Issues. Something my boss does, something small, but we think significant, goes down to the senate florior every month to tk about employee at dhs doing extraordinary things from tsa to s t, i. C. E. Employees, doing simple things, doing their job, going above and beyond its something small but we think important. Part of the management unity effort mentioned earlier. And this is something that were closely looking at in the senate. And and i know the house as well. Some of the proposals require legislative language to move some of the boxes around dhs. Thats something that were closely looking at. Finally on management, ill close with st. Elizabeths, a dhs consolidated headquarters, something my boss has supported and we issued actually a staff report last congress on looking at the saint es project. You talked about 22 different agencies, scattered over 4050 building as loan, having a simple meeting it can be a task going across town. Has operational benefits for the department but also has fiscal benefits for the taxpayer, upwards i believe close to billion. 1 billion over 30 years in terminating the leases across the government, across d. C. That would have to be wed be consolidated in headquarters if at st. Elizabeth. This is something we continue to monitor, continue to watch and i believe in dhs appropriations and senate it got a good mark. Were happy with that. So thats on the oversight part some of the things that were looking at. Cyber and border will continue to be big issues and i think theres a couple of things, and the Emergency Management right now, dealing with tenyear anniversary of katrinkatrina, a sandy coming up as well, another anniversary. Looking at fema issues. And then the bioke kekbiochem, well be closely looking at well. Lastly, on legislation, before i get into this years legislative efforts i want to take a minute to talk about last years legislative efforts. We finished very strong, id say, with pretty significant bills in the last weeks of congress, right before we went off to the holiday break. We passed three cybersecurity bills, bipartisan bills, with dr. Coburn, our Ranking Member at the time, chairman carver. One bill dealt with cyberworkfor cyberworkforce. You cant hire them fast enough or keep them competing with the private sector and just among different agencies. What we wanted to do is dhs equal footing. Were putting a lot of new responsibilities on dhs and cyberworld. We wanted to make sure they had on equal footing in their ability to hire and retain cybertalent. We gave similar authorities to nsa to bring on people faster and pay them more so they can compete with nsa and maybe the private sector. So that bill was passed last year. Dhs cyberworkforce authority. We pass the a bill on federal Information Security management act, its the law that governs. Gov, civil federal networks. What weve try to do is key things. One, clarify rules and responsibilities between dhs and omb. As lawyers, we can all appreciate clarity in the law. Its not often there, but we try. And what we tried to do here define rules between omb, dhs, for those of you, the law that was written in 2001, 2002, dhs was just Getting Started and omb has a handful of people to oversee federal Network Security what happen we triedmemoranda, e responsibilities to dhs. So what we tried to do is ensure that the law is up to date with is covers reality, really. And so, we decided authority between omb, dhs on federal Network Security. Thats where we are today on that one. We tried to move away from essentially compliance check lists, paperwork exercises, to more of a realtime and continuous diagnostics, monitoring, the buzzwords that youll hear. We have realtime security in place for federal agencies and for today, with all of the federal hacks were hearing about, this is incredibly important we move in this direction. Finally we put into place federal data breach standards, essentially by memorandum, we put into law, memorializing need for federal data breach policies in place. Last cyberbill ill mention is a legislation that authorized or codified dhs cybercenter, national cybercommunications and integrations center. We spent a lot of money supporting this federal cybercenter at dhs. We wanted to give it real teeth and clearly define its rules and responsibilities. Again, as lawyers, something that we heard a lot from the private sector and from other and from dhs they had trouble negotiating with and talking to the private sector because they just werent clear on what the center could do legally and what they can and what they couldnt do. We clearly defined their rule and it also helps with working with other agencies. Now they exactly know, everyone knows what dhs, what the center is supposed to be doing. Provide be predictability and certainty for both the government and private sector. And finally, joan will probably talk about this, cfats authorization. We authorized it four years, a program carried by Appropriations Bills year to year or every couple of years. We gave a fouryear authorization and provided for lower risk facilities and joan was a key author on that piece. Im sure shell chat about that. Looking at this year, quickly, weve moved 14 bills through our committee as of the first six months, and about five or six of those are dealing with discrete Border Security issues. Another five have deal with Emergency Management Communications Issues and a couple of others in different areas one i want to focus on is cybersecurity and that is the federal enhancement act, bill introduced by senator carp somewhere cosponsorered by senator johnson. First, authorizes a federal intrusion network detention detection and prevention system commonly known by einstein, run by dhs. We mandated, put it in place within a year, we also look at early not only