Good morning welcome to the Heritage Foundation and our douglas and sarah elson auditorium. We welcome those joining us on our heritage. Org website. We would ask you see your mobile devices have been silenced or turned off and for those online, youre welcome to send questions or comments at any time, simply emailing speaker at heritage. Org. Leading our discussion is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is a former Deputy Assistant secretary for policy at the u. S. Department of Homeland Security. He is also the founder of red branch consulting. As well as the Senior Advisor to the churt off group. He serves as a professional lecturer and law and he is an advisor to and former member of the american bar associations Standing Committee on law and National Committee as well as a contributing editor to the law fair blog. Paul . Thank you very much, john. It is an honor to be asked to host todays event. I want to welcome you to the heritage allison auditorium. Immigration has had a storied history in American Life beginning of course back with the founding and continuing to this day, it has in many instances and times been a contentious subject. We could probably identify three basic themes that have an mated the debate. Some look at imglagz and see it through the prism of commerce. They see borders as controls on the free flow of goods and labor and they see immigration issues as ways of resolving what if any should be the appropriate way of managing the flow of labor across borders. Others see it prince pale through the prism of cultural significance, a nation is of course defieddefined by those we in it and immigration control more or less allows a country to define who its citizens are, who may be within the country and thus to find the nature of the culture that nation expresses. The third prism is one of security. National security and personal security. They see borders as defining a Defensible Space and a way of enforcing that defense to the betterment of the National Common wheel. It is i think fair to characterize the debate between these prisms of immigration as an ongoing one, certainly since the last substantive reform in congress in the 1980s, we as americans have been engaged in a vigorous debate as to which of these conceptions of immigration takes prominence. The Obama Administration is rightly i think characterized as having leaned heavily on questioned of commerce and culture. Advancing them over issues of National Security and the trumpedtrump edadministration is i think rightly seen as reversing some of those trends and putting a greater emphasis today on National Security issues as they relate to immigration and Border Security. The topic of our discussion is simple. Were going to begin with a short Panel Discussion with two of my colleagues from heritage and follow that with a key note address from tom holman. Who i will introduce at a later moment. For now, let me introduce my colleagues. A policy analyst in the senter for foreign and National Security policy. He specializes in Homeland Security issues, including cyber and immigration policy and the protection of critical infrastructure. He hold as b. A. In government and economics from the college of william mary and a masters in Public Policy from george mason. Sitting next to me is an authority on a wide range of issues including civil rights, civil justice. The First Amendment in the rule of law. A senior fellow in the center for legal and judicial studies. He is the co author of the book whos counting how they put your vote at risk . And obamas enforcer, eric holders justice department. Hans served two years as the federal election commission. Those charged with finance laws for elections. Lets begin with introductory remarks. Thanks, paul. I jusz want to focus on some of the problems and provide slushzs along the way and i know haunz will be able to talk a little built more on whats going on with states and localities around the country. Dhs has many responsibilities on the border and regard to immigration. Two notable ones. First is Border Security and interior enforcement. Ill start with Border Security because it seemed most appropriate to start from the outside and work our way in. It gets a lot of talk in the United States. Border barriers, walls, the number of Border Patrol agents, cameras, technology, etc. , these are the type ofsz things weve heard from campaigns and now. And it makes sense we should talk about these things. It makes sense the control of ones borders is really the start to good enforcement. Afterall it only makes subsequent enforcement efforts that much more difficult. Currently the United States has around 654 miles of fencing along the southern border of which around 354 are pedestrian fencing and 300 miles are vehicle fencing. Only about 30 miles have a second layer of fencing. In terms of staffing at the end of 2016 the Border Patrol agents had had around just under 20,000 agents. So while there are many impo important arguments regarding agents or other things. I think its critical talking about Immigration Enforcement to step back and see how Border Security investments are part of a larger enforcement system. Fencing, barriers, walls. These may dissuade some illegal agents from crossing in the United States. Many legal immigrants are going to cross if they think once they cross theyre going to be allowed to stay. In areas that there mountainous or desert regions or many miles to the nearest town, a border wall is just a several minute short delay in what otherwise is going to be an hour long or day long trek to get to a city or town. So the best way to stop it in these areas is to intersect these folks using technology. Technology is essential to direct Border Patrol agents to pick them up. Where fencing is most essential is areas near towns and cities. They can cross the border and knickly disappear or melt into the regular hustle and bustle of people, houses and businesses. In these areas, the extra few minutes it takes an illegal immigrant to cross because of the border is an essential peer yod of time to detect the illegal Border Crossing and get agents there to respaurnd and stop them. Thus, the best Border Security is around technology ta lrd to the regional needs. This is the approach by our former secretary of homeland secure, john kelly. Fencing, high tech fencing makes sense over there. Technology makes sense over there. A needs approach is the best path forward. But i want to move beyond Border Security. And the reason i want to move beyond Border Security is i because i view the most important part of the puzzle i really do view this as the key question. When an immigrant is picked up by the Border Patrol, what happens . Where they over stay legal visa what happens . I would argue these questions are some of the most important questions we need to answer in the debate. If it they believe wups they pass theyre unlikely to be deported, then fences and the Border Patrol are smaug small obstacles. If they believe they can turn themselves in and get sent to the u. S. Interior, then theyll view it as having a high likelihood of success. All the investments inboarder u patrol and security are moving them nin interior of the United States. If we continue the policy known as catch and release. And so Border Security must be packed up by