Revenue stream on the american economy. Flew with the rest of this discussion here. You can see it in its entirety on cspan. Org. Life for discussion on the Trump Administration and u. S. Immigration and refugee policy. Johns Hopkins University of advanced international that he is the host. [inaudible conversations] good morning, everyone and welcome. I feel like a schoolteacher. Waiting for a few more people to sit down and then we will be able to start. Thank you all for coming. As you know, a new executive order on travel and immigration to the United States was signed on march 6. The order replaces the january 27th executive order, this implementation was halted in multiple federal courts. The new executive order is entitled detecting the nation from entry. The new order a similar and object is to the original, but it contains revisions, qualifications and clarifications. It was far more careful to avoid legal challenges. The new executive order still bans travel for 90 days for muslim majority countries but now its only six countries, iraq has been taken off the list. It still suspends the Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days and still imposes 50,000 refugees for 2017 when the program was him. Again, it is sold on the court. Due in may and the fourth and 19th circuit courts of appeal. 50 issues surrounding investigative order are not just legal one. Whether its kind to shuttle under the establishment clause of the constitution, but there are also issues of equity and fairness. Does this executive order address Real National security threats . Does that make us safer . Is the treatment of refugees fair and just inconsistent with American Values . These are some of the issues that arise when i ponder complications and direct is that the new executive order. We have with us today very distinguished panel. We have alex l. A. Knockoff with a former deputy high commissioner and is now with the institution of migration and mobility at the new school. We have doris biddle, who is chairman of world connected and former executive Vice President of the International Rescue committee. James carroll bono at the Heritage Foundation and danielle of the American Enterprise institute. And of course we have the very knowledgeable and capable moderator, our friend margaret warner. And a turnover terror. Thank you, marine. Thank you for being here. As marines said, there are a lot of legal issues, but we are not looking deeply into legal issues here. What we are really looking not our security issue, humanitarian issue and also an issue of americas responsibility or do we have one in the world community. I would like to start out with a question probably to all of you. Maybe ill start with alex. Because this issue came up consistently in both legal cases nospace this circuit judges overturning or at least blocking that. If its a monthlong ban. You on my legal conclusion on it . Not legal. Do you really think thats what its . Idea. The president made that very clear during the campaign. I think he repeated it and other comments. I think it was stressed to appear to make a case that it wasnt, but he said he wanted to ban all muslim immigrants from the United States. He knew he couldnt do it by simply banning muslims, so he tried to put it into security context. The reason that may ultimately succeed in the courts as there are Security Issues here and there may be particular countries you want to scrutinize more closely because of possible security interests. I dont see any change in the president s view on mess for what he announced at the very start. The question is whether the initial first order which most of the courts concluded with there has been purged either rerating and the second order so it truly is now about security. That will be an issue the courts will have to sort out as a legal matter, but i dont if theres any doubt they set up inside i donald jay trump on all muslim immigrants to stop coming to the United States and hes never backed away from the statement. Let me turn to you. Do you think muslim been at its essence and if so what are the implications . Its actually be categorically state its not a muslim ban. The reason i know that is because i worked on the president ial Transition Team. I didnt work on the writing of that particular executive order. I worked on the Transition Team from the convention through the inauguration is trained nation is the bipartisan nonpartisan, nonprofit activities. I worked on both the foreign and domestic side because i ran the state department Transition Team up through the election and from the election through the moderation i ran the Homeland SecurityTransition Team. We are not supposed to talk about what the Transition Team actually dead, but if you look at what was produced, what came out after the inoculation, you can see with the Transition Team focused on. There was never an antimuslim discussion not reflected in any of the actual policies. I was in the room for lots and not the things. Religion never came up. What you see postinauguration reflects the work of the Transition Team. Not necessarily the rhetoric of the campaign trail. They are firewall between each other. We can have a discussion about Campaign Rhetoric and what candidates say. Woodrow wilson said he would keep world war i. Fdr said he would keep world war ii and mr. Trump im pretty sure was actually withdrawing the statement that he wants to ban muslims from United States but thats all rhetoric. The actual functional policy is focused on six particular countries and we all know theres a lot more muslim countries being