discussing president obama's choice for defense secretary. and we have the author of "to break out nations." and he will be talking about developing countries somewhere in the world. his book focuses on emerging markets and it explores what makes economies operate out or break down. tamara's -- tomorrow's "washington journal" starts at 7:00 a.m. we will see you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> today on c-span, a discussion on immigration enforcement in the back to states followed by a look at u.s.-mexico relations. and governors deliver state of the state address this. -- addresses. today on c-span, what governors on the east coast to deliver their state of the state addresses. all starting at 1:05 eastern here on c-span. next, and look at the state of immigration enforcement in the united states. this is about one-half of hours. >> good morning everyone, and happy new year. to those of you here with us today and those at home the winning this event. i am demetrios papademetriou, president of the immigration policy institute. i'd like to welcome you to the discussion of the institut's latest report titled, -- discussion of the institute's latest report. as you will see during the presentations and as you will conclude after the event is over, it is a formidable machinery that has been created in the united states over the past decade or decade and a half. the release of this report could not come at a more appropriate time. since the election and even before that, the president and leaders in the democratic party and the u.s. congress of both the would-both chambers of the u.s. congress, as well as key -- the democratic party and the u.s. congress -- both chambers of the u.s. congress have said this is time for a broad reform of the u.s. immigration system. we can only take them at their word. if this were to take place, it would end a 10 year deadlock with repeated failed attempts in reforming the system. most notably, the failures of 2006 and 2007. underlining the failures has been deep skepticism shared by many analysts, some advocates, and significant portions of the u.s. population about the ability and the will of the u.s. government to enforce the law. at the borders and in the u.s. interior. this so-called demand for lead to me andirst my colleagues on the panel to invest in understanding as well as is possible the investments, effectiveness, and consequences, including the human consequences. of the nation posted a deep commitment to enforcement and the rule of law -- consequences of the mission's deep commitment to enforcement and the rule of law -- consequences of the nation's the commitment to enforcement and the rule of law. no nation in the world has been as determine, has made as deep and the expense of a commitment to or has had as steep a rich in its enforcement efforts as the u.s. has had. he reached spans from local court rooms and jailed all the way to the ability of travelers to the united states to be able to travel to the united states, including to be able to really get on a plane to come to the united states. an extension of u.s. borders while beyond the physical borders of the united states. this is not the first time the migration policy institute has really delved deeply into enforcement issues. we deeply believe that immigration enforcement is key to the immigration system's integrity and to the ability of a government to do the smart things that they must do in order to take advantage of the opportunities that international migration makes possible. we have issued major reports going back almost to the beginning of the migration policy, now almost 11 years ago, with reports falling 9/11, in- depth investigations of the v isa system and investigations of cooperation transatlantic link. the-trans atlantic -- trans atlanticly. the report details what those corporations have enabled us to do. it is a system that we now have. system in which the whole is much thicker than the sum of its parts. the speakers will present -- is much bigger than the sum of its parts. we will start with doris meissner, immigration policy institute senior fellow and director for the u.s. immigration program. and for those of you who might not know, the immigration commissioner under the clinton presidency. she will present the overview of the report and the report on the border enforcement and data systems. she will summarize the conversation after her colleagues have spoken. the second speaker is muzaffar chishti, director of the migration policy institute's office at the university of new york law school. he will present the parts of the report the deal with workforce -- workplace enforcement. the third speaker will been donald kerwin, the director of the center for migration studies in new york and a non-resident fellow at the institute. don will be talking about the tension and removal. the fourth author of the report is not a presenter. she is sitting right there. i am sure some of your questions will be fielded by claire. i would like to thank her for all her efforts, as well as thank my colleagues for this extraordinary report that i nokw we will all enjoy very much. thank you very much and doris, will you please come to the podium? >> good morning. thank you very much. my wishes for a happy 2013 as well. we are talking this morning about immigration enforcement. it is often said there is no agreement in the country on immigration policy. and that we are deeply divided. these are common things that we hear. of course they are true. of course we are deeply divided. in fact, there has been one element of the immigration policy that has been a source of support across the board for a long time. that has been strengthened enforcement, especially border enforcement and deportation and removal. we have worked on enforcement issues from the outset. we have done enforcement from different parts and elements of the enforcement system. this is an effort to look at the totality, to try to figure out what it looks like all put together and what it means. i think this is probably the first such effort that has been made to try to stitch it together and try to