Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20151110

Peoples ability to withstand financial shocks and one quarter of u. S. Respondents were financially fragile in the sense they could not come up with 2,000 in 30 days. Including respondents who reported probably being unable to come up with 2,000, half would be viewed as financially fragile. Low saving was the reported. In addition, Many Americans report that adequate saving for retirement is a challenge. In a 2014 gallup poll, only half respondents reported being confident they will have enough money to live comfortable in retirement. Research validates this concern and households in the lower distribution are most likely to be squeezed. So, for example, lower income households are much more likely to experience a material drop in their consumption at retirement than their higher income counterparts. Okay. So this brings us to the crucial questions of why people dont save enough and how federal policy can encourage them to save more. So to start, its not uncommon to hear people say they cant afford to save. We lack research that concretely documents this phenomenon. Surely is the case that at least some of these people are not prioritizing saving, for one reason or another. However, it does seem plausible some households are stretched too thin to put any money aside. This has problem has been stagnated by the Income Distribution the last several decades. Although my remarks on policy will be focused on initiatives that directly encourage saving, this consideration adds to the measures like many of those proposed by the administration and policy measures being researched by cap that are designed to support Income Growth for house holds in the lower and middle parts of the Income Distribution. A second problem is that many of the tax incentives that have been put in place to encourage saving have little affect on the return to saving by lower income households. In particular, as this crowd knows, householding in lower tax brackets achieve smaller reductions in their tax liabilities for each dollar of saving in tax deductible form. Households so low they have no income Tax Liability at all received no benefit from savings, tax preferences that are not refundable. A third and broader challenge is that many people arent making the sort of rationale calculations about savings that economist models often assume. They predict that a person saving and dissaving will depend on several factors, including the return to saving, as well as how they expect their income to evolve over their lifetime. The incentives policy has encouraged saving by changing the return on saving through the tax system seem to have limited effect on many peoples decisions, including people who would benefit from the savings tax preferences. So, for example, in a very comprehensive study that was cowritten by john friedman, who was talking earlier this morning, researchers examining the danish pension system, similar to ours, find only a minority returned on saving in a way that was consistent with traditional economic theory. Most individuals, about 85 , were what the researchers termed passive savers, who did not respond to these incentives. So what is it that blunts the response of many households to change saving . Probably one significant factor is that people are focused on other aspects of their lives. So they use simple rules of thumb to determine their saving rather than complex calculations. So thats not necessarily irrational. I could probably do a show of hands in this room this morning to demonstrate this fact. The thing is that making the theoretically optimal decisions about saving takes both teams and financial sophistication. And many households may rationally decide not to spend that time or require that sophistication. In addition, research has demonstrated that some households lack basic Financial Literacy, have particular difficulty planning and are prone to making rudimentary financial mistakes. These findings can have limited response among some types of households to complicated prefpbss in the tax system. Low Financial Literacy has contributed to limited use of Retirement Savings vehicles like iras, not just because the tax benefits are not understood, but also because these individuals have to take active steps to research, set up and maintain these accounts. The lack of Financial Literacy is even more worrisome because of the shift from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution, which increased the need for personal responsibility. A share of workers participating in defined Pension Plans fell from 32 to 13 . While a share of participating in defined Contribution Plans increased from 25 to 38 . Okay. So given these findings, what can we do to help people make savings decisions that will serve about better in the longer run . A key step in the right direction is to make saving easier or more automatic. For example, again, as this crowd probably knows, a large number of documents that employer provided programs with automatic enrollment or default contribution rates can raise saving particularly for low income households. The challenge is 60 outside the military and federal government currently have employers that offer 401 k s. And the last point of my talk i want to describe four specific changes in federal policies that would encourage saving. First, we should pass legislation consistent with the auto ira proposal in the president s budget to ensure americans without access to a workplace Retirement Plan are automatically enrolled in an ira. Under this proposal, every employer with more than 10 employees that does not offer a plan would be required to sign up their workers for an ira. Workers would be allowed to opt out of saving through the ira if they chose. But many would save and would appreciate having this opportunity without having to figure out the logistics themselves. Second, we should provide support for firms that enroll their workers in Retirement Plans. The president s budget proposes a 3,000 tax credit with any employer with 100 or fewer employees that enrolls in an auto ira. In addition, the budget proposed trickling the existing startup credit so small employers who create Retirement Plans would create a 4,500 tax credit. And small employers who already offer a plan and add automatic enrollment would receive a 1,500 tax credit. These would offset the expenses that employers would bear and provide incentives for more firms to enroll their workers in Retirement Plans. Third, we should ensure that parttime workers who have worked for their employers for sustained periods can contribute to their employerss Retirement Plans. Less than 40 have access to a one in their workplace. They can skphraoud employees who work less than 1,000 hours a year. Fourth, we should encourage broader participation in the my ira program developed by treasury. It is a new simple, safe, nofee Retirement Savings options designed to people without access to a Retirement Savings plan at work. You can arrange for contributions every payday. The account stays with them if they change jobs. And there is no cost to opening an account. The it is backed by a u. S. Treasury. Contributions are made using aftertax dollars. They can be withdrawn without penalty whenever one would like. And and accrues tax free until withdrawal. This year, treasury worker, a small Diverse Group of employs years to give feedback and make sure it is as simple and straightforward as possible. We are looking to broaden more broadly soon. You can visit www. Mira. Gov. Each of the policies can make a difference. Together they can make a significant difference in the total amount of saving available for investment in this country and a significant difference in the Financial Security of any households. Thank you. And i look forward to taking your questions. [ applause ]. Opening this up to questions from the audience. Then ill open with the first question. How does the promotion of auto ira at the federal level interact with interest from the administration to promote estate plans . So thats a great question. Were viewing there is a lot of interest at the state level. My understanding is the last statistics i saw suggested that there is a handful of states pursuing it concretely. If you add those to the states who are considering doing it you are getting half of states. We are taking this and as a strong signal that the president s proposal to do auto ira at the state level or at the federal level is something americans are interested in and people would really value. One of the complications that has arisen around these state plans is there are some complications related to the erisa rules. And the administration is working on providing clarification. They have said they will that the Labor Department will be issuing some clarification by the end of this year. Finally, my other question that i had i wanted to ask everybody here. That is when we talk about tax incentives. We talk about miras. Are we making it more complex . So the complexity issue was a running theme in my speech. I do think the complexity facing individuals is a true barrier to saving. I think the point of mira is to present something that is actually very simple and easy to use from the persons point of view. It does add to it makes the system we have to encourage saving bigger. But it is filling a necessary hole. It is moving things in a simpler direction. If theres any yes. I want to ask you a question. Thank you for your presentation, which is very, very good. The question is has the administration thought about a program for retired people to lets say giving a tax credit to employ employers to motivate more senior people or retired people . That might be a solution of the retirement crisis. For older people who are work and are capable of working. So thats not something thats currently in our batch of proposals that we included in the last president s budget. I think we are thinking all the time about Labor Force Participation issues. I think we would like to reduce barriers to Labor Force Participation for all age groups. But certainly older households would be contributing there. We dont want to be pushing people into the labor force who dont want to be in the labor force. But certainly part of our agenda to create more creates a workplace that is better suited to Work Life Balance includes encouraging employers to take steps that would give Older Workers kind of the flexibility that they need to be able to be in the workforce if they want to do so. One more question. The last question in the very back. Hi. Im diane from the National Institute of retirement security. I was just on the last panel. The question about miras. One of the things that some people have been talking about, the states moving ahead with auto iras at the state level have heard some criticism that while you dont need auto iras anywhere because you have iras, can you share any thoughts or comments that would be a good way to respond to those . Oh, yeah. Thank you for asking that question. Mira is meant to be a starter savings account. In fact, contributions are limited to i think its 5,000, 6,000 a year. And the total amount that can build up is 15,000. They are roth iras. You can roll them over. One important design feature is making sure we were filling a hole and complementing the system, not in any way undermining the existing 401 k system or ira system. That when done well, when done right, it was actually serving people well. A number of american muslin leaders are meeting to talk about domestic and Foreign Policy priorities ahead of the 2016 elections. We will have live coverage at 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. And israeli Prime Minister netanyahu continues his visit to the u. S. He will talk about security in the middle east and israels relationship with the u. S. You can watch comments live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on our companion network