fixed. Theres been absolutely no effort at all to any kind of religious test on any forms of immigration. Theres no reflection there. The president of egypt only has 9,017,000,000 muslims than it and the president declared his absolute friendship and support. The president just actually order an attack on government in syria is a heinous genocidal attack against people who are largely muslim. On top of that coming out, i met with a number of Foreign Ministers and leaders from countries in the middle east who not only dont find the president to be antimuslim, but think the president s policies will be good for the region. If you actually look at the substance of the policy, it is very, very difficult to argue somehow this is based on religion. I want to get back to back, but let me get to George Biddle on this question and if you would address the point she made. Well, i cant speak to the reality of what was intended that there is a perception aspect which i think is real. You have to look at that pretty seriously which is lets look at it from a refugee angle. Read the countries have the largest populations in the world to syria, sudan and amalia. If youre going to put a ban on travel from those countries as well as over arkansas, you send a signal to populations who very often are wellfounded persecution and pledge their lives for a variety of different reasons. When you implement a ban like this, it sends a signal to the Global Community. There is a facet of it you do not way to assert an extent seen as less than charitable in the way it perceives humankind suffering in different parts of the world, many of which happened to be muslim majority countries. With the implication of that . In the Foreign Policy aspects of this. Let me come back. Its not a muslim ban. The region described it as correct. The muslim ban has become a popular way to describe it. Were all reasonably lazy and how we think of these things and it sounded good so that the expression weve embraced. Its not a muslim ban technically. But you know, we are torn near because im the one side we were chatting about this before we came down. Im the one side you have a genuine challenge that you face, which is that there are 11 million displaced people. 4. 5 million refugees from the conflict in syria. The question then becomes what you do about this . So that is a rational policy question that comes down to a lot of issues that you raised correctly. This moral issues, American Leadership in the world of the issue of reputation, but also the issue of security. You can have a pretty straightforward conversation about this and try and balance the need for security on one hand and again, donald trump has a way with words. Whether you like them or not, he has a way with them. The expression of extreme dieting is meaningful to a lot of people. Is that the right thing to do . Yes, absolutely. I dont think anybody thinks theres an entitlement to come into this country for anybody. Im an immigrant here there is no entitlement they are. They reward at the end of that is huge. Its huge to become an american. So we need to have that security issue. On the other hand, there is the exigency of the Global Leadership question and helping address the problem. At the end of the day, we can go back and forth and forth and back. What theyve done and put in place, i dont think brings us to the level of offensiveness that the rhetoric suggested. Just remind everybody, we have a tendency to talk about what ill begin with donald trump in 2013 i saw this number, but i think the United States took in 20 teen 36. Refugees. Something like that. And by the way, the numbers in the subsequent years were by no means a shiny gold might around the humanity of the Obama Administration. It was 10,000. Total, total number from the beginning was about 18,000. So we are talking about a drop in the bucket here. That was under the Obama Administration. Nobody said anything nasty, they just didnt actually care. These are the issues at hand. Nobody expects will take in 4 million refugees. What is the number that is reasonable we can take in that is between everybody who means that and nothing at all. That somehow if the balance that needs to be struck or not its intelligent conversation to be had. Trying to play game of caught you, this is a muslim ban, this event and by the way does not in any way serve the people who need so much compassion, humanity, health, which is Syrian Refugees. I actually agree with that. You asked the question. I want to provoke the conversation. We need to have a discussion about humanitarian needs balance the security interests. The course will actually decide whether or not its a muslim ban because of the courts on the initial language of the candidate is enough no matter what, they will declare the violation of the constitution. As a matter of policy, what we need to keep in mind here is the administration goes through a 120 day plan. There already was extreme dieting in place. As the refugees, the vetting is extraordinary in the proof is there hasnt been a single terrorist attack by any refugee that is coming out of her. Except for people who came as young kids and the radicalized. Certainly no Syrian Refugees, the recent cases. The vetting is working pretty well and should be there. But im wondering about with the Current Administration is thinking about this in terms of cuban refugees. We took almost a million cuban refugees over as a political matter because we wanted to make a statement. Whatever one thinks about the longago political fight that we are finally over. What im wondering about is why does