determine what is the larger story from this consensus on immigration enforcement that has been so much a part of the immigration debate but not really understood in that way. we start with irca, the immigration control act of 1986. it is a landmark of the beginning of what we think of as the current era of immigration enforcement. we find it that way because although there has always been border enforcement. irca was an attempt to create a systemic response to border enforcement. it wanted to create employer accountability balanced by a legalization program. we all know that irca was only partially successful. it was only successful on the legalization side than on the enforcement side. that is a starting point. it was insufficient to meet the demands of enforcement during the past 25 years. the next important development has been legislation that passed in 1996. two pieces of legislation, but we think of them as the 1996 loss. they added strong step towards powers to the enforcement regime and strengthened enforcement through statutory changes. they included many mandates, which you will hear more about. many of the mandates they did include became important only more recently in the last 10 years rather than right after expeditedosaws, exclusion and many others date from that time. 9/11 was the next pivotal event. 9/11 is still because it embedded national security into every aspect of immigration enforcement. it led to the creation of dhs and the breakup of ins into three enforcement agencies. it generated the idea of create -- of connecting the dots regarding information and a generating enormous funding for at least a decade, including for immigration enforcement function and agencies. that brings us to the presence. the present, when you look at that picture, adds up to a story where both republicans and democrats, in leadership roles, both in the administration and in the congress, for more than 25 years have supported strengthen enforcement. but has emerged is what we think of and call machinery. this maps and traces the rise of that machinery. hence the title of the report and the look that we gave it, which is of an engineering manual. this is a visual that tries to express what it is that we see in looking at the developments of the last 25 years. that is an enforcement machinery that rests on what we see has six colors. the six pillars -- -- that is an enforcement machinery that rests on what we see as the six ipllars. border enforcement, employer enforcement, the tension, and removal. the three additional -- detention and removal. the three additional pillars are important for the operation of this machinery. visa and trouble screening, information and enter out wearability -- interoperability of data systems. we have organized this report around these six pillars. we devote a chapter to each of the pillars. in each chapter, we lay out all of the programs that make up that pillar. we look at what is the known information about the results of those programs. what is it they have generated. what is it they have produced? awlaki information is drawn from public sources. we did not work within government agency on this. this is all public information. it is a question of amassing its, stitching it together, and try to figure out what it is and what it says. the chances for peace pillar provide for ticks. the best chapters for each color provide critiques. what have oversight bodies -- the chapters for each pillar provides critiques. you have a rundown for with the critique is for all of these areas. we make findings in each of the areas for each of the pillars on what the takeaways are from the experience of those programs. there are 52 findings in all. we will begin to go through all of them here. we are only going to touch on some of the highlight findings. what we do not do in this report is making recommendations. we do not make recommendations for a reason. we do not make them because what we have wanted to do is simply look at what it is that is in place, determine why it is significant, and how it is that we can compare it, when possible, to other reference points in the law-enforcement system in order to understand where lots of importance of the things that we have seen. -- understand to the relative importance of the things we have seen. in order to help you, we have also produced what you have at your place, which is a report in brief. this is your cliff notes. short form. what it includes is the introduction, the extent of summary, the full list of findings and conclusions as a quick walk around document. you are able to find all of this on our web site and download it. it is there now. for those of you who want to get it around to other networks, that is an easy way to do it. before going to the individual pillars, let me give you a rundown on the overview. there is an overview to this whole story, which is the sum of the parts. the some of the parts is the story of growth. this is fundamentally a story of growth. growth in funding, rose in personnel, in technology, particularly in the decade -- in funding, growth in personnel, in technology, particularly in the decade since 9/11. spending for the immigration enforcement agencies today, adjusted for inflation, is 15 times what it was for ins in 1986 when we believe the current era of immigration enforcement began. that is a conservative estimate. if anybody wants to parse that with us later, we will be happy to talk through how we came through the one-to that estimate. -- talks through how we can to that estimate. -- talk through how we came to that estimate. the united states government now spends more on immigration enforcement than on all principal law-enforcement agencies combined. we are spending, as of fiscal year 2011, the most recent year for the data we are using that was available -- the price take is $18 billion. that is -- the price tag is $18 billion. that is more than the $14 billion that funds the fbi, the dea, the secret service, the atf, and the u.s. marshals service. this is an historic reversal. in 1986 when this all began, ins comprised less than 25% of the spending of the other underlined