular case that pamela referred to the agriprocessers kosher meat processers in postville iowa there was a the work force was primarily recruited from highland villages in guatemala they were primarily indigenous guatemalans who were brought to the United States, asked to sign some papers and put to work through direct recruitment. They were all undocumented. And in the first decade of the 21st century, there were a series of workplace raids highly publicized workplace raids that where large numbers of workers were arrested and deported. This happened at the agriprocessers plant and its one of the many cases where weve seen what happens when undocumented workers are punished by deportation and forced to leave. And what happened was the collapse of the local economy, the collapse of the industry and devastation for the town where the workers had been living and working. So that undocumentedness serves a role in our economy. I dont think its a good or fair system. Its a system based on exploitation, but the solution is not to further victimize and punish those who are working in the low wage jobs. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to just to be a little, put a fine point on it, what do you think why is it for example and in that case, you know we know that meat packing used to be a very stable, you know, well paying blue collar job. It was unionized wages were good. It wasnt a fun job, but it was a good job. That changed radically and the influx of undocumented, in this case clearly poor, illiterate people completely replaced them. If those people were sent back to guatemala, do you think the meat packing industry would be forced to raise wages and make its jobs more attractive again to americans or is that just gone forever . Brief answer sorry. In the case of agriprocessers, i mean, we have an example of what happened, which is that the company went bankrupt. But, i mean, i think we have to look at the transpor formations that the transformations that the u. S. Economy has undergone in the second half of the 20th century which has been a process of deindustrialization. Its not just the meat packing industry where Good Union Jobs have disappeared. This has been a deliberate fight back against the new deal on the part of Corporate America to escape unionization and escape labor legislation in any way they can. Most industries have done this through moving abroad, and weve seen deindustrialization has affected not just the meat packing industry, its affected every industry. So blaming the workers or punishing the workers is really looking backwards at the problem of deindustrialization which is a structural, global problem that i think we need to look at not by trying to victimize further victim poise those who are the principle victims of it. Judge would you like to Say Something about everify . Well, i think one of the i mean obviously, one of the problems we have, i think in our society is we do have unscrupulous employers. And one of the things that we propose in our book, it just seems to me there ought to be tougher employer sanctions. If you want to stop people from hiring undocumented immigrants, then take a ceo of a company thats a repeat offender, and put him in jail. Thats going to stop hiring of undocumented immigrants. So i think its unfair to focus solely on the immigrant. It is true that the vast majority of them come into this country simply to provide for themselves and their families. And i appreciate that as a dad. On the other hand, we do have laws in place and so weve got to find some kind of accommodation, and it just seems to me one very important component of that in addition to revising our visa system, in additioning to dealing with the 12 million that are here undocumented already, in addition to border security, in addition to dealing with the children brought here unlawfully by their participants, weve got to deal parents, weve got to deal with employers. And from my interspective, thats also a very important piece of this. Okay, thank you. Im going to raise a second broad question id like for you both to address before we go to questions from the audience, and that is the issue of what should be done permanently about the vast population of an estimated 1112 million undocumented People Living in the United States today many of them for a very long time. Many of them with deep roots in the community. Again, both authors agree on a basic point which is that they cannot and should not all be deported and that some form of broad Immigration Reform is needed. But they propose different solutions. Judge gonzalez offers what he calls a pragmatic solution somewhere between mass deportation and mass citizenship which would most likely take the form of limited legalization. He also proposes various other tweaks in Immigration Law or policy to better distinguish between groups of Illegal Immigrants who, as he puts it, may be less or more deserving of leniency and relief. I would like him to describe his legalization proposal in detail and a couple of the smaller reforms he would like to see made in Immigration Law. Professor chomsky describes u. S. Immigration law as an arbitrary labyrinth of enticement and obstacles to Illegal Immigrants which has had various unintended consequences. She describes various Government Agency ises as welcoming threatening, ignoring, imprisoning and deporting Illegal Immigrants. No bond or theyre confused wonder theyre confused. She suggests that officials must examine the, quoteunquote, deeper structural reasons for ilLegal Immigration. I would like to hear her response to judge gonzalezs proposal for a limited legalization. Judge . Okay. Well, i used to work in the world of, you know, as pam spock about it this morning spoke about it in this mornings earlier conversation, what is possible in Todays Congress in terms of policy, what is doable . My own view is with the republicans controlling both houses, the notion of citizenship for the 12 million that are here that are undocumented, its just not doable. On the other hand and we cant deport them. So if theyre going to be in this country those who qualify and by that i mean those who dont have a criminal record perhaps they pay back taxes, perhaps they pay some kind of fine, show evidence that, in fact theyre employable, that they can provide for themselves and their family that we put them into some