address known threats, theres been a lot of criticism about einstein because its ability to detect known threats. We want to get to things we dont know about. We put into place language in the bill that will try to get to that issue of getting to those unknown and to those zero threats. But really, at end of the day, einstein language was, again there, legal ambiguity what dhs could and couldnt do with respect to another agencys information. Every agency has their own laws in place and how they control their information and there were questions what they could and couldnt share with dhs. So this bill will try to clarify that. We can speed up adoption of einsteins abilities, which is 50 of the government. That was kind of the real reasoning behind that and to push it forward as fast as possible. The bill also requires certain best practices and leading practices, cyberhygiene. We try to put those in place and require that upon agencies. Finely the bill, this was an amendment that was added at markup, a bill offered by senator colins and warner and marked up by senators mckcaskil and ayotte, giving dhs authority to direct better cybersecurity hygiene at other federal agencies. So this was something that was added at markup. So that was a big bill we pushed out in july. So moving to information sharing. The bill now well, in this past july, brought up, information sharing bill. Its the bill sponsored by senators feinstein and burr, and moved out of the intelligence committee. This bill, in short, would authorize organizations, companies, to share cyberthreat indicators with the federal government, which you only get Liability Protections for sharing of that information if you share through dhs portal or with a couple theres a couple of exceptions. So thats the bill generally, theres a lot more nuance to it, happy to talk about that further. There was an agreement reached at the end of the session the last period, with about 21 amendments and at this point those 21 amendments some type of action will be carried out on those amendments and were waiting on timing now. So september, we know iran will be one of the first things we do and we have fiscal issues and budget talks as well. Were waiting to see what will happen with cybersecurity bill but we have this agreement in place and thats a great step. I want to end on budget. End of fiscal years coming up, those are discussions well be having and i look forward to seeing whats there, too. Thank you. I think your framework, dividing out under the leadership and oversight management and budget, is something obviously the department we operate within and i think it feeds directly into joans comments next on sort of where things stand for the department, where the Homeland Security act plays into our necessary joint priorities and in keeping in mind, as well, that we have a robust and sometimes complex over sight structure on the hill with the committees. So with no further comments, joan. Thank you. First, thank you, everyone, for being here this morning. Its a great opportunity to be able to discuss with you some of chairman mccalls priorities for the committee. Some of our successes and challenges that we face. Writing law is not an easy thing, you have to get a lot of parties with a lot of opinions to come together and agree to move something forward which always requires some level of compromise and thats not easy to achieve. But we certainly do our darndest to try to move the ball forward as much as we can. As steve was saying, we do conduct a lot of oversight of the department. Lots of hearings, letters, briefings, all of that good stuff. And its very important. I mean it helps us understand what the departments priorities are, how theyre implementing the mission that we have the direction weve given them, how theyre carrying that out. But to a certain extent, oversight is limited. The real power from Congress Comes from legislation. And as i said just a minute ago, that can be a difficult challenge. So this year, one of the most important things theyre were working on in our committee to try to do the first ever reauthorization of the department. A lot of people are surprised when they learn that the department has actually never been reauthorized. And some people think, you know, maybe thats not that important or its more of an academic exercise but it does have a real world impact on what the department is doing, what its priorities are, what guidance were able to convey with more strength than just making sort of suggestions in oversight hearing. Ill get into what the challenges are there. But just to begin with, the department is now approaching 15 years, its been 13 years since Homeland Security act was drafted. A lot of people will say the department is sort of entering its teenage years. And we agree with that. I think the department has some things in common with teenagers. For one thing, its still working to establish its identity. Thats definitely something teenagers struggle with. Having been created out of 22 separate components, thats a difficult challenge. There are various cultures and traditions and protocols across the department. And trying to bring that altogether and create one dhs has been challenging. I know the department has obviously still working on that. Another, i think, aspect of its growth that the Department Might have in common with teenagers is that its trying to establish itself and earn the respect of its peers. And i think this is important especially with with respect to the authorization. Authorization would help to give i dont want to say legitimacy but a vote of confidence from the congressional standpoint to the department that it should be taken seriously and that it is on the level with other agencies within the executive branch. And another thing that the department