enforcement agencies. if you look at page 22 of your engineering manual, you will see a graph that clearly shows this flip and what historic change has taken place over this period of time. border enforcement is by far the largest share of spending. it is the largest spending for everything in the immigration system, all of the other immigration functions. among other things, it has made possible the doubling of the border patrol in the last 8 years from 10,819 to 21,370. even though its growth is enormous, the growth of i.c.e. is also substantial. that growth has been 87% since 2005 from a number of $3.10 billion until $5.10 billion. those are the big framing points that i hope paint the picture of what it is we are doing in this report. that we go to the pillars i will say some things about and turn it to my colleagues. the first of the pillars that we discuss is border enforcement. that is the most longstanding of the elements of the immigration enforcement system and the most visible and well known. in addition to the resource story, which is the fundamental story about border enforcement, and also the emphasis on national security, which is now so prominent in border enforcement functions and thinking, there are two other key developments that i want to pull out of this report to highlight for a moment. one is that the border patrol announced a new strategic plan last spring, which did not get much attention at all. it is a strategic plan, which is a four here plan. it is established for 2012 through 2016. it is quite remarkable. compared with anything we have seen in the past for the border patrol, it calls for risk-based enforcement. the resource base that is in place allows for responses to be targeted based on information and integration of efforts and rapid response. it is not protecting a need for additional resources. it depicts a steady state of refining its programs and, remarkably, talks a great deal about cooperation with other countries, particularly cross border cooperation with mexico. that is quite a notable change. from what we have seen in the past. yet the thing about the border enforcement pillar -- if the other thing about the border enforcement pillar that is important to understand is something called the consequence delivery system. because the quest delivery system -- the consequence delivery system is based on the fact that the sustained level of resource infusions that have taken place for court enforcement have allowed for significant changes in border enforcement practice. instead of the revolving door -- revolving door, which is the enduring image of the southwest land border enforcement, what is happening now is the border patrol is employing enforcement tactics that impose consequences beyond simple voluntary return on almost everyone who is arrested at the southwest border. the purpose is to break smuggling cycles and to disrupt the networks that sustain illegal immigration. the effort is to separate the illegal migrants from the smuggler and raise the cost. examples of congress -- a consequence of was that means lateral repatriation. you -- a consequence is that there is lateral repatriation. the result is, whereas in the past we had a set of practices at the southwest border where 90% of the people arrested were voluntarily returned and this revolving door pattern of behavior is entirely flint. john kerry return is the exception. it is being used -- that is entirely flipped. voluntary return is the exception not the rule. there are consequences much greater for people who do attempt to cross. that is having significant downstream effects, as is evident in the west of the report and probably will be touched on by my colleagues. -- as is evident in the rest of the report and will probably be touched on by my colleagues. among the findings where border and forced its concerns are historic staffing, technology infrastructure. they are at 40 year lows in apprehension. they have fallen 53%. at the same time, enforcement has been significantly strengthens between ports of entry. ports of entry themselves have lagged behind and could become a leak -- a weak link in the southwest border enforcement. the need for land-border ports enforcement is not able to deal with the technology advancements i have deals with more effective crossing. as the southwest land border enforcement and prove, what we are going to see is an increasing share of the unauthorized population in the united states to the extent that it continues to exist being made up of a visa over-stayers. that would also likely changed the ethnic and nationality makeup of the unauthorized population because it would be far less people coming from mexico and central america and more from people around the world. i am actually almost finished. [laughter] the next one we talked about it is travel and visa screening. that is a subset of border enforcement. it has become successful as well. it is heavily dependent on data issues an improvement. i will skip the trouble screen and go to the debt issue improvement that is a third pillar that is a relatively new dimension. the changes that have taken place rise to the level of being a killer because they are so significant. it is hard to overstate the-rise to the level of being a killer -- rise to the level of been a pillar because they are so significant. the access to this information enables searches of terrorist connections, criminal background, and immigration history at every step in the admission and immigration process. the heart of this is the by a metric fingerprint system. that is the key data base. it dates back into the 1990's, but it has had enormous investment and expansion since 9/11. its stores over 148 million records. they grow at a rate of 10 million a year. it is the largest law enforcement by a metric database -- biometic database in the world. they are embedded in all critical immigration processes and practices. today, non-citizens are screened against more databases which contain more detailed data than ever before. the significance of these new capabilities becomes clear in discussing the other pillars, which my colleagues will take up in order beginning with dr. chishti. >> thank you so much and happy new year to all of you. i will go as quickly as i can. i will deal with two pillars, workspace enforcement and the criminal-justice system and immigration enforcement. doris referred to 1986, irca as the dawn of the current era on immigration. for those of us to cut our teeth on, who1986 law, and dawn was too young to be involved, i am not sure that is a compliment. when we do exercises in legislation making, each segment is based on something else. the whole machinery we have built today is essentially built on milestones. some of the major and some of the minor. 