0:03

Welcome to Let's Find Common

0:05

Ground from the Center for

0:07

the Political Future at the

0:10

University of Southern California's Dornsite

0:12

College of Letters, Arts, and

0:14

Sciences. I'm Bob Shrum, Director

0:16

of the Center. And I'm

0:19

Republican Mike Murphy, co-director of

0:21

the Center. Our podcast brings

0:23

together America's leading politicians, journalists,

0:25

and academics from across the

0:28

political spectrum for in-depth discussions

0:30

where we respect each other.

0:32

and we respect the truth.

0:34

We hope you enjoy these

0:36

conversations. I'm Bob Shrum, Director

0:39

of the Center for the

0:41

Political Future here at USC

0:43

Dornsife. Welcome to the latest

0:45

event in our program series

0:47

and podcasts. Let's find common

0:50

ground. Today's subject is now

0:52

at the Center of Public

0:54

Debate. Immigration is there a way forward.

0:56

And let me thank Jeff and

0:59

Sue White for making this program

1:01

possible. I will engage the panel

1:03

for 50 minutes or an hour

1:05

and then we'll open this up to

1:07

audience questions. There was a time when

1:09

I was teaching a course on

1:11

the relationship between policy and

1:14

politics when I taught an entire class

1:16

on the history of immigration

1:18

policy and its political

1:20

and policy fallouts. Let me just

1:23

briefly say, just as background,

1:25

that for almost the first century

1:27

and a half of the American

1:29

Union, with the shameful exception of

1:31

the discrimination against certain groups, especially

1:34

the Chinese. Coming to the US

1:36

was pretty much opened to everybody,

1:39

although the immigration came primarily

1:41

from Western and Northern Europe.

1:43

In the 1920s, Congress enacted

1:45

and the president signed a racist

1:47

immigration law that used national origin

1:50

quotas to explicitly limit immigration

1:52

from much of the world.

1:54

President Kennedy wrote a book,

1:56

a nation of immigrants, that

1:58

called for reform. Yeah. And it

2:00

was finally enacted, the reform in

2:02

1965, signed into law by LBJ,

2:05

after Ted Kennedy led the fight

2:07

for it in the Senate. Ronald

2:09

Reagan Kennedy and others in the

2:11

House and Senate then worked together

2:13

to pass an amnesty in 1986

2:15

that legalized millions of undocumented immigrants.

2:18

Since then, with minor exceptions, we

2:20

have been largely deadlocked on this

2:22

issue. as the number of immigrants

2:24

both legal and illegal significantly rose

2:26

over the years. The issue is

2:29

obviously deeply contentious. With us here

2:31

today to explore whether there is

2:33

a way forward are, and I'm

2:35

not going to do this in

2:37

the order in which they're sitting,

2:39

Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law

2:42

and policy at the Center for

2:44

Immigration Studies, Stephen Davis, senior fellow

2:46

and director of research at the

2:48

Hoover Institution, and senior fellow at

2:50

the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy

2:53

Research. Daisy Delreal, an international immigration

2:55

scholar in the appointed delegate of

2:57

the American Sociological Association to the

2:59

International Sociological Association at UNESCO. She's

3:01

also an assistant professor of sociology

3:03

here at USC. Essen Zafar served

3:06

as senior advisor on civil rights

3:08

at the United States Department of

3:10

Homeland Security. and he is the

3:12

founder of a truly innovative entity,

3:14

the Difference Engine, at the Arizona

3:17

State University Center on Equality. Ed

3:19

Goez was president and CEO of

3:21

the Terrence Group, one of the

3:23

most respected Republican survey research and

3:25

strategy teams in American politics for

3:27

35 years. We're also happy to

3:30

say he is a spring 2025

3:32

fellow here at the Center. As

3:34

I go through these questions, I'm

3:36

going to throw them... to one

3:38

person but then everybody else should

3:41

feel free to weigh in. So

3:43

I'm going to start with this

3:45

and I'm going to give this

3:47

to Andrew Arthur first. be permitted

3:49

to immigrate to the US? Should

3:51

the criteria be work skills, country

3:54

of origin, family stability, or refugee

3:56

status? By the way, we have

3:58

to trade microphones back and forth.

4:00

Normally I don't need one of

4:02

these. My voice is pretty loud.