cspan. Cspan has a full lineup of veterans day programming for you. Join us tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Former First Lady Laura Bush and labor secretary thomas perez on on on wednesday, veterans day, cspans washington journal from 7 00 to 10 00 a. M. Eastern with the latest on veteranss issues and your input via calls, facebook and twitter. Seth moulton, a former marine who served four tours in iraq. And a former army ranger whose unit helped hunt down saddam hussein. And the wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknowns. Then at noon, more from freshman members of congress. Representative ryan zinc as a former navy s. E. A. L. And ruben galle g o. He decided to join the marines and fight in iraq. Watch on tv or online at cspan. Org. Well, right now 10 states and the District Of Columbia passed laws allowing Illegal Immigrants to obtain drivers licenses. The Pew Charitable trust held a decisionmaking process. This is about 90 minutes. Hello and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for coming. Im tom conroy, Vice President for government performance at the Pew Charitable trust. Thank you again for sharing some time with us today. On behalf of our president , rebecca reimel and all my colleagues at pew, it is my privilege to welcome you all here today to this very intriguing event. I think youre really going to enjoy it. As many of you know, the Pew Charitable trust is an independent nonpartisan, Public Policy institution dedicated to serving the public. And we do a lot of work with state governments. And we are speaking today on the topic of immigration in that vane. Our immigration and the States Project was created to really explore this intersection of federal, state, local policies and practices. I would like to thank our panelists for joining us today and sharing their experiences on how this federal, state, and local policies and practices actual lip affect their communities. And with that, i will turn over this program. I am going to focus on drivers license in these communities to our host today adam hunter. Thank you. Good afternoon. And thank you, tom. Even while we dont see broad eupl operation reforms enacted in the horizon on the near term, states have been active in passing immigration laws. 171 laws were passed in 2014 alone as wideranging as Law Enforcement, health, and education. As tom mentioned, pews immigration in the States Project explores this dynamic. Our approach as a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy research is not to take a position on any particular policy but to explore them across levels of deposit and where we can to assess the state policy choices. Todays panel will focus on an issue that is gaining attention in many statehouses across the country and the subject of our most recent report, extending driving privileges to unauthorized immigrants. Under the federal i. D. Act of 2005, states can choose to comply with seller standards and issue licenses if they have distinctive markets and texts indicated they are not accepted for federal identification or for official purposes. States call these ava right of names. Driving privilege cards or driver authorization calls. We will call them drivers license for the presentations today. This map highlights the places where unauthorized immigrants may obtain these today. Shaded light green, tealish, we have eight states and the District Of Columbia that issue these alternative drivers license to authorized immigrants. While the yellow states, washington and new mexico issue the same to everyone regardless of immigration status. Delaware and hawaii, the two states here in dark blue, both passed laws just this year in 2015 and will soon be offering alternative licenses in the coming months. To we brought people from three states. You will have their complete bios. Allow me to introduce them as they are sitting here now. First scott vien from delaware. He in a decade. Just this year assumed director of that agency. As one of the two states that passed legislation in june, overseaing implementation of this new program is going to be one of his key tasks as he assumes the helm of his agency. Terry albertson joins us from nevada. He has extensive Public Service career expanding california and nevada and comes as the administration of the Management Services and Programs Division of the department of Motor Vehicles. Shes worked in that capacity to implement the driver authorization card, which nevada has been issuing since january of 2014. In addition, governor sandoval recently appointed terry to be the interim director of the dmv effective later this month. Third, we have erica contreras, who joins us from california, the golden state of california, where she is chief of staff to senator reicardo laura, a key sponsor of the state low 8060 that created an alternative drivers license that went into effect just earlier this year. And finally, we have my leg who led our Research Team and produced our recent report on the issue. I would like to start by turning of to michelle, the opportunity to share findings of our report and to frame our discussion. Please join. Good afternoon. Thank you, adam. So we conducted research on all the states issuing drivers license to authorized immigrants. We app likewise laws and legislative reports. We spoke to dmv and other state and local officials and we spoke to other experts about their experiences implements these laws so that we could analyze the critical decisions that they made and the diverse approaches they took. While we also looked at who made those decisions. So in some states the legislators very specific instructions into the legislative language. While in other cases decisions were made by legislation or the agency staff. We did not look at the factors that led a state to make the decision to issue licenses to unauthorized immigrants nor the merits of those decisions. Pew does not take an issue of issuing licenses to unauthorized immigrants. But we do believe policymakers can learn from the experiences of these other states. So this report is meant to provide a framework for those considering similar legislation. We have identified four areas where states made critical policy decisions in implementing their laws that allowed unauthorized immigrants to obtain drivers license. Scope, eligibility standards, issuance procedures, and outreach and education. Its also really interesting to see how the four areas interact with one another. So i will highlight some of those examples as well. Scope is a very important first step. And it really affects every other step of implementation. Up front planning is the foundation to successful implementation. And in order to plan, states really need to estimate how many were people will be eligible for their license, how many people will actually apply, and how often they will need to renew their license. This is the key to determining startup costs, such as staffing and technological upgrades. These estimates also determine the revenues that the issuing agency can expect to collect from new customers. These licenses are generally expected to pay for themselves through fees. But planning is the key to making sure that actually happens. Obviously in this fiscal environment, the states are making very important decisions and really need to plan ahead. Now, these estimates are going to vary widely depending on the states population. In california, the state initially estimated 1. 4 Million People would be eligible for the drivers license. Whereas in vermont, where unauthorized immigrants make up less than one half of one percent of the states population, they estimated that 1,500 would apply. Of course these very different estimates affect the choices that they made. In california, they hired more than 800 new staff and opened five new facilities to accommodate this population. Whereas in vermont, they did not hire any new staff or open any new facilities. However, we will see that in vermont these estimates turned out to be low. Next we have eligibility standards. States determine the requirements for a license including obtaining that can be used to prove identity and state residency. Some states additionally have applicants sign an aft stating they are ineligible for a Social Security number. Others require proof that they have paid state taxes for an amount of time. And in delaware they will require fingerprints and background checks. Im sure we will hear more about that later. The decisions about documents turned out to be key. As we know, unauthorized immigrants dont have the same documents that u. S. Citizens and legal immigrants have. So states worked with embassies, consulates, and other experts, first, to determine what documents unauthorized immigrants actually have that can prove their identity and their state residency and how reliable these are. You can see how eligibility is connected to scope. The number of applicants and licenses issued are related directly to the number of people that can meet the eligibility requirements. A states estimates need to take into account the people that will be able to meet the eligibility requirements. Next, we have issuance procedures. States make decisions about how and where unauthorized immigrants will apply for, obtain, and renew their license. States need to think about how they will serve this brandnew Customer Base at the same time they continue to serve their existing customers. So some states hired more staff and opened more offices. Some created appointment systems to regulate the flow of customers and process applicants in a timely manner. Is and these questions about staffing and appointments are directly related to the amount of resources a state has for these purposes. So the estimates of needed resources need to take things into account like staffing and facilities. States need to think about this when they are creating their appointment systems. They need to think about them in light of the projected demand. And their available resources. How many staff they will have to serve this population. How many appointments they can actually accommodate. And is this really enough to meet the demand and over what period of time. The number of Appointments Available means they determine a set number of applicants that will be served and the maximum number of licenses that will actually be issued. And of course in the end this affects the amount of revenue that comes in from the fees. Finally, we have outreach and education. States really understand that no program can be successful unless the target group knows how to access it. And although many states didnt provide any funding for outreach and education, we did learn that states used various methods to reach immigrants communities and to provide them with lots of information about the new laws. For example, here in d. C. , we know that the department of Motor Vehicle staff went on Spanish Language radio stations. In illinois, they used mobile units to educate the community and actually make initial consultations on peoples documentation. And in california, the dmv makes Information Available through public libraries. One common ality we found across states is they worked really closely with foreign consulates and with trusted Community Organizations to reach immigrant audiences in their own languages and to educate them where and how to apply and what documents they needed to show up at the dmv with. States also stressed the importance of reaching out to immigrant communities to warn them about the potential for consumer fraud. We heard stories that unscrupulous individuals may try to charge these applicants for things that should be free, such as for booking an appointment or filling out an application. So, again, here you can see how this area, outreach and education, is related to the other areas of decision making. A states estimate of the potential applicants wont be correct if the audience doesnt know about the program or is uncomfortable