1986 was a major milestone in america's commitment to the immigration enforcement. students of immigration history will not recognize how important philosophically that shift was. before 1986, it is safe to say employees in the country got the ability to hire unauthorized workers was as sent a seventh as the second amendment. -- as sacrosanct as the second amendment. that was altered in 1986. it was so controversial that the whole spectrum in the best spectrum oppose it. -- so controversial that the whole spectrum opposed it. the sanctions employees -- employers hiring unauthorized workers. this was not an effective law enforcement tool. employers figured there was very little compliance from law enforcement agencies. they found it easy to comply with the law to use a large number of documents that could meet the requirements of the law. many of them could be fraudulently obtained. since then, the government has been trying to see if there could be a more automated electronic clarification system to get around the proliferation of the documents we used to meet the compliance of the employee -- employer sanctions law. in getting 86, we began to test various programs to do this -- in 1986, we began to test various programs to do this. we have the e-verify program. it is a voluntary program. employers give information on the identity of a job applicant and it is screened by a database to determine the eligibility to work. the basic part of the program is that it is a voluntary program. it has grown exponentially while we have been testing it as a voluntary program. in 2006, there were only 10,000 employers who had enrolled in the e-verify program. it still represents only 10% of the u.s. business establishment. states have been busy in asking their own safety verify loss. it started in colorado and was made most notorious by arizona's lot in 2007, which went all the way up to the -- errors on a's law in 2007, which went all the way to the supreme court. e-verify has suffered from a lot of criticism. studies done over time have shown that these error rates have steadily gone down. the general accounting office had a recent report that showed the error rate is 2.6%. while this has grown, it has also improved. there is one element in e- verify which is not taken -- kept pace with demand. it is the ability to a identify applicants. we do not have a good photo matching ability that will say that the person whose information is being sent is actually the person who is being hired. despite these weaknesses, e- verify has left frustration. it is not an irreversible phenomenon. the speculation is over. e-verify will remain a permanent part of our immigration system. how do we improve the efficiencies -- deficiencies currently in the system. since january of 2009, the audited more than 8000 employers. they have opposed about $88 million in criminal monetary fines on employers. a significant departure. the last thing i will touch on is that there has been an increased effort in the labor standards enforcement in our country. we all know labor enforcement takes less priority in our overall enforcement system. there are only 11 inspectors in our division to monitor about 7.5 million u.s. business establishments. that is not going to do the job as efficiently as one would like to. the department of labor has more recently gone into smarter and more targeted enforcement of those pro were stolen -- those employers who violate the books on labor standards. there are major dominant employers who may be outsourcing, who may be franchising, who may be at the top level of the supply chain. the department of labour is increasingly going after the dominant employers for -- labor is increasingly going after dominant employers. if i said 1986 was a philosophical departure, students of immigration history 50 years from now will definitely agree that the immigration enforcement history, 1996 will go down as the before christ and after christ moment. those involved inside and outside the government knows that congress decided to enact measures that squashed the policy on unauthorized and events and eminence with a criminal history. they unleased an unprecedented intersection between our criminal justice system and immigration enforcement. i would like to say it is unprecedented in almost any enforcement regime in our history. it did it by a series of developments. i summarize them as five developments, which have led to the trend. the first is that we make more immigration violations that used to be civil violations and to federal crimes. we imposed new initiatives and target those crimes for prosecution, which are now made crimes. we increased the number of federal and state crimes, which has the automatic consequence of removal from the country. we removed the discussion of immigration judges to consider positive activities that can be taken into account before somebody can be removed from the country. last, we initiated new programs, mostly cooperate with federal and state programs, where we funnel criminal suspects and convicts into the removal machinery. the results of all of these five developments are for all to see. there has been an unprecedented number of increases in the number of criminal prosecutions for immigration violations. from 2001 to 2009, the prosecution of an abortion related crimes rose sixfold, from 16,000 to 92,000 per year. much more importantly has been the ratio of the immigration- related crimes as a percentage of the overall federal prosecution of all crimes. today, in to a dozen three, if you looked at the record, prosecutions -- in 2003, prosecutions for immigration related crimes cost -- constituted 20% of all crimes. now 50% of all federal prosecution crimes are related to immigration. i will cite only three findings. if we look at the custom and border patrol people, therefore the best they refer -- they refer more people torquemada prosecution then the fbi does -- it before more people for criminal prosecution then the fbi does. there are five federal judicial districts along the u.s.