other departments. I. C. E. And United States citizenship and Immigration Services as well as parts of the department of justice. Truly powerful Border Security will include more space, funding and authority for these agencies so that Illegal Immigrants can have their cases adjudicated quickly in an expeindicted manner. This insures most are not being released into the interior but being removed as possibly as to not overwhelm the Immigration Courts. For those that do make to the interior by crossing or over staying a legal visa, its not enough to make it difficult to enter. It must be difficult for an illegal immigrant to remain and work in the United States unlawfully. One found Illegal Immigrants to be subject to removal and perhaps more we should give to i. C. E. This includes the use of expedited removal, which i know the Trump Administration has already started to do. Expanding a 287 g program which trains and deputeizes local Law Enforcement to enforce Immigration Laws. Unfortunately the Obama Administration did the opposite. Enforcement was significantly weakened, i would argue, which through various executive actions reduced the number of individuals being deported. In fiscal year 2016 they removed or returned 450,000 individuals. In 2008 about 1. 2 million Enforcement Actions occur. So 2016 is the lowest levels of return since 1971 and the policy of the Obama Administration was largely to catch was to allow them to be released into the interior. The result is we have average wait times in our Immigration Courts that have tripled under Obama Administration. Its up to two years in the Immigration Court system. And together with the unlauflt and unconstitutional deferred action programs that rewarded and encouraged more ilLegal Immigration, the Obama Administration failed to insure proper enforcement was occurring. Thankfully the trumped Ed Administration has begun to reverse many of these policies. Im looking forward to hearing the directors remarks on this and see what the administration is doing as we move forward. And theres an important discussion regarding the ilLegal Immigration system, how it can be structured and incent vised Legal Immigration but thats beyond the scope of my time here today. So i wanted to throw that out there as something that could be a whole other event. Thank you. Thanks, david. Hans. There were two papers that were handed out for people of the audience that came in. One is a paper i wrote a couple of years ago and its on the steps that state can legally take given the Supreme Courts decisions to assist the federal government and enforcement of our Immigration Laws. It is very, very important for the states to do that. Without their assistance, its very tough for the department of Homeland Security to do its job. Now the second paper is one i just released and wrote about how the Immigration Courts should be streamlined. I dont think a lot of people realize that illegal aliens have very extensive Due Process Rights. Everything from the ability to be represented by counsel to much of the same rights all of us enjoy as citizens when were in the courts but there are a lot of things that could be done to streamline the court system. Im going to concentrate on probably one of the biggest fights going on and that is sanctuary cities. Let me first say that this false claim is constantly made that if youre against ilLegal Immigration, if you want to see our Immigration Laws enforced, then you must be racist. That is simply not true. No nation can exist if it doesnt control its borders. And we are the most generous country in the world when it comes to Legal Immigration. We take in a million legal immigrants a year. Thats more than any otherer country in the world. I think the best statement on this was made by barbara jordan. She was a civil rights icon. I think one of the first African Americans elected to the Texas Legislature and went on to congress. In the 1990s bill clinton put her in charge of his commission on immigration reform. We disagree with those that would label efforts to limit immigration as its the right of a Democratic Society to manaman manage immigration to serve the national interests. Inless this country does a better job curbing ilLegal Immigration, we risk undermining our Legal Immigration. And the Trump Administration has, i think very correctly, through attorney general Jeff Sessions said that theyre going to not allow cities and counties that have sanctuary policies in place that ubstruct enforcement of federal Immigration Laws to apply for and receive discretionary grants from the department of justice. What are sanctuary policies . In essence the policies of cities and counties like San Francisco and chicago have put in do two things. One they forbid their local Law Enforcement of exchanging any information on the immigration status of individuals they arrest for committing local crimes and second, they refuse to honor federal detainer warrants. Federal detainer warrants are issued by the department of Homeland Security when they learn that local Law Enforcement has arrested a criminal illegal alien and asked to hold them for 48 hours so that the feds can come and pick them up. Now forbidding local Law Enforcement from exchanging information with the feds is illegal under federal law. Theres a federal provision in Immigration Law that basically says that no local entity can forbid its officials from exchanging citizenship information. So when the city of chicago tells its Law Enforcement you cant notify dhs when youve arrested an illegal alien for a local crime such as rape, sexual assault, burglary, that is against federal law and we know thats legal because when the law was first passed, the city of new york under the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani sued and said the feds couldnt do this. The law was unconstitutional because it common deared local resources. In a case that went all the way to the Second Circuit u. S. Court of appeals in 1999, the Second Circuit threw out the city of new yorks case and said this law doesnt common dear local resources because theyre not telling cities that you have to call the feds. Theyre just saying you cant tell your local sherifff hes forbidden from calling the feds if he wants to or get information about someone theyve arrested. Look, were having a legal discussion and a Public Policy discussion but on a personal note i get really annoyed and frankly tired of local officials and the sank tumonious attitude they takes a if theyre on the moral high ground. Because i got to tell you what theyre creating is creating sanctuaries for criminals. Theyre saying that inan illegal alien commit as local crime, lets say robbery or assault and they are sentenced to six months in the local jail,ality the end of that time they would rather that criminal be released back into the local community where they can victimize more individuals. Thats better than calling up the department of Homeland Security so dhs can come pick them up and remove them from the country. And are americans victimized by this . Yes, they are. In 2005 the government accou Accountability Office did a study and released a report. And what they did is looked at the criminal histories of 55,322 illegal aliens at federal, state and local prisons. They entered illegally and in the country ille