coming forward to actually apply for a license. Public outreach can also make sure that people know about the licenses and actually apply. It is critical to ensuring that applicants are aware for the eligibility requirements and come to the dmv with all the proper documentation and fees. Outreach and education are also important to preparing immigrants for the written and the driving exams on so they can pass the first time and dont have to come back multiple teams, which uses more time and more resources. So now i am going to give you a sneak peek at upcoming research. We contacted all the states in d. C. That began issuing these alternative licenses in 2013 or later. We got data about how many licenses had actually been issued. As of july 31, 2015. As of that date, a little more than 800,000 alternative drivers license had been issued by these eight places. I imagine the number is nearly 900,000 by now. The number of licenses is definitely correlated with the size of the population in that state. But there is quite a bit of variation in the actual numbers of licenses. So we wanted to know what are the factors that influence the number of applicants and the number of alternative licenses issued . We have already identified a couple of those this afternoon. So the appointment availability, applicants ability to meet the requirements and Public Outreach being effective. State rules around getting a learners permit could impact how many people actually get a drivers license. Because it affects how long it takes for one applicant to go through the process and get a drivers license. Even when these factors are accounted for, though, there are also other unanticipated events that could impact the final tphf licenses issued. So here vermont is a real outlier. It estimated 1,500 people would be available for a drivers license. But they had issued 50,000 alternative licenses. So we spoke to the director at the vermont dmv. He explained there are several reasons for this. The vermont drivers privilege card is available to anyone who is a u. S. Citizen, legal permanent resident, or undocumented immigrant in the state of vermont. An unknown number of immigrants received this alternative license even though they are eligible for the standard real i. D. Couple pliant license. Others didnt have the documentation they needed to get the standard license. But they were able to meet the requirements for the driving privilege card. Finally, we did hear fraud may have been an issue. The dmv administrator noted he saw advertisements in outofstate newspapers to pay a large fee to get a drivers license. So most likely they have gone to nonstate residents. It has far exceeded the initial expectations. Finally, pew has also looked at the existing literature on the impact of these drivers license laws on insurance rates, public safety, and the economy. And we published this short analysis in september. And its available right now on our website. There are several challenges when trying to ascertain the impact of lawing unauthorized immigrants to get drivers license. Perhaps most importantly, 8 of the 1 jurisdictions that currently issue these licenses only began issuing in 2013 or later. So not enough time has passed to gather meaningful data. But we look at the literature on licensing unauthorized immigrants, and accident rates, insurance rates, and access to employment, which then is related to immigrant tax contributions and spending. And we found that while there is some literature about licensed and unlicensed drivers available, theres really very little specific information about unauthorized immigrants and access to drivers license. So this all points to the need for more research. And we hope to continue studying this in the coming months. More complete information about the effects of laws that allow unauthorized immigrants to get drivers license would enable states to perform a more complete cost benefit analysis of their proposed legislation. And it would allow state policymakers to make more informed decisions. So in conclusion, we hope that the information in our reports offers a framework to those state policymakers who are currently making decisions about issuing licenses and how to design and implement those laws. But now im looking forward to our conversation with our other panelists so they can provide from their own states and really turn this framework into a reality. Thank you. [ applause ]. Thank you very much, michelle. As our panelists here are coming up on stage, we are going to take this conversation to the practical realities. And to keep that even more interactive, were not going to have each panelist do a model of a state model. I think im going to ask a couple of questions that will tease out some of the differences and approaches. But i would like to start with with a topic we have not covered yet. Erica, using the advantage of your being here and your perch coming from the legislative branch, could you take us inside the legislative debate, highlighting areas where there may have been agreement and how you came to consensus on passing a drivers license in california. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and specifically to share california some perspective from california and the legislature specifically. To your question, i kept looking at the fact sheet. For california the approach the conversation of drivers license has been a longstanding conversation. We actually the legislature approved and a governor signed a drivers license back in 2003. It was very it was only it was not even in effect. It was only available for three months. Regulations had been drafted. Nothing had been done. For us the conversation and the political debate has been very, very long. And it was never a question today and in recent years about who is going to drive . Because we knew there was undocumented individuals driving in our state. The question was how do we integrate and what is the responsibility to ensure that we are actually moving forward with the values that our representatives have run on or have indicated our priorities for them in representing the district which in many cases if they had large populations of undocumented individuals, they wanted to provide relief for them. So for california in the more recent years leading up to the implementation, one of the debates was the marking. Many legislators, specifically im chief of staff to senator laura when the debate was going on with the drivers license, he was the chair for the latino caucus, representing over 25 members of legislature in each house. And there was a there was clearly the body the latino caucus indicated they wanted to provide relief for this population with very little penalty. So the marking, the individual marking was huge this is the marking required under real i. D. Yeah. So for the real i. D. Compliance, for a state to be couple compliant with real i. D. , if the state was going to proceed with issuing an alternative drivers license or a drivers license for an undocumented population, there had to be a distinguishable mark. For our legislature, specifically for the latino caucus, it was very important that that marking not exist. There was a lot of debate. There was many members of the legislature, including latino caucus members who did not want a marking. Their communities did not want that. The organizations did not want that. They felt it would be difficult for people to come out and take advantage of the opportunity of drivers license. Eventually that proved to be an area that could can make or break the legislation. And our members specifically in the senate, what tino caucus members by senator laura, now kevin deleon and the current protem at the time. It was going to be minimal markings. They moved the bill forward. Turning now to delaware but staying kind of still at this phase of preimplementation, delaware took a unique approach. In fact, the legislaturezr9n wo with communities and put together a task force of Community Members wide range to go help advise and actually shape the legislative process. And director, you were in that task force. Can you tell us about that experience and what that purpose was . Sure. And thank you for having me as well. Like california, this is something we have been considering for a long time. Once it started to really started to take shape, we worked closely with our legislature. We have a great relationship with our legislature. It helps with things like this. We had to do a lot of preplanning before a bill is drafted. So in this case we said, hey, before we do this, why dont we see bring together all the stakeholders and find out whats going on and the sponsors of the the potential sponsors of the bill. I really like that idea. And so not this past general assembly, but the one prior, a task force or Senate Resolution to form a task force. We included the division of Motor Vehicles. We had our state Homeland Security adviser. Law enforcements representation. We had members of the hispanic community. We had four legislators, both representing the senate and the house. And the list goes on. And we spent several months just debating this topic whether or not delaware should enter into the business of offering a driving privilege card to undocumented immigrants. And the need was clear. You know, these folks are residing in our state, driving on our roads. There are Highway Safety implications by not having them properly credentialed. About but the desire to necessarily do that was what we were debating. And how we go about doing that. So we had a great conversation, great debate. We brought in stakeholders to give us presentations. We asked the coalition of secure drivers license to come in and present information on what other states were doing, as well as their perspective. We also talked asked the American Association of Motor Vehicle administrators to give us a national view, whats going on throughout the country regarding this topic. So we just took that information. And at the end of it decided to move forward with legislation. Specifically incorporating things that we felt were very important in our state to make sure that everybody that was involved is comfortable with this legislation. And some key components in addition to trying to identify someone, we do require fingerprinting. We havent implemented it yet. Through our state police officers. And we also require two years of delaware tax returns. Those are things that we pulled and Lessons Learned from other states who have been doing this for a while. Yeah, it was a great process and one that i would recommend if you have the opportunity in your state to do Something Like this to get that kind of stakeholder into something we havent seen before. It was a unique process. It helped us put forward a bill that was i think going to benefit everyone. Just a quick follow up to the task force. Did you include members who may not have thought of themselves party to this issue or skeptical to the issue . How did they contribute to the final legislative outcome . Yes. We have Law Enforcement, state police, and local Law Enforcement represented. That was one area where my understanding was there was some initial opposition. Because obviously were in the business of identifying people. And how do you do that if there arent any documents to identify them. And no other issues are coming to mind. And full support. So we could properly vet those things. The fingerprinting was probably the most debated. I think we probably went two or three meetings. To see if it made sense for our state, states that have used it and states that decided not to. Delaware and hawaii are the two that have passed law and 10 other states in the District Of Columbia to look to for examples. What was your model in nevada for implementing this type of law from the dmv perspective and what lessons did you learn. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today and to talk about nevada as experiences. So what happened with scott in his state, nevada was not brought into the in tre deduction. Once the senators that were involved in sponsoring this bill introduced it at the administrative level, thats when it became knowledgeable to us. We stepped in to see what it is that we could help them with. So, question, the second part of your question . If there were model states. Yes, correct. The model state we used was the state of utah. So it was very helpful during the legislative hearing process. Some of the senators that had been involved came in and spoke to nevada legislativers. They provided us with invaluable Lessons Learned. Because they had implemented four or five careers to nevada. So we utilized their knowledge and their Lessons Learned which helped us become very successful. Did you do anything differently than utah . The first thing they did is they suggested we change the name from the driver privilege card to driver authorization card. They learned by using the term privileged it had a connotation that wasnt necessarily true. It is not a privilege to drive. It is a right to drive. So we changed privilege to authorization. One of the best Lessons Learned in this respect is what utah had used as far as the translation for the services that are requested for foreign documents. It is a huge impact on the agency that has this undertaking. So the legislature did not give us any Statutory Authority to regulate the transition of documents. What we ended up doing was put that into the regulatory process. And this was probably the biggest piece of debate that occurred during the legislative process for nevada. We had recommendations from everything that 7yearold johnny should be johnny should be able to translate their parents foreign documents to having dmv technicians do it. This is where we took the information from the stakeholders, however we did determine in the end that that was not in the best interests of either the department or the individual to do that. So we did require that translator selfcertify to be able to translate the foreign documents. Adam may have some followup questions later on. Because again, this was one of the Biggest Challenges for us, was ensuring we had a proper translation process in place. I certainly will. Whats clearly emerging here as a trend is there may be legislative wishes and implementation realities that these issuing agency have faced. Jumping back to erica, from the legislature, were there specific decisions that legislators wanted to describe in statute and leave certain decisions to the dmv in california to make . Thats correct, absolutely. Once the legislature decided that the the author and the legislator decided they were going to move forward with the card, one of the priorities remained ensuring that the state strike a balance between meeting the real i. D. Requirements and not putting this population at risk for deportation or discrimination, even locally or in our state or in our local governments. There was definitely a lot of thought put into the legislation. The author of the legislation had been working diligently with the stakeholders, community, Law Enforcement and others, on providing direction specifically about discrimination, and protections indicating specifically in statute that the information provided, both for revocation of identity and also the information, you know, for example the list of ab60, in our case the bill as Assembly Bill 60, applicants wouldnt just be Public Information or public record. So there was a lot of thought put into that process in the senate. When the bill was in our house, we made sure to strengthen that. We worked very closely with the dmv, the transportation attention, and the governor to make sure those provisions remained as this bill headed to the government for signature. That was critical for our legislature. So after the bill was passed and as the california dmv stood up the program over the course of a year, were you surprised with any decisions they later took and felt that it didnt reflect legislative intent . The way i describe it is the legislature, and i am chief of staff to senator lora, and i was asked with being very involved in the implementation. There were very specific parameters that were decided in statute. And then there was authorization for the development of emergency regulations for including the types of documentations that should be used for the purpose of verifying identity, the process for that verification. So as you know, during the time that the bill was getting ready to go into the governors desk, there was concern that there was a year and a half delayed implementation. And at the time, at the staff level, i was concerned, my boss was concerned, other members were, why does it takes so long . Why cant though just figure it out quicker . The regs shouldnt take that long. Its authorization for emergency regs, they should be done quickly. Lets do it. When we in the process after the bill got signed, how i describe it is, we didnt know what we didnt know. Things would happen and the dmv would come up with a process or they would decide a procedure that we were like, wait, those are major policy questions and should be debated in the legislature. But we were completely silent on it. How are you going to deal with a population who may have previously had a drivers license, because there were no rules about prior to 94 there were no rules about whether you needed to prove u. S. Legal residency. Or what if somebody had provided other identification that maybe was not their own . So there were things they didnt know they didnt know. And the year and a half delayed implementation was very helpful to help guide some of the administrative policies to better understand and have a Good Relationship with the dmv and the transportation agency, and to also help engage other stakeholders that may have the expertise in implementation. And administrator albertson, how long did you have in nevada to set up your program, and was that enough . Actually nevada had six months, once the bill was approved. And again, because most Motor Vehicle agencies do have the process to issue a credential today, this one is different. So the six months was an adequate time period for us to develop the regulations that we needed as well as work with our card production vendor to make sure that we couldn[tqroperly p the markings on the new card type. You mentioned earlier having just joined the process once the first bill was introduced, did you feel you were able to provide sufficient guidance to shape that statute or have sufficient latitude, rather, to make your decisions as an administrator in designing the program after the law passed . Yes, we did. Once the bill was introduced and we became aware of it, we then became act i feel involved with the bills sponsor. We were real i. D. Compliant at the time. We knew what we had to do at the time to remain i. D. Compliant, and again, provided insight, information, and guidance to the senator with the departments support. Turning a bit more to implementation, in delaware youre probably now at the midpoint of when the law passed in june to when you say you should be ready. Do you have a date certain when you should be issuing these licenses . Our law says december 27th. Everything is aimed toward that date. We six months, like nevada, to implement. I would have liked some time. Were going to make some concessions on process efficiencies that well implement afterwards. It wont stop us from getting this new bill, this new law up and running. With a little more time we could be ready right out of the gate. Definitely any state thats looking into this, i would have i seen six months, if its possible. Understandab understandably, it wants to be done quickly. When you are in the meat of the dmv and have been for some time, you understand really all the different processes. Even in our case, weve been part of the conversation from the very beginning, even before it became a bill. Thats worked to our advantage, because we understand where everybodys mindset is that is going to be impacted by this. So we can make our policy decisions based on a lot of conversations that weve had in the past. And so thats helped us be hopefully a lot more proactive than we would be otherwise. The fingerprint and background process is going to involve as i understand it two separate agencies and touch points for applicants. Can you talk a little bit more about how thats going to work and where you are in finalizing her to implementation plans . Sure. So the state of utah, its our understanding that they do fingerprinting for the driving privilege card. Thats where that idea originally came from. This was important for Law Enforcement for our state. The most important thing for them, when they pull somebody over on the road, they want to know who theyre dealing with. And so obviously fingerprinting is one way you can certainly identify somebody, you have a biometric youve captured for them. So, like i said, a great debate over this, whether it should be a state check, state and federal check. And where we landed was we would do a state sbi check at the various state police facilitates that do fingerprinting. And unless theres a conflict with a name or any aliases that person provided, or they have an outstanding warrant, thats not going to go any further, they clear that individual and pass that information along to us. If theres a warrant, i said i was john about im really joe, im trying to trick the state police, then they can do a federal trace to kind of dig into it further. So were setting up an interface between up and the state police to make that process as seamless as possible. Well be working on our outreach to make it very clear that the state police is your first step to get a driving privilege card, go there, then once theyve been vetted at the state police, that would be electronically verifiable by us. Do you plan to have capacity ready on day one for this new demand that the agencies will see . Were going with a scheduling model. The state police i believe is doing the same thing. Thats our best attempt at controlling capacity. One thing im sure my colleagues could attest to, we dont know what they population is youre dealing with. We have several different numbers. The numbers just keep going up as we dig more and more into it. We drafted legislation and worked around 32,000, was our number that we cued in on, from pew research in 2008. But weve also heard much more than that. We recently were at the Mexican Consulate and they said they currently have 40,000 valid mexican passports issued to delaware resident. Now, who knows whether those people are still living in our state . Because of that, weve looked at other states who have implemented scheduling. And so were going to go scheduling countervisits. For multiple reasons, not only to not impact our other customers who are there and increased wait times, because anybody that works in dmv, its all about the wait times, and we dont want to increase wait times. Also for the individual coming in to get the driving privilege card, theres going to be an established time frame that were going to be able to service them. They can come in, get their questions answered, they dont have to wait a longer period of time. And were not having to have them wait in lines every single day in hopes to be serviced that day. So thats the reason were taking the schedule production. So california, delaware, and it sounds like now most of the other states have appointment systems. Nevada is one state that actually did not. I would be curious, administrator, if you could tell us what strategies you employ to be mindful of wait times and also serve the existing client base that you already have. Because there wasnt a lot of other states that had implemented similar bills, and we didnt have the capacity for an appointment system, our approach then was to work through the legislature and to have them authorize 18 additional staff. So