has in common with teenagers and, im sure many of you have teenagers, its not always good with its money. Doesnt always make the best decisions and spend wisely. So thats something that were continually looking at as well. How is the department allocating funds, is the allocation directly relate td to its missi. Is the spending of dollars directly related to making homeland more secure. All of those things are struggles or challenges for the department and issues that our committee is looking at as well. But in failing to authorize the department as i said, its difficult for us to give firm guidance, because everything is sort of a very strong suggestion without legislation behind it. Also, from a congressional standpoint, concern for us is that when were failing to provide that guidance, were basically ceding our responsibility to the executive branch. Dhs is certainly not the quild we wild west. Everybodys going crazy over there. The secretarys doing a great job and thousand of excellent employees making things happen there. But to allow dhs to, in some respects, provide oversight for itself is not really the way its supposed to work. So authorization would be very important from that respect as well to try to take back some of the authority and responsibility that congress is supposed to have in this realm. Also, just in reality, and i dont mean this to sound scary or anything like that, but Homeland Security is jeopardized in some respects when we cant pass bills that are really necessary to help the department prioritize. Obviously, members of congress have very strong opinions on all sorts of things including counterterrorism, Border Security, et cetera, but without passing legislation, its its very difficult to mandate certain approaches and certain priorities for the department. I have a few interesting statistics here for you to give you a sense of the challenge we face on the house side with our fractured jurisdiction. And 2014, dhs came up to the hill to brief congressional offices 1,742 times. In one year. The department testified before Committee Hearings 123 times and provided 180 witnesses. So, as you can imagine, this demands time, resources, and energy and certainly it has been argued that it takes away from the department foe cutting on actually implementing the mission. Many of you may know this already, but if you dont, you might be surprised to learn that dhs actually reports to more than 100 committees and subcommittees on the hill. The senate is more, i dont want to say organized, but maybe thats the word, where theyre reporting and oversight is limited. Homeland Security Committee on the house said, were sharing jurisdiction with six or seven major other committees and then, like i said, its over 100 committees and subcommittees that have to weigh in on a lot of the legislation that we plight propose. So that is very challenging. Its been that way for a long time. From the beginning, thats been the jurisdictional structure on the house side. Basically, when the Homeland Security committee was formed there were a lot of other committees already that had oversight parts of department or parts of those components. To ask those committee to give up all of their oversight was not a reasonable ask at the time. What resulted was this fractured jurisdiction where dhs is reporting to a lot of masters, if you will. So this is a challenge. It has resulted in a lack of authorization for the last decade or more, and thats something that is going to be difficult to change without a change in the actual jurisdictional structure. So we have black letter law or rules in the house that tell us exactly what our committee, committee on Homeland Security, has oversight of. And the same applies to various other committees, transportation, infrastructure, judiciary, commerce, for example. Theres a lot of overlap. But it can be difficult to actually get a law passed on a specific topic when, say, three committees need to weigh in. Now youve got to get together house, and is that the, democrats and republicans, to agree, which is hard enough, the senate and the house have to agree, and then several committees have to agree on the same piece of legislation as well. So, again, this is challenging. Its something that we have been speaking with house leadership about, maybe rethinking that jurisdiction, though it would be difficult and politically difficult, to be honest, as well. But regardless, the committee and chairman mccall are committed to trying to get a reauthorization done this year. So weve been working diligently on trying to reach out to the other committeed that do share jurisdiction to engage them in the process to literally share legislative language with them and solaicit their input, feedback, incorporate their ideas because at this point, one committee cant do the authorization. Its going to take all of us to come together and make this a priority and agree to find Common Ground and in some cases make compromises. So that has been a major legislative priority. Obviously, Border Security, cybersecurity, counterterrorism remain front and center for chairman mccall. But in addition to that, he feels this in authorization is the right thing to do. That its very important and that Congress Needs to take back its responsibility and authorities to provide guidance to the department. Im happy to take any questions that you might vaughn the specifics of the authorization. Its been in progress for over a year now. Weve got a lot of language written. Were in the process of, as i said, talking to the other committees and trying to make progress and move the ball forward. Were planning to begin markups of the language when Congress Comes back in september, fingers crossed, everybody give us good energy, wed like to see this on the floor before christmas