-mexico border that account for 10% of the u.s. population. they now account for half of all federal felony prosecutions in the united states. many people believe the fight in federal prosecution is the result of a program called operation streamlined. it started in one border district in 2005. it has been extended to six of all of the nine borders in the country. there are group hearings held, at the end of which people are removed from the united states. the dhs calls this a zero tolerance policy toward unauthorized immigration. obviously, they cannot prosecute everyone. the number is about 30,000 cases a year ago to operation streamlined. the second phenomenon that has happened is that, an increase in the state and federal crimes that have automatic consequences of removal. we know the u.s. does not been historically except if -- historically receptive. we used to only remove people created -- committed major crimes. moral turpitude, domestic violence. in 1996, we entered a category called average basis felony. it is a term that is peculiar to immigration law. it has come to include about 50 separate crimes in 21 different categories, many of the minor crimes. some of them are misdemeanors. congress decided to apply the provision retroactively. today, there is a large number of longstanding immigrants who are being removed from the country for minor crimes they committed many years ago. as important as the legislative developments of increasing these -- the deposition -- the definition and the to avoid of agreements -- the definition and the corporative agreements, all of you know these are the famous programs of the criminal a gorham -- criminal alien program. just to put it into context, the funding of these programs, which is actually shocking, the funding of these programs 2004 to 2011 has risen from 23 million thune 600 -- to 619 million. the results are here to see. we have seen a huge growth in the criminal alien program. it puts about half of all the people in immigration detention in the country. the fugitive operation program has grown about 10 times in the last 8 years. today, only about 28% of people in the the program are criminal fugitives. about 57 jurisdictions. they have scaled up tremendously between 2006 and 2008, mostly in the southeast sector of the country. about half of the people who moved to the program to not fit the priority level of the government lisa -- visa and are not hard-core criminals. the last program i will conclude with has now become the most dominant. it is the secure communities program. launched in 2008 in one jurisdiction, it now has about 3074 to jurisdiction. it will become operational across the country by march of 2013. initially, it was billed as a voluntary program. but it is no longer a voluntary program. many states opted out of the program. in august of 2011, the dhs secretary took them out of their misery and said everything oppressed cemented to the federal government can be shared with any part of the federal government. that train has also left the station. it is expected to become a permanent part of our immigration enforcement system. thank you. >> i would like to have a real conversation with the audience. i would appreciate it if we would keep this on time so we can be able to take questions. don? >> thank you. my task is to talk about a mole and tension processes -- about removal and detention. i will talk about removal and some parallel findings on the tension -- detension. on removal first. removals' have increased dramatically over the last quarter of this century. 69 -- removals have increased dramatically over the last quarter of a century. removals rose from 30,000 a year to almost 410,000 per year. removals have the greatest impact on immigrant families and communities. i.c.e. has reported 46,000 non- citizen who were removed in 2011. the rules have accelerated -- removals have accelerated in recent years. many have questioned why an administration that is devoted to comprehensive reform would remove the greatest number of people of any administration in u.s. history. the report provides a partial answer. the legal authorities, the operational systems, the enforcement program, and the finest and best and since 1986 have made large-scale removals almost an inevitability. they have made enforcement an institution a priority. the machinery is in place. as muz reference, these i immigration act -- the immigration act expanded crimes for automatic detentions ltd. relief from removal. the second -- and and limited relief from removal. a judge determines whether they can stand or -- stay or can leave after a full hearing. this is no longer true for most people removed from the country. increasing numbers of non- citizens are being removed and expedited in summary ways. expedited removals' account for 30% of all removals. the expedited process is carried out by -- expedite the removals account for 30% of all removals. another 1/3 of removal cases involve those who illegally re- entered the country. in that case, the prior quarter of removal is reinstated. voluntary removals involve those convicted of aggravated felonies, which is an expensive category of crimes. thousands are removed each year based on stipulated orders of removal. a typical stilicho the best of the code stipulated removal -- a typical removal has the immigrant sign a stipulated order. the immigration judge confirms that the order was knowingly and willingly signed. there is also a similar expurgated process -- an expedited process. the upshot of all of these developments is that there is a growing