we used our averages of the amount of time it takes for a technician to process a transaction and multiplied that times the 60,000 people that we anticipated and came up with nine additional staff. The legislature provided that appropriation so that was nine application staff and nine schedulers. It was a challenge, because we had worked with the Community Groups and advocacy groups beforehand to let them know the cards were going to be made available as of january 2nd. We literally had busloads of people at our doors on january 2nd that were ready to come in and get their drivers authorization cards. One of the big challenges, again, even though we worked with the Community Advocacy groups as far as educating individuals on the drivers authorization cards, there wasnt a wide awareness that it wasnt just a matter of coming in and paying the fee and getting the application, but there were tests associated with it. So nevada really missed the mark in that regard. So i know when we met with california after we had implemented, after several months, there was a group of us that went to the california dmv and said, here, learn from us. And so again, california i think, you know, made great efforts then to improve upon the mistakes that nevada had made. And it worked itself out. You know, of course we had that initial bubble of individuals that came in to get the cards. But once they found that they had to take the written test as well as the driving test, that helped to level out the impacts on the offices. Part of the requested 18 additional staff is because we didnt want to impact our customer wait times, because thats what its all about at the dmv, is how long your customer wait times are. So we missed the mark a little bit in that area. But it could have been much, much worse. So erica, pivoting back over to you, what did you learn from nevada, and in the state that has the largest unauthorized immigrant population, and itself estimated at 1. 4 million unauthorized immigrants would apply for this license, this is a huge operation. So yes, california did estimate that it was going to be 1. 4 applicants over three years. And in the ten months that the dmv has been issuing drivers licenses, we have had over 500,000 people who have had a drivers license, and 1. 8 million visits for the marked car. There was absolutely, you know, a lot to learn from other states. And i think, again, that period of time that we had the delayed implementation, you know, had you asked us, me specifically, or my boss, how we felt about the delay, you know, we would be concerned, nervous, why cant we do it. Then when we realized how many education was needed and how little time we had, it was really good that we had that time. So it allowed legislators to engage with our communities. We would partner with the dmv. The dmv would send a spokesperson to a community. You would host the forum. And the message was are you ready. Are you going to be ready january 2nd. What are you going to need to do, what kind of documents should you get ready . The dmv held 200 workshops throughout the state and continued to do education throughout the state. Part of why im excited to participate here today with pew is because our conversations and our discussions i think can really provide really great factual information thats not just seven asianalized in the became sensationalized. Were happy to learn from nevada. Thats great. Were very glad to provide that opportunity for all of you and everyone watching here as well. I would be curious, director, you mentioned utah. Weve heard more about other state models from california and nevada. Since youre right in the throes of making decisions to implement this program, which other states are standing out, what other types of programs are you looking to implement, and from whom . One of the states were looking at is california. Were trying to leverage their extensive research, because a state the size of ours, our research arm is, you know, couple of managers. So were trying to take advantage of the Lessons Learned. Were looking closely at maryland, a neighboring state of ours, who is already doing this. And vermont is another state, and connecticut is another state that we looked at. Those are the ones we pulled our information and we really studied, and utah as well, to try to figure out whats worked, what hasnt, how do we translate the Lessons Learned. The two years of tax returns came from the state of maryland. That was an effort on their part to keep folks from other states from basically flooding their doors with false residency documents. They wanted to say, yes, this person has lived here for the last two years, theyre a resident of maryland. Were looking to do the same thing. Because were so small, its easy to come on into delaware. Our attempt is the same thing maryland is doing, trying to limit the number of people that can say, yes, im a resident here, when they just showed up yesterday. Could we ask a question . Certainly. Go ahead. Just a moment. Were going to get a microphone over here on the side, please. Thank you very much. My name is armando guzman, we broadcast in spanish nationally. I wanted to ask, have you found this to be a burden on the state at all . No. Not at all. Again, the numbers came in significantly lower than what was anticipated. And with the additional Staffing Resources that we were given by the legislature, it has not been a burden. And ms. Contreras, in california, i heard yesterday a report on one of the news channels stating that in california now everybody is getting registered to vote at the same time. This will allow undocumented immigrants to vote. Can you please clarify . Absolutely. So there wasn a piece of legislation authored by an assembly woman, coauthored by a number of state legislators, including senator lora, and sponsored by former senator alex padilla. The purpose of the law is to create a mechanism to basically better meet the voter motor act. And so this is an attempt to get more people registered to vote. Already the author, our office, the sponsor, worked very closely with dmv, the transportation agency, to make sure the bill was amendedthe author, our offi sponsor, worked very closely with dmv, the transportation agency, to make sure the bill was amended to make sure it didnt register undocumented individuals to vote. Moving forward, since we have parameters of who we know is applying noon 8060 license in california, the dmv has a mechanism to say, these people are not eligible, were not going to follow and automatically register this population because theyre notical abnot ic eligible, they dont meet the criteria thats in statute. So the information youre hearing is not fact. The legislature has taken great caution to ensure that no undocumented individual is accidentally registered to vote. And the secretary of States Office is working very closely with the legislature on the implementation to make sure that theres nothing left where that even is a risk. And ms. Whelan, if i may, why mexico and Washington State have gotten to issue these licenses without marking on them that they are not for federal purposes, just issued to undocumented . So washington and new mexico have both been issuing the same drivers license to everyone regardless of immigration status for quite a long time. The state of washington has never had a legal presence requirement, meaning that they never had to prove that they were legally in the United States to get a license. And new mexico passed a law in the early 2000s. These states did not need to create a special alternative license with the distinctive markings. If they did want to become i. D. Compliant and i know there are conversations in those two states about backgrounds real i. D. Complained, they need to also make decisions regarding n unauthorized immigrants. If other people have questions, if you would move and line up behind the microphone there. Michelle, there are two states that have passed laws now, we have delaware at the table and also hawaii. Are other states considering laws . So hawaii passed the same day at ohio. I examined hawaiis legislative language. Were really trying to learn more about that state. One thing thats interesting about hawaii is their unauthorized population is a little bit different than those in the states represented here. Its many filipinos and people from micronesia. So well see how that affects their decisions around implementation, because i expect that the languages that they have to produce materials in and the documents that they accept from Foreign Countries are going to be different for that. Their law also creates an alternative license that is for unauthorized immigrants but goes well beyond the unauthorized immigrant population as well. They wanted to create a document that other populations that have a hard time getting documents could get. So they include the homeless, the elderly, people who are institutionalized. There are a couple of different groups people listed in their legislation. Their legislation also tends to be very specific in terms of what documents are going to be accepted. So wert wanted to leae really w learn from the dmv officials. Finally, were learning that hawaii is unique because their implementation doesnt happen at the state level. Its the county level. The counties operate very independently and take the lead on this. Well be learning more about that in the next couple of days. I know there were experiences you had regarding documents and translations and some Lessons Learned that surprised you that we would like to hear about. Right. Because we were not given any Statutory Authority over regulating the translation of foreign documents, we did include that into the regulatory process, where again, we received the most feedback from the Stakeholder Groups as far as how we wanted to handle that. Initially we wanted to have the documents notariznotarized. And that meant with great opposition. So that was one that the department was willing to say, we concede to that, it was an unnecessary burden to place that on individuals, to also have their documents notarized. And then again, going back to, you know, we also couldnt be so lax in our processes that we would allow, you know, a child to translate the document for a parent. So we did come to a consensus with the groups. For the most part, it has worked very well. It is a selfregulated process in the state of nevada, which means you as an individual, you attest to us that you are authorized or not that youre authorized, that you are eligible to translate documents from a particular language into english. So you selfcertify that with your signature. And you have to provide that in its original form to the department. There is an attestation that has a fraudulent, perjureous statement. We have no way of authenticating that. One of the first incidents of fraud that nevada experienced with the implementation of the driver authorization card was through a translation of piece. A person had selfcertified to translate from spanish to english. And they actually submitted a document that was in a language other, and i dont recall which one specifically it was, lets say it was farsi. What that individual admitted to was they had simply done a google translation. They had entered the information from the foreign document into google and then provided that translation. We were then able to remove that person from our authorized translators list. So one of the other pieces, again, going back to this, learning lessons from utah, they suggested that we did not allow businesses to register as translators, because everybody wanted to be aaa interpreter services. Our specific regulations say that we would only allow that to be for a natural person. So i can be Terry Albertson doing business as aaa interpretation services, but when i go up on our website, which, again, contains over 700 approved translators, thats how its going to be listed, through alphabetical order. If