and say that we did accomplish an authorization this year. Great. Thank you, joan. I think you probably will have more than the energy of the people in the room, energy of a lot of folks of the department with respect to the deal of the reauthorization. Im reminded talking about oversight, that secretary ridges comments, among during his first year, when working with him as an adviser, i think i dont know if he colloquially said this or said this in a hearing we need a quick return on letters, witnesses, you didnt respond to this, why arent you accomplishing the following goals, and this is within our first year and he did say, you know, i we can do the work, paraphrasing, we can do the work, we can plan the work, we can tell you about the work but we cant be telling you what we want to without the space and time to be back there actually doing it. I think that we try to give that absolutely appropriate deference to committee but experienced multiple committees asking for hearings on the same day, its just awkward. So the reauthorization, will certainly serve that. I think weave right at time. I do want to say, if there are a couple of questions, joe, would we have time for that, because it would be really good and, first, to say thanks to all four of our panelists because i think youve given us a great 360perspective. First ill give you a hand and then take any questions. Maam, i saw your hand go up first, i think. Of course we have the haharl river and hudson river. I invite you to our tug race in september. My question has to do with, i do a lot of domestic river cruising. What are we doing with the domestic boats, domestic cruises . In term of legislation. You raise a good question. Coast guard i dont personally have that information. You can give me your card, maybe when we finish, i can follow up. Coast guard has extensive regulations, on the books, hundreds of regulations in the works. [ inaudible ]. I can follow up with you and talk if other agencies have overlapping jurisdictions. If you followup with me afterward, i will talk with you. I think you were second. I wanted to thank you for the scrub act the midway. A family brought in a loaf of bread and peanut butter. The family looked devastated. It was economic that they did this. I recently was flying back from the iowa state fair, i took watermelon, personal watermelon, cut it up, put in a zip lock bag. I had a debate with tsa over ten minutes to keep my watermelon chunks im didnt know if it was a gel, i thought it was legal, i contacted tsa, ccd my member of congress. They responded to me, ccd my member of congress and and said what could be approved and not, it was not specific about my watermelon issue but also indicated that pies is cakes are permitted as carryones but could be subject to additional screening. I think the reauthorization of the dhs stems on a rebranding or branding issue. I think a lot of americans are frustrated, they like me go to their member of congress, and members of congress are very angry that they get these complaints. How do you address this in the reauthorization . Its an image issue, we have budget issue, excessive spending. They talk to their member of congress who is going reauthorize you. Well, it is certainly something that my boss is aware of. He hears those complaints, as well, and i have to say, i dont think he is angry when he hears those complaints. In many cases he sympathizes. As i was saying, with the authorization, it gives us the opportunity to provide legislative guidance. So with the situation like tsa, if there are if theres ways of abuse or improper policies those are things we can address in legislation. Challenge is to try to get all of the Decision Makers on the hill to sort of agree to a certain approach or a certain way things should be done. Its not that easy, quite frankly, to pass law. But it is certainly something that we are aware of. And i did fail to mention, in my comments, that were not trying to do an overhaul of the department or do anything completely earth shaking with this author zapgs this ization. Its a heavy lift to get everyone together to do this. So we really just want to give the legitimacy and baseline guidance to the department with the first authorization but were hoping that it will provide the foundation for further and perhaps even more significant adjustments like the kinds of things that you raised. Well take the last question and also say panelists will be moving towards the back afterwards if you want to catch them to ask other questions or email them, theyll be available. Thank you. Federal news radio. Joan, talking about the same thing but you havent come out and said that directly. My question is, this unity of that dhs is saying you need legislation for what legislation are you pockitalking about . It is thoauthorization or what e you Want Congress to. Joan, you want to do that . No. I can start. Yes. It overlaps. The fact that the secretary has limited authority under the Homeland Security tookt effect certain reorganization with changes. Give me an example. Second 8. 72, it lays out original limb slatio limitation and further restricted in our various appropriation bill. So some of the things the secretary wants to acleve through the unity effort that those systems and processes, that are overarching, we do need to be effective through legislation. So, the types of some of the organizational, some of it is putting things in some of the fiscal Management Systems and strategy formulation that joint task force, i think, that mr. Bunnell talked about look at southwest border, those type of things we need legislation for. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thanks to our panel. This was great. Really appreciate it. The American Bar Association hosted its annual Homeland Security conference with dozens of legal and National Security analysts. This panel covered the top imic immigration, new policy and some legal challenges ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, lets get started. Lets get situated. We have picked the topic, after lunch, totally noncontroversial, which is the United States immigration policy and laws. So as we move toward this next topic, we felt like it was probably had to be on our agenda this year and always will be on our agenda, which is the conundrum that we have as a country that so many people want to come to, how do we process though people as they want to come into the country and how do we give them the opportunity that so many of us enjoy as americans . Highly complex issue, easily demagogued but weve picked a panel that hopefully will address this in a considerable fashion and lay out to you some of the challenges we have in u. S. Immigration law and policy. And ive lived with immigration all of my career. First case i prosecuted as a federal prosecutor was illegal alien transporting case. It was a tremendous education for me. I learned a lot about il th immigration. But i knew when i was there i needed to have somebody working with and for me and my right hand who was as knowledgeable as lyndon melmed and he was part of our team earlier on as an attorney with dhs general counsels office and hes currently a partner with the law firm of barry appleman, a practice in d. C. And northern virginia. He served as highest ranking legal official in cis as chief counsel for u. S. Citizenship of Immigration Services and served as special counsel to senator john cornyn. Lyndon, thank you. Thanks, joe. Before we begin, let me recognize joe and Holly Hampton and kiefer and angelo petro for their tireless work in putting on this event. Joe mentioned if you came here today expecting a lunchtime food fight over birth right citizenship and building walls on the border, i think youll be a little disappointed today. What we do have are four of the most thoughtful, leading experts on Immigration Law who represent the government who come from the hill, advocacy organizations and academia. Well hear from them today about the issues that are really going to be going on here in the last year and a half of the administration. Let me do quick introductions. Down on the far end, Mary Giovagnoli serves as Deputy Assistant secretary for immigration policy at department of Homeland Security. Prior to that position, she was the director of the immigration policy center. For a number of years served as Senior Lawyer at first i. N. S. And them Homeland Security specializing in refugee and asylum law and a fellowship in the late senator kennedys office during rebut 1997 immigration debate. To her right, professor jill family, International Expert on Immigration Law. Focuses on procedures used to adjudicate immigration cases, still an opaque topic to me. But she directs the law in Government Program at widener university. And i recommend for any attorney who is going to tackle Immigration Law you read her article called Administrative Law through the len of Immigration Law to her right, greg chen, director of the american excuse me, director offe advocacy for american lawys association. Well get there. 13,000 members these days. As long history of advocacy with the lutheran and immigration service. Hes one of most respected voices on controversial issues and testified before both the house and the senate. Finally, but not least, gary me mersen assumed position of democratic chief counsel on the subcommittee of house security in the house of representatives. His underlying Fulltime Position is chief of staff for the ombudsman to u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Gary has a brak rouackground in advocacy role for the american lawyers association. Quite an es seteemed group up h. The topics that were going to cover today are most likely to drive immigration policy in the final year and a half. As expected well cover the f z president s signature action, overall hall of enforcement priorities, the allege that the administration is face on the southern board with unaccompanied minors and the recent announcement regarding proposal to legalize the immigration system. We are going to turn to doc and dopa. Jill will take substance and ill chime in with substance. Thank you. Thank you aba Administrative Law section for hosting this institute. I am happy always happy when i can do anything with theed Administrative Law section. Its great to be here this afternoon. My task is to fill you in very f quickly on one of the most controversial immigration aspects of the last year or so and that is the president s starting of two things called doca and dopa. I have to stop and think if you dont think about Immigration Law all of the time, that must sound funny. Doca, deferred action for childhood arrival and do pflt a stands for deferred action of americans and lawful americans. Im going to explain quickly what deferred action is in Immigration Law and move into how this ended up in headlines. So deferred action is a temporary reprieve from removal. Its an exercise with prosecutorial discretion in Immigration Law. And its a signal that an individual is a low priority for removal. Its important to note that its revocable and it doesnt provide a lawful immigration status. Its a revocable statement from the government to a particular Foreign National that they are not high prior priority. Its not new, its not something that president obama came up with himself. In fact, john lennon received deferred action in the 1970s. So thats our, you know, cool, hip, beatles Immigration Law connection there. Marys singing over here. What is new, though, is that the Obama Administration using deferred action in a slightly innovative way, through