kind of legal status. And this whole notion of citizenship, i think is one that, as i said in my opening remarks, has been politicized. There are many im a republican, ill go ahead and confess that, but there are many in my party that the notion of these, quote lawbreakers should be afforded citizenship is something that they cannot support. I dont support amnesty in terms of and this is where theres a lot of disagreement, what is amnesty. From my perspective amnesty is complete forgiveness for a group of individuals. Thats not what im proposing. What im proposing is those who qualify, they stay here. And then if Congress Wants to provide some kind of pathway to citizenship or a more permanent status, then they can do so and that, again, could involve additional fines or whatever. One thing that i would not support which i dont think is fair is that we allow these individuals who came to this country unlawfully a pathway to citizenship which allows them to become citizens before those who have been waiting patiently outside to our borders thats not fair, thats not right. So again im not necessarily opposed to citizenship for these individuals, for those who qualify, but i dont think they should be rewarded by citizenship before those who follow the rules. And let me just one final point i would just say. A vast majority of these individuals are less concerned about citizenship than they are about is simply being able to be in this country in some kind of legal status and not worry about being deported. And so i think we can find a solution here if both parties, again, are willing to compromise. I believe this is an issue that touches Foreign PolicyNational Security our economy our families, it touches the very essence of who we are as a people. And in order to reach a common ground, to reach a solution here, everyone has to be at table, i think, in a comprehensive effort and everyones going to have to compromise. No one is going to get everything they want in this discussion. Everyone will have to give up something in order to get something back. I think its still doable. Im disappointed and frustrated that because the leadership we have in washington today and its existed for several years, we have not been able to accomplish this. But when you think about why do we elect our leaders in washington, its to solve these very problems. And its very disappointing to me that that hasnt been done. Thank you. Okay. So let me start out by saying that there are many things that youve just said, judge gonzalez, that i agree with completely and in particular im not sure thats good or bad, but okay. [laughter] in particular, i agree that we need to start with the question of what is possible. That is, its all very fine in our ivory towers to sit around and say what is ideal but if its not possible, its not very useful necessarily for us to be talking about what is ideal. We need to talk about what is possible. And i also agree with you that what youre proposing is probably what is possible. And that what youre proposing and i work with many many undocumented people and the truth is that while from from a philosophical perspective, from an idealistic perspective i would say that we are a nation of laws, but not all laws are father. And when laws are fair. And when laws treat people unfairly rather than sticking to the idea that were a nation of laws so we have to impose those laws if laws are unfair, no, we need to change those laws. And weve done that many times over the course of our countrys history. Weve said these laws do not treat people fairly, therefore, we need to change them. In addition to being a nation of laws, were a nation of rights. And one of the questions again, from the idealistic, fill softing call perspective finish is do people have equal rights. And this is where the idea of creating a new status seems problematic to me. Because be were a nation of rights then everybody should have equal rights. We should not create legal differences where some people have rights that other people do not have. Again, weve dope that many times done that many times over the course of our countrys history, we still do it. But i think our goal if were going to be changing laws is to create a system of laws that treats everybody equally. I firmly believe that. However, for the undocumented people who i work with, i would have to say that judge gonzalezs proposal is going to look very attractive. That is, theyre less interested in this idealistic, philosophical position of everyone should have equal rights, theyre much more interested in, one, being able to work and two, being able to live without fear of being deported. And this is why i have to separate the two professor chomskys here the one who from an idealistic and philosophical perspective says the law should treat everybody equally and we should be fighting for those to the realistic professor chomsky who says that judge gonzalezs proposal is going to fulfill a lot of needs and solve a lot of problems and it is what is realistic. At the same time, though, i want to point out moving back to the historian here that we had a comprehensive Immigration Reform in 1986 which created a path to legalization and a path to citizenship for a large majority of the people who were in this country undocumented. Concurrently with this, we also created a new enforcement regime. We created employer sanctions that made it illegal to hire people who were undocumented. We began to militarize the border to try to control the border. And we know what the result of those changes in the 1980s and 1990s was. The result was some people got access to new legal status, and the number of undocumented people in the country skyrocketed. And many studies have shown us that the reason that the number of undocumented grew so quickly the reasons a number of reasons one of the main reasons was the militarization of the border. That is, it wasnt a question of more people crossing the border to come in, it was a question of fewer people leaving. That is, once the border became so difficult to cross those mexicans who were already in the country chose not to leave. What had previously been a system of seasonal circumstance call migration turned circular migration turned into were really running out of time here, professor. [laughter] all right, ill stop. Let me just make two quick comments. As judge gonzalez