you can get the legislators to allow you to post the costs that the individual wants to charge individuals, because it ranges from everything to hundreds of dollars for a simple birth certificate to free of charge. But again, without the Regulatory Authority to oversee that or provide oversight to that, and again, you also need the resources to do that, it does leave i believe the community somewhat vulnerable, because again, when you have a list of 800 individuals, and although our website will list what languages you can translate in, if youre going to run into 500 of them, what is the likelihood that youre going to call, you know, a number of those individuals to get your documents translated, to find out what theyre charging . Youre probably going to go with the first one thats on the list, you know, unless their cost is so exorbitant or prohibited that youre going to continue down. But theres nothing on the website, and again, no regulatory or statutory process to say, we need to be able to post your fees on there so that individuals can make that choice from that perspective. And i think all appreciate well at this point the challenge that issuing agencies in all of these states are trying to serve a population they may not have served before and to recognize identification documents, credentials that are issued in different countries, in different languages, but still trying to maintain avenues of integrity and ensuring their authentication. Turning to california, california actually developed a very unique model of electronically verifying certain documents with the Mexican Foreign ministry. Can you talk a little bit about that, erica . Ill speak just briefly about it, because the dmv representative would probably best be able to describe it. We understand that the dmv was able to get into mous with countries like mexico to be able to develop technology that could, you know, verify a u. S. Passport and other documentation that would easily be verifiable. Where the customer can go from being cleared of tickets and being able to go from the ticket window where they first walk in to getting a drivers license within a short period of time, which was the goal in our case, in a state like california, i was going to say in a country like california, thats the way it feels. In a state like california where you have so much diversity and you have so many immigrants from all over the world, there are countries where the country of origin of the individual may have documentation that is appropriate for that country but doesnt meet the security features that our state requires specifically for the implementation of this bill. So its going to result for us in, you know, less wait time, more expedited process, and an ability to be able to serve all customers, including 8060 applicants, more efficiently. People get very discouraged when they go to the ticket window without an appointment and it ends up being several weeks and months before the get direction about, they dont have the appropriate documentation, and because of the large number of people coming through the dmv, it could be several months. In the worst case scenario. The dmv is very sensitive to that, the legislature is as well. To open it up a little bit, how important are foreign consulates in your work, how important are foreign partners, did you have to seek them out . For us, weve been working with the Mexican Consulate. Thats proven to be very beneficial for us. And just eye opening, the potential number of individuals. But they were very proud and happy to show us their issuance process. We like to think were kind of the beall, endall of document issuance at dmv, because we take it very seriously. To see the vetting processes they use is very eye opening for us, and it will enable us to have a high level of confidence when presented with those documents that the proper vetting took place before theyre coming in to see us. So that was very beneficial. Theyre remaining a part of the conversation. I chair the transportation subcommittee for the delaware hispanic commission, and theyve been coming to our meetings and justed a part of the conversation as we plan that out. And were reaching out to other consulates as well. The same holds true for nevada. When we started having the Community Town Hall Meetings with our Public Information officers, again, we included not only Law Enforcement but also the Consulate Office excuse me, the consulate representatives as well as representatives from local churches, as many as we could think of, to invite the hispanic chambers of customeommerce, all organizations that have greater outreach to the community, to help us get the word out. I want to pause here and see if there are questions in the room. Hi. Tim henderson from pew state line. Quick question for scott. When you talk about fingerprinting, does that go through any of the process for secure communities to go to immigration authorities as well . No. The fingerprinting process that we use for this is what our state Police Agency deems our applicant fingerprinting process. If youre going to become a school bus driver, taxicab driver, schoolteacher, what have you, youre in an applicant fool of fingerprinting. It doesnt commingle with, you know, say, criminal fingerprinting records. Its not reported to any agencies like that. Its a completely separate process but it still gives them the tools they need so they can compare against the things they need to, so be a part of that applicant pool. Sorry, you looked like you wanted to jump in. I want to chime in on this question. When we talk about what other states are going to do, they should better understand how existing mous between immigration and enforcement and dmv works. Also between Law Enforcement information systems, which are hosted by the dmv, and Immigration Enforcement work. So for california, we put you know, our members of the legislature were very sensitive and they wanted to make sure there was the greatest access. But in this conversation, we didnt know, we didnt know, we have in california the california Law Enforcement telecommunications system, the clets system. Thats the system that hosts, lets say you get stopped by a traffic officer, theyre going to write you a ticket, they look you up and find your information. So there is existing mous between Law Enforcement and the dmv in california that allow this access. That access also happens to be at the national level. So while there is protections in place that you cant use this information specifically to arrest somebody, knowledge that this person has an 8060 license in california does not automatically mean that this person is undocumented. Weve made that very clear in statute. Weve also said that its a crime to discriminate based on that. But and Immigration Enforcement cant just go to the dmv and say i want the entire list of all 8060 applicants and those that have licenses. They cant do that. But what they could do is if Immigration Enforcement is looking for an individual because they have a deportation order, they have existing mous, they have an order that allows them to go to the dmv and the dmv must comply, saying we have this person we want to be picked up, and can you give us the address. That person may be found and deported, accordingly. That is not something thats driven by the states. It is a federal its driven at the federal level. And so in the conversation about states and moving to the direction of drivers licenses, one of the key messages and Lessons Learned for california was that the statutes about discrimination and keeping Information Private does not preclude enforcement officers from being able to find people who have deportation orders. So, for example, my senator, senator lora, when he goes out and does a presentation or workshop on the drivers license, he talks about the opportunity cost. This is an opportunity for as many people to get access to a drivers license, to drive your children to school. But if you have a deportation order or you have some questions about your history or your background, you should probably consult an attorney before you go to the dmv. I needed to make sure i state that, because while there are a lot of protections in place, there are things that are not in the states control to manage. Thank you. We have another questioner. Hi, im becky theiss with pew. I just was wondering if other states are contacting you in their exploration of this. We saw the map, there were a bunch of states that havent yet considered this. So are you hearing from states that are looking into this . And also speaking to michelles point about vermont, if we did see other states pursue this, would that cut down on fraud . In the case of nevada, obviously when california implemented their law, they reached out to us, and again, we were very happy. I think there was a group of five or six of us who went and spent half a day with the administrator and her deputies to share the Lessons Learned. Again, its invaluable what you can learn from the other states. I know scott has alluded to the American Association of Motor Vehicle administrators that both my state and his belong to. Again, a very valuable networking resource. I would be happy to share Lessons Learned with any jurisdiction that would be interested. Were the state reaching out to everybody right now. Nobodys talking to us. For california, its interesting you bring up that point. So as a legislative staff and also for my senator, weve been very engaged in ncsl. Specifically, my boss sits on the Immigration Task force. This is the National Conference of state legislatures. Yes, of course. And so it really gives, through the conversations, through the Immigration Task force, it gives legislators and their staff an opportunity to talk off the record really about Lessons Learned, but things you may want to admit, you may not want to admit. And really build a relationship with those members that then you could pick up the phone and call the member yourself, member to member, and say, hey, im thinking of these things, how did this work, who can you connect me to in california. So absolutely, states are reaching out. And specifically in our experience, through ncsl and the Immigration Task force. So its been wonderful. Weve talked a bit about implementation and the challenges and experiences. Im curious now a little bit about outreach. As we talked about a little bit offline in the course of this conversation, in the case of california, with a high estimate of 1. 