daca and dapa, its try toll harness the Equitable Relief thats ava available through deferred action in a transparent way. Before daca and dapa, deferred action a mystery, not always clear to private Immigration Attorneys who you asked for deferred action. Its like you knew it existed how but you got it, how the government decided who was eligible was a police tri. Its less of a mystery through daca and dapa because what the Obama Administration did is it released a policy memo that said, heres some criteria that our Agency Adjudicators should consider when deciding whether or not to grant deferred action in these within daca and dapa. This method allows individuals to have a better sense where to apply and what the government will think about when deciding whether or not to grant daca or dapa. Daca has been in place since 2012, aimed at individual whose arrived in the United States as children i wont go through all of the criteria theyre in the power point who arrived as children and dont have lawful status. What daca gives them is a signal in they are in the a high priority for removal and makes them eligible to apply for employment authorization. Daca is 3 years old. Data tells us that aprproximatey half 0 those eligible have applied. The number i saw was 750,000. And that 83 of those who had been granted daca originally, good for two years, applied for renewal. Now dapa, the one with the p is a proposed initiative similar, but not the same, as daca, that would apply for parents of u. S. Citizens or children who have lawful permanent residents. The same thing, grant deferred took those parents. Dapa, its estimated there are 3. 6 million individuals who would be eligible for dapa but we dont know how many might apply because dapa hasnt been implemented judge enjoined dapa. It violated the act because it invoked the policy memorandum exception to the rule making requirements some for those of you im sure are familiar but if youre going to not want to use notice and comment rule making use a guidance document but use it correctly. I should say, this issue about guidance documents and the nexus between Administrative Law and Immigration Law is something that ive spent a great deal of my time thinking about. I was excited that this case turned on something i spent so much time thinking about. I was disappointed because i disagree with the District Court judges concrucials on the Administrative Law and Immigration Law aspects of his decision. One thing i disagree with is the judge concluded that there was judicial review under the apa, he concluded that dapa is not purely agency prosecutorial discussion. I disagree with that conclusion. Also, the District Court judge concluded that the Obama Administration erroneously used policy document and i disagree with his reasoning there as well. Just something to think about going forward, and im happy to take any questions about daca and dapa if you want to know why i disagree with the judges conclusions, a general point i want to make in terms of thinking about the future of Immigration Law to me the litigation over dapa solidifies in my mind that Immigration Lawyers and Administrative Law lawyers can no longer operate as long as they operate as they occupy two separate islands. Reflects misunderstanding about Administrative Law and Immigration Law and i think its very important and up to Immigration Lawyers to be fluent in general Administrative Law principles so we can help bridge this gap and make bring Immigration Law back into the plain stream of Administrative Law. Thank you. Well do a few questions up here. Time permitting at the end, well open it up to the floor. First question, this is for you, jill, but other speakers, tell us about the timing for the right now theres decision pending with the fifth circuit. Where do you see it going in terms of timing with the fifth and possible Supreme Court after that . The fifth circuit refused to grant a stay of the District Courts preliminary injuknctioi so now the appeal of the preliminary injunction is before the fifth circuit but before the same panel. 2 of the 3. The 2 who ruled they wouldnt grant the stay. Im expecting probably the same result from the fifth circuit. My guess is that this is something that will end up before the Supreme Court. Okay. A major part the lawsuit was brought by texas and a coalition of states theyre opposed to the policy. The District Court found they have standing and basis for the court to find standing was that the grant of deferred action and that nonstatus resulted in individuals ooblt ability to a for a texas driver license. Even time you apply, theres a small cost that the state absorbs to issue the drivers license. So the flaretive that texas brought to the litigation through the grachbts nt of defe action texas is incurring costs. Its a relatively narrow focus in terms of harm and weve seen how the difficult and briefs filed by interested parties have sought to broaden economic discussion to say there might be cause for a drivers license but theres economic benefits of them being able to work, pay more in texas and texas benefits in other ways. Where do you see the factual discussion going as this case moves through the courts and the policy realm about the narrow broad view of economic arm . I should start out by saying, im not an expert but i will tell you something about it. No, ooh can tell you what fifth circuit said when they denied the stay of the preliminary injuncti injunction, they said being pressure to change state law is a redressable injury. They said that the implementation of dapa would have a direct and predictable effect on the states drive license regime. Its not speculative because beneficiaries will almost definitely apply for licenses and they didnt seem empressed by the offsetting benefits arguments. They