pointed out in an earlier conversation current immigration policy and law already has a number of limited legality statussings. There are millions of people in this country who dont have the right to vote but do have the right to be here either for a short period of time or for a long period of time. So its not really doing anything new, just adding a new category of limited legality. Its not something unheard of. The other thing i wanted to point out, only because no one else has is that entering the country illegally is not the same as committing a murder. It is not a criminal offense. It is an administrative offense. And so when you hear people say dont can you understand or whats the phrase, what dont you understand abouting being illegal what part of illegal i do think its important to point out. And judge gonzalez is recommending this in his book, that, you know, if someone has committed a murder or has been arrested for drunk driving 20 times while being in the country illegally, that person certainly should be deported. If all that person has done is cross the border and spent 20 years working, has not broken any criminal laws perhaps that person should be treated differently. So i just want to leave you with that thought. We now have exactly 15 minutes open for questions. The mic is in the muddle of the room. Please middle of the room. Please keep your questions brief and try to make them questions rather than speeches. Thank you. [laughter] good morning. My question has to do with tomorrow, and by tomorrow i mean we have a number of people who have entered the country both legally and illegally. Now, having transitioned into the role of Senior Citizens, we expect and we have access if you will to various retirement funds. When we have all of these folks be it legal or illegal in the country down the road if we think about tomorrow and the effect thats going to have with all these folks in a Senior Citizen status what are we looking at, and what are they thinking about downtown in d. C. Relative to supporting these folks . Because it is going to have an impact on our overall society. Well, i would just say i have no idea what the folks downtown in d. C. Are thinking about these days. We do talk about this in our book in that there are shortterm and longterm costs about how we deal depending how we deal with Immigration Reform. Short term, for example, if youre talking about Additional Border security, youre talking about additional dollars, for example. If youre talking about modifying everify, making it more difficult on employers thats going to, again additional costs. There are additional shortterm costs, but there are longterm costs with respect to individuals who ultimately we allow to become citizens. Now, thats all going to be offset, of course, by their contributions working and, of course by the taxes they pay. But one of the things that we think is very very important i think our politicians, our leaders in washington really have to level with you the american people, about the costs which could be very significant. And we need to understand that. And then we as a nation need to, we need to come together and decide what is the best, you know, what is the best way to spend our limited dollars. Are we going to continue to Fund Programs through continued, growing deficits . Are we going to eliminate spending somewhere else . These are all very hard decision, and i get that, but thats why we elect our people in washington. I think you raised a very good point in terms of focusing on costs. I make one quick point . Ive lost him. Anyway sir, one of the things a lot of people dont know is many many Illegal Immigrants pay Social Security taxes and they are never going to get the benefits from them. So there are it is a fact. I dont have numbers at my fingertips but its something that might partly answer your question. I just wanted to tell a quick anecdote. I was teaching in california at pa mow that college in the spring of 2013, and i had many undocumented students there and one of the students was telling a story about being a student in a very from a very different social background than the majority of students at an elite college. She said one of the professors said something in class about your parents and their 401 k plans, and she sort of looked around and said well im my parents 401 k plan. My parents dont have a 401 k plan. So from that anecdote, i would just like to mention two things. First, most of the people working in Senior Citizens and Retirement Homes are immigrants. So whos going to be taking care of white people when they get old, is new immigrants. Because we are not replacing our population. Our population is being replaced through young immigrants who are taking care of the old people in this country. And second, latin american immigrants are much less likely to put their old people on, in Retirement Homes. All of the elderly people i know who are undocumented latin american immigrants are being taken care of by their children in their homes. My generation had a draft which was a great Americanization Program also civics and american history. I havent heard the panel mention anything about how you would americanize or if you would americanize Illegal Immigrants of any particular status. What do you mean by americannize . [inaudible] um, so first of all the children of undocumented immigrants, whether theyre born in the United States or whether they are born elsewhere and come to the United States undocumented go to school. And i think the americanization process for young people who grow up in the United States is unquestionable, it just happens. We dont need to do anything else to make it happen. The undocumented immigrants who i know who are adults who come here as adults are extremely eager to learn english, are extremely eager to find a way to survive in this society. They know that english is necessary for this society. The problem is extraordinarily long waiting lists in most Adult Education and english language programs. So i think that the demand is there. The demand to become americanized at least in terms of cultural competency and linguistic competency. The problem is that the resources arent there. Judge would you like to Say Something . I would just say i love america and everything america has done for me, but im also proud to be hispanic. I think you can love america