4 Million People that would be served down to vermonts 1500, these are new populations, and no one can put their finger on what nationalities, what languages they speak. What lessons have you learned, have you recalibrated, and do you feel youre found the sweet spot in researching these populations, that if they dont know they can apply for these licenses, the program isnt going to be very successful . So one area were really focusing on in delaware is our hispanic population, simply do you to the statistics. They make up about 10 of our population in delaware. Thats going to be our largest area affected by this legislation. I mentioned i serve on the hispanic association. Later this month well start publicizing this, saying these are the requirements, these are the things you should expect. Obviously the spanish population is not the only population we need to serve. Were reaching out to as Many Community centers as we can possibly think about to start having those conversations with other nationalities and with other communities. Were doing things, you know, simple things like making sure our translate button on our website is very visible and easy to use so somebody can see that. Right now its buried at the bottom of the website. I didnt even know that was there. Our printed material will be in english and spanish. If we see a need for our languages to be in print or outreach in our areas, well continue to adjust. Our main focus is in the hispanic community, and again, thats due to the population in our state. A similar experience in nevada. Ill piggyback on ericas comment, you dont know what you dont know. And until they come forward with a request for information or services, thats when you found out. So what we had found, you know, although we have in excess of 700 translates on our list, we did have a request from an individual for a very unique language, i dont recall specifically which one it was. What we did to help this consumer was reach out to the local university who was able to provide them with the Translation Services that they needed. So we had to make an exception to our rule because we only allowed a natural person to be a translator, but through our policy we were able to author the university to provide that service. In california, i mentioned earlier, the dmv did a phenomenal job of beginning their work before the implementation, through the workshops. They were getting they solicited information from the community about what types of documents would you suggest we use in in verifying identity, if you cant use traditional documents. It started the engagement very early. And then they had over 200 workshops. And then legislators certainly had a lot of interest in doing outreach and educate the community about it. The media played a key role kin it. Spanish media played a key role in it. Ill say the staff level, ive been very impressed with the amount of outreach the dmv has done. Were very pleased. We have another question. Hi, im austin. Im from georgetown university. Were doing a Research Project actually on the rollout in dc. And one of the things were doing is interviewing some individuals who are looking to apply for the license or who are in the process, and asking them about what are some of the reasons you might be held back from doing it. What are some of the difficulties or why you are not applying. One of the things were finding is that some people, whether or not its rational or not, are afraid of coming out of the shadows to apply for this license. And so my question is for ms. Contreras or anybody on the panel. Have there been any reports or evidence, i know it would be probably hard to find, of police discriminating on the bases of seeing that mark on the license . I know you spoke to how states cant control for everything as far as immigration and customs enforcement. But i was just wondering, have there been any reports of that mark on the license resulting in any discrimination for people who are pulled over on the road or anything like that. To date we have not. We have not not heard those stories. We do require in statute, in the legislation, that there be a report annually, indicating any cases of discrimination that get reported to the state. So in california, again, its a crime to discriminate based on that marked card. And its in violation of the jesse civil rights act. In the coming years as we get reports coming from the community and so on, we may have data at this point. I havent even heard anecdotally that its been a problem. I think for us whats been very helpful is that during the presentations and workshops with the dmv, usually there was Law Enforcement sitting next to the dmv representative who was saying, dont be afraid, come out, we want you to get a drivers license, we want you to get insurance, everybody will be safer. I think that really helped. But we havent seen it. Thank you. Picking up on that question, so i heard a couple of times when you were discussing thoses you those outreach plans, did you find any resistance . In nevada, that responsibility was delegated to our Public Information officers. And they welcomed the opportunity to join with us, the Community Groups did. We absolutely had no resistance. And again, we also had Law Enforcement officials there that we had educated on the process, again, encouraging the individuals, dont be afraid, you know, come forward and do this, because when that individual is driving behind their car, theres no marking on their car that indicates to the Law Enforcement ovafficer that that person has a driver authorization card inside. Theres only if that officer determines theres a need to pull that person over because they have cause, only when they pull that license out of the wallet and show that officer, only then what that officer have any indication that that was a driver authorization card holder and not the holder of a standard license. Along the lines of what terry just said, about the marking on the card, same thing with us. Its a class d license, just like the one that i possess myself. And so for all purposes within our systems and everything else, its a class d drivers license holder. Its the physical card that makes that indicator. The folks we have been reaching out to so far have been very open, willing, and eager to talk to us, work with us, because this is going to help their communities. There is concern with some of the provisions we have in there. And one of the things that were doing, it was a sister piece of legislation that went along with our bill, was to have our task force reconvene this may, this coming may, may of 2016, to study kind of the early parts of the implementation, to see is there anything that was passed in the legislation thats kind of chilling participation, as well as is there anything we can do better. And so that task force will be coming back together in may to evaluated things to evaluate outreach. For california and nevada, so states that are currently implementing, how do you think its going . How would your own evaluations be on your own efforts thus far . I think our community is happy that they have access. In california, there were a lot of people losing their vehicles, getting impounded. We have laws in place that require impoundment, and then the vehicle gets held for 30 days, which makes it very costly for people to be able to get their property back. And so our residents i think generally represented the area that senator lora represents, our committee is happy that they have a tool. Whether they want to take advantage of it right now, you know, i think it depends on the persons level of comfort. Whether they have a special circumstance or not. But i think overall people have been generally very, very pleased that they have a mechanism. The concern about the marked card remains for some. Its a philosophical right now, since we have no evidence that its being used incorrectly, but, you know, the idea of having a marked card feels bad to some people. Were trying to work very dill generat gently with organizations to make sure people have all the information they need to get comfortable, and if they dont, that they consult with an attorney accordingly. My boss is certainly very pleased and a lot of our Committee Members are as well. Im hearing a perennial plug for more research, right . These programs are still new. Theres a place for them to be active. I would agree. Given the estimates of approximately 60,000 individuals that would apply for this in nevada, and were well over a year into our implementation, and weve met barely half of that, i would encourage, again, continued outreach with the Community Groups, if its requested at this point in time, to provide information to these individuals, because again, we can say, you know, based on, you know, 14 months of experience, we have not had any negative activity associated to individuals having a drivers authorization card. And i cant think of a better group than those that have the card to come out and speak to others, to encourage them to also become compliant by obtaining the drivers authorization card. So again, its all a matter of resources and time that it takes to do that. But i think that would be something that maybe the Community Groups should consider, is to go out and start reeducating people and get people who have a card to sit on a panel and talk to others and say, you dont have anything to be afraid of. And we are nearing our time. I did want to give one final call to the room for questions, and also the panelists, if you have questions for each other. I know delaware worked with Insurance Companies as part of this process. I was wondering if california and nevada did similar work and, you know, was that important. Well, for nevada, we did reach out to the insurance industry, and they were part of the hearing process during the legislation as it was being heard. And they didnt have a position on it one way or the other, although part of our analysis included the fact that there was a potential for increased insurance premiums to be sold to these individuals. However, it is not a requirement in nevada to have insurance to have a license. Its only a requirement if you register a vehicle. So again, depending on what the individual wants to use the drivers authorization card for, it doesnt necessarily equate them directly into the selling of an insurance policy. But they were part of the discussions. Specifically my boss was very interested in helping people become get that insurance. We knew that there were some Insurance Companies that were already providing insurance to some individuals that did not have a drivers license, but usually it was very costly. We worked very closely with the insurance commissioner, dave jones in california, where in statute we have a low income an affordable Insurance Program that is within the department of insurance. And the same year that we were working to pass the drivers license, we worked to provide this to clarify and expand so that people had better access to that program in california. We specifically our office did not specifically work with private companies. But during the Engagement Process for this program, this low income affordable Insurance Program, it did give us an opportunity to educate people about the new law. So as we are closing in on time, i would like to ask each panelist a final question. And thats really in our role here at pew as a convener and as a policy institute, putting this information front of policymakers as youre considering whether and how to approach these laws in your jurisdictions. I would like to start with michelle and really just go down the line. Whats your biggest piece of advice and Lesson Learned from your experience, whats the most important take away for you from your work in this process . From the conversation today, and ive learned so much, thank you so much, i think the biggest takeaway for me is that the legislators must speak to the dmvs as their crafting their legislation, not sorry if i took away your thunder not when its time for implementation, because theres so much mutual learning that need to take place there. For california, for me, i would say absolutely, engage early, engage during the legislative debate. Engage the federal government. Understand the systems, processes. And understand that dmvs engagement with Immigration Enforcement, Homeland Security. Because that process is very important. If you decide if your state decides to proceed with a marked card, it is a process of trial and error sometimes, where Homeland Security may approve or reject your card. And then you have to come back to the drawing board. So understand that process between the dmv and the federal government so that as legislators, you can better navigate that process. So i would agree, early engagement is key. Obviously we are engaged early. But even having been engaged early, there are still things, being on the other side of it, during implementation, were like, wow, we really should have looked into that a little further. One being, you know, we should have reached out to the consulates earlier, because not really thinking of them as a resource to have kind of their finger on the undocumented community, that would have been something very helpful in our planning, because our numbers may be higher. We really dont know. So all the different planning, pulling from as many different resources as possible. Again, having that large Stakeholder Group early on was very beneficial for us in the planning. And hopefully, not having implemented yet, hopefully well see that pay off here in a couple of months. I would say based on Lessons Learned from nevada, scott is right, you cannot overcommunicate this enough. Its very, very important to identify who your stakeholders are up front. Again, i think youve got enough states that have implemented this now, to reach out to them, based on even michelles research, all that this takes, because it truly is a huge undertaking for a state to implement this, because there are so many stakeholders involved, from your Law Enforcement to the foreign officials to your legislators, to then down to your dmv staff. I just cant emphasize enough the need to communicate that openly and clearly with everybody that needs to be involved in this process. I like things in threes. Im hearing communication, engagement, and more research. Thank you all for coming and please join me in thanking our panelists. [ applause ] i would also like to quickly thank everything is a team effort. Michelle pike and the entire facilities team, sarah leism seca and their communications team. And of course my own team, immigration in the states, and particularly clarissa klein. Thank you again for coming and enjoy your afternoon. [ applause ] american Muslim Leaders from across the country are meeting today in washington to talk about domestic and Foreign Policy priorities ahead of the 2016 elections. Well have live coverage of that starting at 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan 3. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his visit to the u. S. Today with a stop at the American Center for progress here in washington. Hell talk about security in the middle east and israels relationship with the u. S. Youll be able to see his comments live starting at 3 eastern on our companion network cspan. Veterans day is tomorrow. Our veterans day coverage begins tonight at 8 eastern on cspan with the hiring our heroes conference. Speakers include thomas perez and former First Lady Laura Bush. Shell talk about pressure faced by veterans families. Heres a look at some of what youll see tonight. While our servicemen and women are deployed, their spouses are the ones that takes care of the families at home. They care for the children. They manage the finances. And they pray their husbands and wives will return home safely. Master sergeant rocky Rodriguez Urena and his wife joined us at our ranch in 2013 and 14 for the annual bike ride. When rocky talked about his years of service in the air force, she said, we, i say we, served 25 years. I lived every deployment with rocky. Every trial and tribulation. But the day i said yes to him, i didnt realize the impact it was going to have on me. Thats why its so important to make sure that while our servicemen and women receive the support they need, that we care for their families as well. As weve heard this morning, employment support is the Perfect Place to start. Studies show that postnine 11 veterans face higher rates of unemployment than their civilian counterparts. And the consequences of that unemployment or underemployment arent only financial. And of course, when one Family Member is suffering, the entire family suffers. Also speaking at this veterans day concert event, labor secretary tomas perez, a medal of honor recipient. Cspan presents the u. S. Chamber of commerce hiring our heroes conference tonight, starting at 8 eastern on cspan. Cspan has the best access to congress. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan and the senate on cspan 2. Watch us online or on your phone at cspan. Org. Listen live any time on our cspan radio app. Get best access from behind the scenes by following cspan and our capitol Hill Reporter craig kaplan on twitter. Stay with caplan on twitter. Stay with cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org for your best access to congress. The association of the United States army held its annual meeting in washington, d. C. This month. The event included a Panel Discussion with military and local Law Enforcement officials to discuss information sharing and efforts to prepare for violent extremism against military personnel and facilities. This is just over an hour. All right, well good afternoon, im not guy swan. He got tide up handing out awards. Im george coan, i work on the asa national staff. Its an honor and privilege to be here with you. I want to thank you very much for your time. We have a great, great panel for you today. Thank you for joining us for our third and final ilw dhs breakout session. This session is entitle it had importance of mexico to Homeland Security. Of course, one of the goals of our association and the institute of land warfare is to foster an understanding of the emerging security environment and as your professional organization, ausa is proud to provide an event like this one that broaden the knowledge Bush Administration of Army Professionals and those who partner with our army in our nations defense. These presentations are our way of amplifying u. S. Armys narrative to audiences inside the army and help to further the associations mission to be the voice for the army and support for the soldier. Of course, we cant do this alone. Ausa relies on its members to help tell the armys story and support our soldiers and families. A strong Membership Base is vitally important for advocacy efforts in congress, with the pentagon and the Defense Industrial base. As well as the public and communities across the country through ausas 120 local chapters. So for those of you army and Homeland Security professionals and your comrades in arms who are not yet members of the association of the United States army, we encourage you to join with a special introductory offer. You will find the invitation on your chair. The card looks Something Like this. Bring it to booth 407 in exhibit hall a. If youre already a member, thank you for staying with us. Youre very important to us. So please give your invitation to a fellow professional so he can enjoy what you enjoy with your membership. Youll be doing a service to the association, the United States army and the nation. So ill finish banging on about that. Now id like to turn the floor over to dr. Richard downey, executive Vice President for Global Strategies omni true technologies. Thank you very much, george. Good afternoon. Its great to be in an audience where theres interaction because its this is an army, this is the ausa. This is normally the kind of spirit we expect, this is we have our partners from mexico are here so if you would help me one more time. Good afternoon. Thank you so much thats much better. Much better. Well, as george mentioned im Richard Downie and its a pleasure for me to be here today as your moderator for this panel on the importance of mexico for u. S. Homeland security. And it is an honor to be with this very distinguished panel and also with this distinguished audience so thank you very much for joining us today. When we talk about threats to the United States typically we tend to immediately think far away iran, north korea, al qaeda. Although they are here. But when you look at a map and we dont have maps to project today youve all seen those maps of the arrows coming up from the south of the routes of trafficking from south america through Central America through the eastern pacific and the arrow shows how traffickers take drugs, pirated material, people. And usually the arrows stop at the u. S. Border but we all know the arrows dont really stop at the u. S. Border. They will continue on. Other maps will show you they continue to los angeles and slate, dallas, chicago, atlanta, washington, d. C. And up into canada, too. The point is, if these traffickers can take Illegal Drugs and pirated merchandise and people successfully into these areas, what else can they bring . And the problem is we see as a result how closely intertwined our security is with that of mexico because all of those routes coming from the caribbean, eastern pacific, Central America, they converge in mexico going through and its so important for us so with our mexican partners in this. We have a terrific panel to address this issue of what are those things that can pass through our security that we need to work so closely with our mexican counterparts with. And what well do today, well have a were going to have this panel will speak, each will speak about seven, eight minutes or so. We want to leaf a lot of times for questions because that will be the richest part of this dialogue. We want to make it a dialogue and i ask you, please, as you listen to each of the speakers, to be thinking about what you want to ask them and dont be shy because theyre happy and we want to engage with you on this. So first up on speakers today will be Brigadier General jt taylor, the Deputy Director for plans, policy and strategy at the u. S. Northern command and norad, which is the unified command that focuses that one of their many responsibilities is focusing on mexico. And hes going to give a strategic overview of to start things off. Hell be followed by Michael Houston who is the principal director for the americas in the policy direct tort of the department of Homeland Security and he will address he actually has spent a lot of time focusing in Homeland Security on mexico so hell be giving us the framework that department of Homeland Security uses directoradre. Hell be followed by dr. Duncan wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson center here in washington, d. C. Who is has spent tremendous time in mexico as a professor here and has a great overview of of all issues related to mexico and particularly our relationship with mexico. And our cleanup batter will be Lieutenant General Perry Wiggins who is the commander of u. S. Army north. Amongst his many responsibilities, army north is the Army Component that focuses on the relationship with mexico and during his time, hes spent six years at army north in a variety of positions so hes seen not only during this administration under enrique a nieto but also the Previous Administration of felipe calderon. Hell be addressing the strategies. One of his very Close Relationships is with general salvador sienfuegos, the defense minister of mexico. So we look forward to our panelists and your questions. So please, again, be thinking of what you would like to ask our panelists and let me turn it over to general taylor, please, thank you. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate the opportunity to share a few insights to you of the absolute necessity of mexico to the security of north america from the perspective of u. S. North com and id like to start with strategic context from a north american continental perspective writ large because i think its essential to understand the role mexico plays in our security by comparing it to the role that canada plays in our security. History has shown that if you want to threaten the United States, theres a number of approaches that you can take to get to north america. You can taken a equatorial approach where you come around from the east or west coast from the sea. Thats a hard approach because theres great distances involved. Or you can take a polar approach where you go over the north pole. There is less distance involved with that in the aerial domain, thats inhospitable in the land domain but our aerial domain threat over the pole is an existential threat. So for over five decades we have cultivated a very close relationship with canada to address the existential threat that exists coming from over the poles that has served north america very well. In fact, our chairman recently articulated four nation state threats to north america and of those four three of them can reach us in the aerial domain over that polar approach. So weve learned of the absolute necessity of a close relationship with canada. We learned that that was in our