considered that for the stay of the preliminary injunction. Well see what the fifth circuit says next im would imagine that if and when this case goes to the court the standing argument is going to be huge. This has repercussions way beyond Immigration Law. If i may, one other point to add to what jill had clearly described in temples of the time frame here. If the case is going to be brought to the Supreme Court and seek certain that the Supreme Courts term for the fall and the spring will start filling quite quickly as we all know it only handles 70 cases, maybe 80 cases in a given term. That decision will have be made fair which soon. Theres a window of opportunity where the fifth circuit has to come down, they have to make whether its going to grant it, it may not do that. This is a case of tremendous import but that may be waived. If they miss the window for the term, lets alone being denied, they wouldnt be heard until the next term coming around starting all of next were. Thats a thing to think about for the timing of this. And for significant cases that dont get heard until later, decisions wont come up summertime. It goes newspaper the Supreme Court, something not only midway through next year from the Supreme Court. Midway through an election year. So its been on hold, governments been working up scenarios how to implement the program, all of you have experience, either within the government or working on the adjudication side. If the government does get a green light, whether this fall or next year after a Supreme Court case, there he be better positioned today toisment quickly, or is there just a lead up time and ramp um time, no matter when you pull push the firing gun. Everybodys looking at me and attorneys from dhs are looking at me in a completely different way. I think that is probably a better answer for you to speculate on in terms of readiness and much because we have taken courts order extremely seriously in terms of not really freezing everything in its tracks with respect to dapa implementation. I think that the good thinking that is going on and conversation going on needs to be one in the public realm. I think it certainly helps, as opened up in did launch a program. Theyve done 700,000 applications. Theyve worked out some kinks. There will always be new surprises and new challenges and staffing issues. But unlike the prior debates in 2005, 2006 and 2007, this is not an unknown administrative challenge anymore. Why dont we stick with you, mary, then, while you are in the hot seat. The president and the secretary announced really major changes to the enforcement priority system. And those have been ongoing for a number of months. Then we had the issue about sanctuary cities explode with the killing in california. Aside from the emotional part of the murder that occurred in california, the enforcement policy changes i dont think have gotten enough mainstream attention of how significant they are. If i could look to you to walk us through what the changes are and how you see them impacting the immigration policy down the road. I think the important place to begin is that, for any number of years and certainly in the last five years, dhs has carefully used explicit priority enforcement guidelines to help to shape the nature of the Enforcement Actions that we undertake. And many of the things that the secretary did in november of 2014 were to, i think, refine and identify those places in which those guidelines could not only be improved but i think could sharpen some of the broader policy points that really the administration wanted to emphasize. And so weve always made those who threaten our National Security and Public Safety or threaten our borders chief among the priorities. And none of that really has changed. But i think that what you saw in november of 2014 was an attempt to go in and, with greater precision and with slightly tighter gauge, say heres how this, you know, sort of plays itself out in the context of daytoday decisionmaking. I cant emphasize enough that, when i look at all of the november 2014 announcements and memos from the president , from the secretary. That this notion of decisionmaking is actually really critical to, i think, what dhs is about, the idea of discretion, the idea of enforcement priorities, the idea of, you know, the programs that are enjoined, other programs that were attempting to do in innovation and modernization of our visa system. All of these things often turn on using the best decisionmaking and the best judgment possible in the context of good government. And so i often like to say that, really, the goal of the enforcement priorities as well as Everything Else is exactly that, how do we really enshrine sort of the best standards and making good judgments about individual cases in the context of a massive, you know, undertaking. And this is particularly important in the enforcement context. Thats enough opining. Lynden is like, get to the facts. Some of the basics are available in the outline. I think the critical things to know and understand are that we moved from a broad set of priority categories to a slightly more targeted one in which greater emphasis was placed on serious criminals and less emphasis on minor traffic violations because both of those, in prior iterations, could essentially put someone in the path of a removal action. We focus more on the future, so targeting recent Border Crossers and persons issued an order after of removal after january 1 of 2014. So there is a bit more of a bright line. Numbers in that context will change as we move further and further from that date. Still there is a bit of a i think a future focus as opposed to a retrospective focus. Finally we deemphasized the importance of expending valuable resources on persons who entered the country