and still have great pride many your culture. In your culture. Ill just leave it at that. We have just five minutes. Okay great. Ive got two questions. One, could each of you i came in a little bit late, and if you did already, you dont have to comment on obamas executive order, what you think is the pros and cons of it, maybe go over the four or five pieces of it. And secondly id like each speaker to give me an estimate of the taxes that are being paid by immigrants because i dont know those exact numbers the percentage of people paying taxes. Social security is a percentage of taxes paid by americans and if theyre paying Social Security taxes, theyre paying a lot of taxes. Yeah. I dont know about the taxes. Perhaps you can comment on taxes, the percentage of the taxes. I cant state it in terms of percentages, but in terms of amounts, its been calculated now that undocumented immigrants are contributing approximately 13 billion a year into Social Security and that goes into the suspension file because Social Security number doesnt match the name of person whos paying those taxes. Okay. On the executive order, im a big proponent of executive power. However, there are limits on the discretion of a president in terms of the execution of a law. A president cannot ignore a law cannot change a law simply because he wants to but, of course the president does have discretion in the execution of the law. Sometimes there are budgetary constraints that guide that discretion. The issue that i have about president obamas executive order is that it doesnt solve the problem for a majority of the 12 million that are here. It only focuses on the a small percentage, and its only a shortterm f and quite honestly its aggravated the republicans and, i think has made it more difficult to have what we really need which is a longterm, comprehensive solution. Thats the major issue i have with what president obama did. Obviously, whether or not he acted lawfully or not, thats an important issue. Thats a question thats going to be answered in the courts. If you ask me was it lawful, i think i probably would have walked into the oval office ask looking at this probably would have said, mr. President , we can make an argument that you have the authority to do this. Mr. President im not sure there are five votes on the Supreme Court that will agree with this. Thats probably the way that i would have put it to him. But then i would have also said you know we just had a new leadership elected in the senate lets, lets wait and give congress one more shot at this and see whether or not working together we can come up with a comprehensive plan. Hello. Thank you so much. I wonder if you could comment just very briefly on the whole question of Asylum Seekers. Theres this disastrous situation now between libya and italy, and i think its going to get more and more and more disastrous. And if you could share some wisdom as to what the United States ought to do about this. Of course, its not people seeking to find asylum with us but we still have a sort of collateral side effect of that. So just a couple of thoughts on that maybe. Wow thats a big question. But i think that when were looking at migrants and in general and Asylum Seekers in specific, what makes the most sense is to think about what are the structural root causes of these migrations. And one pattern that we see very clearly is every place where the United States carries out a military intervention creates refugees. And i think thats where we need to begin trying to answer question about what can we do. A lot about asylum is clip by international driven by International Law international norms, and i dont think there is today a category of being eligible for asylum sum my because of simply because of increased violence. Say, for example along our southern border. Typically, its if youre targeted based upon religion, gender, something else. But, clearly, it is an issue that is reflected in current policy. Whether or not it should be expanded to take into account the kind of situation you describe, i mean, thats a decision that, again, is going to be driven in part by International Law and what members of congress think is the appropriate approach. Sir, you have a final question . Judge i just want to, first of all, thank you for urging the Senate Leadership to take a vote on loretta lynch. That was very gracious of you and i think that was the right thing to do. I appreciate that. Thank you. I just, you know, having heard recently that the governor of wisconsin who is a president ial candidate is speaking up not just against ilLegal Immigration, but Legal Immigration causes great concern. And im just wondering what does the Republican Leadership plan to do about this . I mean, do they actually think we can have some meaningful change as long as they think most hispanics will vote democrat . Well, im not i know governor walker. Im not aware of those particular comments if, in fact he is saying that we need to sort of limit Legal Immigration, i would find that somewhat surprising given our declining birthrates and the fact that we have so many skilled jobs which we dont have skilled american workers. I guess i find that to be a surprising if that is governor walkers position, i would find that somewhat surprising. And i think that is not one that would sell with the american people. But, you know, without knowing more about his position i just, i cant comment on it. Im going to have to cede on the question of what the Republican Leadership is thinking ask doing. [laughter] okay, thank you. I guess i would just add there are Legal Immigration is what built this country. The great majority of immigrants come here legally either through family reunification or worksponsored employmentsponsored visas and eventually convert that into permanent status. It is not controversial its controversial in terms of the numbers, how many of, you know scientists should we let in, how many lettuce pickers should we let in. But it is a bedrock of our country, and i dont believe, i dont think of it as being a controversial issue. I really think ilLegal Immigration is the real thing that has to be solved, and im very glad that both of these authors have tackled it in such a both provocative, but also practical way. And i want to thank both of them very much for their comments and for their books and what . [applause]