gap between immigration judge removal orders and actual removals, immigration judges issued 100,000 removals, . some have rule of law concerns about the increasing in formality of these laws. progress and authorities are being substantially use at this point. immigration and criminal enforcement have been strongly linked. roughly 20% of criminal alien removal in 2011 were four persons who had committed immigration offenses for which they had been criminally prosecuted. that is about 20%. we have seen growing numbers of removals of persons with criminal convictions. in 2012, nearly 55% of the people we moved had been convicted of a crime. in to us say, less than 1/3 had been. the fourth finding -- in to us eighth, less than 1/3 had been. -- 2008, less than 1/3 had been. the dhs confirms removal not based on an order of removal. it includes voluntary departure, but also includes other things. voluntary departures are not just voluntary. they have increased overall. there are 1.7 million returns in 2000, but 323,000 in 2011. far fewer returns than removals in 2011. returns are granted to mexican nationals and to a lesser extent, canadian national. you would expect to see fewer. this trend is consistent with the notion of -- a formal approval triggers a 18 year bar on readmission. a return does not. detention numbers have increased dramatically. between 1995 and 2011, the average daily detention population rose. i.c.e. retains 430,000 people in any given year. the bureau of prisons hold more prisoners per night than i. c.e. does immigrants. a rising number of i.c.e. detainees had criminal records including felonies and misdemeanors. in 2011, i.c.e. reported detained only 90% of people in the highest risk category. -- 19%. in the highest risk category. there were extremely high appearance race. they meet the main purpose of the tension -- detiention. $10 billion for detention operations. it is a priority for the obama administration. the guiding principle is that nobody in i.c.e. custody is serving a prison sentence. the idea is to transform a prison-like system into one keeping with i.c.e.'s criminal detention authority. in to thousand nine at the outset of this process, -- in 2009, at the outset of this process, oversight has been a major challenge. another talent has been the broad mandatory detention rules and the i.c.e. interpretation of those rules. i/c/e/ -- i.c.e. has alternative forms of detention and open up programs to alternative detainees. there is a lack of experience for immigration officials. unlike b.o.p., this is not what dhs was structured to do. it has created a risk assessment tool to determine who is a flight risk or a danger to others, and where to place individual detainees in the system. centralized management of and also terminated dozens of detention contracts and renegotiated others. these have been significant steps. many groups have raised concerns, including the american bar association, that the system will still be governed by standards developed for prisoners in pre-trial custody and not for civil detainees. most detainees will still be held in prisons. a couple of quick points on the points. slightly less than 260 judges, a budget of $300 million per year. compare that to the $18 billion of the cbot. one due process challenge has been a 85% of detainees and to% of all removal cases are unrepresented. most rules not occur through less formal means -- removals now occur through less formal means. adjudication resources have not kept pace with those of the dhs enforcement agencies that feed into the system. the report finds the issuance of notices to appear for removal proceedings come from all three dhs immigration agency's, cbp and large numbers as well. since 2006, backlogs for court cases have nearly doubled. as of november 2012, there were 321,000 pending cases. the had been pending on average for 529 days. i think there is a strong consensus that these kinds of delays ill serve u.s. immigration goals, increase costs, punish those were ultimately granted relief. it is not clear how this problem will be fixed. immigration judges now have dockets of more than 1000 cases each. judges in detention centers have pockets that are far larger. removal cases are time consuming. -- dockets that are far larger. removal cases are time consuming. there's been a hiring freeze in place at the doj. we're seeing that filings of removal cases in court have decreased over the last year by 25%. the main point i want to make on course is that there is an imbalance of resources. thank you. [applause] >> less than five minutes. i thank you very much for keeping in time. >> trying to put all this together, what do we see? we of giving you a smattering of what it is that is in the report. there is a great deal more. when you look of this whole picture, examined the evidence, what you see is the emergence of a complex, modernized, across agency system, organized around these six pillars. it has been institutionalized through strong links with national security, and national security imperatives, as well as unprecedented resource investment. against that backdrop, against that 25 + years of evolution that has brought us to this point, the recession came along. it fundamentally altered the illegal immigration picture, which this is attempting to solve. because of reduced job demand in the united states and significant structural changes and conditions in mexico, the growth of unauthorized immigration and united states is a standstill. strengthened enforcement has become the additional element that is part of the combination of factors that explain the change. it is fair to say that as a result of more than 25 years of investment and effort and immigration law enforcement is in place the response to the rule of law and the enforcement of first concerns that have driven congress and the nation's immigration debate for more than 25 years, particularly during the last decade. it is an imperfect system. it would benefit from rick calibration in many areas. -- recalibration in many are as. but it is a strong, lasting structure. enforcement standing alone is not proving sufficient, as we know, to answer the broad challenge s that both legal and illegal immigration pose for the country. we need enforceable laws that address inherent weaknesses in the enforcement system. there is statutory change that could help to improve the law enforcement system. we also need enforceable law that rationalizes immigration policy to align with the nation's growth needs. a formidable enforcement machinery has been dealt. it can serve the national interests well if it now also provides a platform from which to address the broader immigration policy changes suited to the larger needs and challenges that immigration represents for the united states in the 21st century. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you for a much, doris. thank you to all of our speakers and altars for this exceptionally -- authors for this exceptionally comprehensive report. i would like to open the floor to questions. please identify yourself, wait for the microphone to get to you. let's start. >> i am john gramm, a reporter with cq roll call. given the debate expected in a few weeks, i am wondering whether expanding the pathways for those illegally, how would that change the cost council is going forward? do you expect this growth in cost to continue? >> i will take it. one of the things we did not talk about is the fiscal realities that are part of the enforcement picture. i do not think there is any question that the funding of the immigration agency's enforcement functions -- agencies and enforcement functions is certainly likely to be on a straight line. straight line funding leads to far more focused on efficiency and effective programs, looking at outcomes, measuring, assessing valuation, et cetera. that keeps you within the box of what is presently going on. obviously, if the congress decides on a much bigger redesign of immigration, there will be very strong cost implications, and there will be different ways and that this enforcement machinery can be used to enforce the law, but also to implement changes and relieve some of the pressure on some of the enforcement tha. >> doris, if i could add another the issue of change methodology. risk management methodologies, are we not likely to see a perhaps less than discriminant ns?ention and deportation sinc >> you certainly see that in what the border patrol is talking about for its next period. referring to the question, let's talk about the elephant in the room -- if the congress decides on a legal status program of some kind, that removes an enormous number of people from the potentially removal population -- removable population, and underscores what you are saying, which is people who cannot qualify for that are likely to have a criminal background of some kind. that becomes a more concentrated effort were interior enforcement is concerned. >> it seems to me that broad reform could change a lot, depending on how it is structured. what you might see is a lot of cases getting close, administratively closed in court. i would say that in the long term, then the cases become more complex and they may not return to the same level, but they maybe these tougher cases that doris and dmitir mentioned. >> i wonder if you could export to what extent the oversight or accountability mechanism or this enforcement machinery has kept pace with the actual growth of the enforcement machinery, beyond the official review. >> i take it by that you mean inspector general reports, internal audit efforts, et cetera. it is hard to say. in the first place, there have been such high rates of growth, high percentage rates of growth. agencies grow at levels of 25, 25%, 30% in a year. the accountability mechanisms never can keep up with that. i think we can probably just infer that there has not been the kind of oversight. it is also the case that these agencies are not terribly transparent, nor is dhs particularly transparent. the degree to which there may be oversight taking place are not is not something that is easy to determine, given the research available. there certainly are lots of reports, inspector general reports. unquestionably, programs, not particularly program results and use of funds and out comes research, overall metrics the just have not been developed. >> i think i agree with what doris said, given the pace at which these programs have been introduced, especially after 9/11, it is been difficult for oversight to catch up with the growth. despite that comment, i give credit that despite a time when congress was giving more money to these agencies, that have actually tried to provide -- they have actually tried to provide some oversight. a uniform memorandum of understanding was created. the office of inspector general has similarly looked at communities as it has gone forward. >> i would say on the detention system, there's been a good faith effort, and certainly oversight and accountability has been a focus, but the system is so broad, immense, diverse, the word is out on whether it will be successful. >> a lady over there. >> in december, i.c.e. announced their new policy. i was wondering what you think what changes i might make in the pattern -- that might make in the pattern. >> a do nothing people understand the immensity to the alternative to detention. the last it is six we had were from 2011. 18,000 people per night in the alternative system -- statistics we had were from 2011. 