illegally before january 1, 2014, unless they fall into one of the priority categories. So still the people who are most likely to want to do us harm or who have committed serious crimes are priorities for removal. Its really many of people who fall into the category of the 12 million undocumented immigrants, most of whom, 60 or more of whom have been here in the country for ten years or more and who may or may not have fallen into other more discrete categories of discretionary action. Its really those folks who are the administration i think was attempting to sort of say these folks are not going to be the priority. The overall recognition is that we get more benefit and more value to our communities by recognizing that these people in many cases very much are deeply embedded in it. So thats sort of the overall philosophy. The sort of key and critical part is a memo that the secretary issued that, for all intents and purposes, ended the secure communities program. And the secure communities, of course, had been and remains a very controversial part of enforcement priorities over the last few years in part because irrespective of what it was designed to be, what it became and this is actually noted in the secretarys memo what it became was sort of emblematic of everything thats wrong with the immigration system today. And that is that somehow or other people get caught in a system that is designed, that has no grace, frankly. Sort of once youre in the immigration system, there really are very few options for getting out of it. And so many of the complaints, so much of the opposition, so many of the city and state ordinances that were being passed really amounted to the fact that people felt like their communities were getting trapped in an enforcement system that sort of chewed people up and spit them out rather than gave any careful consideration. And im not in any way attempting to malign my brothers and sisters in i. C. E. Or cbp or anywhere else. Were talking about institutional systematic issues the secretary was attempting to address. Even in the course of all this there were of course good, individualized decisions made, but the critical thing is that we had to find a way to turn off this particular form of sort of enforcement and come up with something new. So the new program is the priorities enforcement program. And pep. We always have good acronyms. Where secure communities was criticized as being something where people in the communities had no control over the decisions that were made or who would end up in the immigration strae stream, p. E. P. Is designed to engage with the communities from the beginning. I think, in a number of ways, its actually a really Exciting Development in Law Enforcement because its an attempt to marry up the important Immigration Enforcement needs that we have with the recognition that community engagement, Community Police and Community Involvement are equally important parts of creating a successful and working enforcement strategy. And so, with that in mind, i think the primary things to know and understand that sort of are a riff off of what you have in your materials are that it maintains the basic idea that was the founding of secure communities, that there is a need for information sharing so that when people are arrested, the fbi receives the information about the biometrics and such, and that information is shared with i. C. E. That part does not change. It nonetheless is governed by this general philosophy of enforcement prioritizing. I. C. E. Officers spend a great deal of time looking at the information they get and making decisions about who should be sort of tagged, i guess, as someone who is an enforcement priority. And only then are they going to reach out to the communities and say, this is somebody who we really do want to bring back into our system and put into the removal process. Its not triggered by its not triggered by the mere fact that someones arrested but that someone is convicted. Thats a huge different from the past in secure communities but, again, sort of a critical juncture in decisionmaking that were looking at people who actually have been convicted. The general pattern will be and is that we ask jurisdictions to notify us 48 hours ahead of time when someone who weve identified as a priority is going to be released, and in some cases, if the jurisdiction agrees, we also can put a detainer against that person. But unlike in the past when detainers were the default mechanism, today the default really is to seek the engagement and seek the involvement of the communities by notifying us. And in particular, that means, then, that our folks are going out and our i. C. E. Officers are going out and working with individual communities to even figure out what the actual dynamic of that will be. So we recognize that not all communities are going to have exactly the same priorities that the department does, so there is a negotiation that can go on. So its a radically different process, but if done well, and i think we can do it well, it will allow us to maintain the need to enforce Immigration Laws against those who seek to do us harm. But at the same time ensure that we have a much better handle on creating that mechanism of grace and that mechanism of discretion that will allow us to ensure that people who arent priorities arent inadvertently caught in the system. I think i will end with that. Let me turn to you, greg, when the secretary announced changes to secure communities he used the term he was going to reboot the program and announced a significant overhaul. I think of reboot like my computer, you know, and my frustration level at that point that im having to reboot is high. What was the reception within Immigration Community and
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