the administration sees herein as cubans . What i mean by that is the president has not said mr. Assad is an enemy. Why are we embracing serious way we did cubans as a people who are fleeing our enemies as a political matter. Thats how i would like to see this administration make that statement. The administration didnt do that either . I agree with you is inadequate. I fully agree with that. They got the 10,000. Not enough candidates in the new Prime Minister of canada Cayman Company brought in 25,000 syrians and another six months. I fully agree with you on this. Did you want to jump in . I want to back up and take a minute to explain why the administration took the course that it did and it actually wasnt related to the Campaign Rhetoric at all. Work 100 Supreme Court precedents based on what president ial candidates say in campaigns, well have an interest in government in the 21st century. Heres the administrations thinking. To your point about refugees being terrorists, youre absolutely right. The only numbers we have and even those are very small numbers are people who were brought here as young kids and radicalized later. Thats absolutely accurate. The kind of misses the whole point, which we have such a tiny radicalized population in the United States, terrorists in america are a small subset, so we are actually dealing with very small populations. If you craft a new policies per se to keep the terrorists out or stop a terrorist, youre been inefficient. That will find terrorists for you. It is that the administration is thinking. They werent looking at the present threat. One things to do at heritage is look at terrorist plots against united days since 9 11 and forgive me if i dont get it right, we are in 94, 95 range. Overwhelmingly in the last two years, almost all of those have been homegrown. So heres the point. I was one of the criticisms because it doesnt reflect the threat. That misses the point. Thats not the threat the administration was looking at. Rather than looking at the present threat, the administration is trying to be a and what they were concerned with his base. Tens of thousands of foreign fighters flowing to the conflict zone in iraq and syria over the course of the conflict. As the spacebar a sister and cannot disappears, and the remainder could likely outflow somewhere in these countries were the ones where people believed they were most likely outflow to and of course iran which is a statesponsored terrorism. The notion is how do you keep the people from getting into a refugee line or an immigration status, even though the odds of that are relatively small because we have seen people do that. We actually have seen people through visa and refugee lines get into western europe in other places. So that was the concern. The idea was we want to make sure the vetting would have vetting we have isnt this an adequate to deal with that threat which we see us coming. The administration isnt the only one concerned about that. European countries are concerned about people coming from these countries and foreign fighters, canada and the United States. The administration wanted to go the extra mile. Heres the logic for that. You actually saw it reflected what happened recently in the area. The day before the president decided to do the missile strike in syria, he was criticized by many people including the administration because youre doing nothing on syria. The last administration had years to come up with a viable syrian policy. The president 11 weeks or so in all the sudden syria is all his fault and if bad things are happening, as the president s fault. There is a fairness to that because its on his watch. One of the concerns of the administration was the day after President Trump he came president , he was responsible if something happen at home. If you did have a refugee do a terrorist attack, everyone would point and save Donald Trumps all. With the same refugee policy at the last administration. This was an element of Due Diligence. Im not part of Risk Mitigation to make sure we have it right. Thats why we talk about dance, but none of these are permanent and everlasting. Which raises the interesting question, if the original ban was we want to take a pause for 120 days to make sure we have it right, by the time the courts finished with this, we may be past 120 days. Im turning to george but im also ready to Say Something and i know you want to Say Something, but let me ask you this. Arent these countries, the six countries that do not convey, do not share the kind of information about their past that the United States wants to know before we accept them . Isnt that a distinction that has some validity to it . I pay that for one second . A couple of facts. Alex mentioned 3 million refugees coming to this country since 1980 after the refugee act was passed. 3 million a terrorist attack on american soil by refugee in that. Good credit risks are heightened taste on the Global Situation as it exists today. One of the things thats really important to bear in mind is after 9 11 there was a two month hiatus or refugee processing stopped in the Bush Administration worked very hard to up the security protocols around not because they recognize lies there on the line very often. Best thing about refugees. We have to humanize them. Lets not think of them in simple class. You have to individualize and understand it and to the Syrian Border which ive been too many times in lebanon, jordan and turkey and it is searing refugees and women and children that a flat horrific situations, and your data is altered by that reality. If the president wen