18,000 people per night and the alternative system. these kinds of programs work. a think the funding for them, their way more cost effective -- vera restrictive, some of them, with home detention. the challenge now will be to create more of a community-based infrastructure. migration refugee services, other ngo's that have run over the year. there significant programs. -- years. they are significant programs. >> the lady in the back. >> i wanted to ask a question about the growth in enforcement need to the net to identify detention. we have talked this morning about the multi-year contract with the state and local jails, and in particular, with the private prisons. and when to ask if anyone wanted to comment on that piece of the infrastructure and the entrenchment of that in the enforcement policy going forward. >> i would say that is one of the major complicating factors of the detention reform effort, he started with a 350 separate facilities, most of them states and localities. most of those privately managed. they were under contract for various periods of time. what the reform efforts have been about is renegotiating those contracts and try to build in some accountability into those contracts. the number of contracts have decreased from something like 350 to 200. accountability and oversight is a real challenge for that system. >> thank you, the lady over here. >> a quick question on the intersection of the findings. have you come across any findings that looks at the intersection between law enforcement, immigration system, and a child welfare enforcement system? when you're talking about, the train has left the station, would you say that it is not reversible, but there is room for pressure to continue to look at the policies, especially because there are little bit local? >> talking about the intersection between immigration people who advocate on behalf of children and families have been making this argument for a long time. increasingly, immigration officers are asked to look into factors such as children, especially children to do not have anyone else to take care of them -- could not have anyone else to take care of them. ander stand in certain jurisdictions there is a more ongoing relationship between state and how development agencies and enforcement people to see whether there are ways that children can be taken care of. if not, they can exercise discretion not to remove the mother. that has gone into the mix of the criteria for using discussion. rural running out of time. -- we're all running out of time. what we said here is no way an endorsement of all these policies. we just laid out what the government has done. these are highly controversial programs. no one denies that. there is huge human cost, huge cost in terms of rule of law, in terms of due process, which advocate law enforcement officials, legal experts have raised all through this conversation. we're not minimizing any of that. we hope we have done justice to those in our report. those of you read it, we go. those parts of the report in this same spirit as you read the rest of the report. -- hope you read these parts of the report in the same spirit as you read the rest of the report. there are obviously many good ideas about reforming the programs. we ask for the termination of the task force model. dhs has decided to terminate, essentially phase out all the task force models. as people are investigating these programs, improvements are also being talked about. many of them are getting some hearing at the dhs. >> really quickly. i do not think there is explicit findings on intersection between immigration enforcement and child welfare. thingsoncerned about such as the severance of parental-child relationship. >> since i do not see a hand, i think i can take the prerogative and ask the chair question. we have used rather gross measures of effectiveness. i would like to ask the panel in their research, are they seeing a movement towards more refined measures of effectiveness and success, where it is not about numbers, but it is about trying to get to what is most important in terms of immigration enforcement. >> it is a big, broad topic. i think there is a growing appreciation within the agency's that and mr. these programs that they do need to know more -- that administer these programs that they do need to know more about effectiveness outcomes. what you're talking about is and put funding. -- input funding. probably the most important effect of this measure that matters right now is border enforcement, and the degree to which border enforcement actually is effective. that is something that dhs has been working on. they are struggling with issues. they could probably be doing so more aggressively. we cannot fault them for making the effort. there is going to be more and more pressure on them to be doing these kinds of analyses, because of the funding questions. once you get straight line funding, you have to be -- in the last year, there have been decreases to some extent for some of the programs -- you have to be much more rigorous about what really matters, and how you do the work, and what it is that you going to continue to champion. a set of consequences are being used at the border, some of them are expensive, some are inexpensive. you need to ask yourself, which of these consequences best determines the terrance -- deterence. it might coincide with the less expensive ones. those are the kinds of questions that now need to be asked, the dhs needs to be held accountable to abou. >> think you very much. i will make one observation, then we will close. one of the things that doris alluded to and the report is very strong on is that issues of data incorruptibility. -- interoperability. we have now gotten to the point where a line officer anywhere can have a real time access to all of the information that the federal government, federal enforcement agencies have available, and soon, the dod enforcement agencies will have data added to that system. the liberating aspect of it is that people at the border, even as we extended order beyond the border, will be able to make almost instant decisions about who should come in and who should not. i will leave the other concerns about such interoperable to of .erabilityroprability on behalf of all of our panelists and the institute, thanks for coming out. the report and our other work can be found on www.migrationpolicy.org. think you very much, and have a good day. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> next we will continue with a discussion on the future of mexico and its relationship with united states. former u.s. ambassador jeffrey david out talks about the country oppose a new president and policy and united states -- davidow talks about the country's new president and policy and united states. this is an hour-and-a-half. >> good morning, welcome to the >> good morning, welcome to the