4:04

I was a judge for about

4:07

eight years and I had to

4:09

issue my decisions orally so it

4:11

really trains the old pipes. But

4:13

to answer that question I turned

4:15

to you know what Barbara Jordan

4:18

had to say. Barbara Jordan was

4:20

Democratic Congresswoman from Houston, Texas. If

4:22

you know Sheila Jackson Lee, Sheila

4:24

Jackson Lee took Ms. Jordan seat.

4:26

Ms. Jordan was civil rights icon

4:28

and a antagonist of Richard Nixon

4:31

during the Watergate hearings but in

4:33

1994 President Clinton appointed her to

4:35

be the chairman of his of

4:37

the U.S. Commission on International Immigration

4:39

Reform, chairman of the U.S. Commission

4:42

on Immigration Reform. And you know

4:44

after two years of study she

4:46

said Absent compelling circumstances, immigration to

4:48

the United States should be based

4:50

on skills. And she actually explained

4:52

what those compelling circumstances were. She

4:55

said that they were immediate relatives,

4:57

so spouses and minor children, and

4:59

asylum and refugee. So her vision

5:01

in the vision of the commission,

5:03

she died before it ended, but

5:06

it bore her name, the Jordan

5:08

Commission, was that We want to

5:10

encourage immigration to the United States

5:12

that will grow the economy. She

5:14

also wrote a fascinating piece of

5:16

the New York Times in September

5:19

11th, 1995 called The Americanization Ideal.

5:21

It's only 735 words, it's very

5:23

brief. But it's probably one of

5:25

the best explanations of how foreign

5:27

nationals become how immigrants become Americans.

5:30

And I highly recommend it. But

5:32

yeah. So her vision was that

5:34

we would base on skills. Part

5:36

of the reason was that she

5:38

thought that immigration should have a

5:40

focus on the least advantaged Americans

5:43

and she said that those least

5:45

advantaged Americans were intercity youth members

5:47

of minority groups that had been

5:49

traditionally discriminated against. and immigrants who

5:51

hadn't, legal immigrants who hadn't yet

5:53

adjusted to life in the United

5:56

States. So that's why she put

5:58

the focus on skills. And you

6:00

know, I agree that's probably going

6:02

to be the most popular way

6:04

that you can frame immigration policy.

6:07

Someone else want to weigh in

6:09

on this? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah,

6:11

I want to amplify, I largely

6:13

agree with that, but I want

6:15

to explain part of the benefits

6:17

of the skills focused. immigration policy

6:20

for American citizens and for America's

6:22

role in the world. And I'll

6:24

do it by example. So I

6:26

suspect some of you probably seen

6:28

the movie Openheimer about the Manhattan

6:31

Project and the development of the

6:33

atomic bomb. It's worth recalling that

6:35

episode because the Manhattan Project was

6:37

to a very significant extent powered

6:39

by immigrant scientists. Okay, in many

6:41

cases Jewish refugees from Central and

6:44

Eastern Europe for obvious reasons. It's

6:46

worth thinking for a moment how

6:48

the course of events would have

6:50

been different had the United States

6:52

not developed an atomic weapon in

6:55

time to bring a more rapid

6:57

end to the World War II,

6:59

or even worse yet if one

7:01

of our adversaries had developed first

7:03

instead. This is a vivid example,

7:05

but there are many others. The

7:08

United States became a leader in

7:10

many fields of biochemistry and genetics

7:12

after the war, in considerable part

7:14

because of immigrant scientists who come

7:16

to the United States in the

7:19

30s and 40s, often again from

7:21

Germany and other places in Central

7:23

Europe, who were at that time

7:25

the leaders in the field, and

7:27

they drew more American scientists into

7:29

their fields. I'll give you one

7:32

more example. Jensen Wong CEO of

7:34

Invidia, you know, the maker of

7:36

the chips that are powering the

7:38

many of the advances in AI

7:40

that we hear about all the

7:42

time. He himself is from Taiwan,

7:45

by the way, but he mentioned

7:47

in the course of his conversation

7:49

with Condoleezza Rice, director at the

7:51

Hoover institution, that 75% of the

7:53

engineers at invidia are immigrants. Okay?

7:56

Now... I could cite you academic

7:58

studies and so on, but the

8:00

larger theme point I'm trying to

8:02

get across is now and throughout

8:04

our history, much of the commercial

8:06

and scientific innovation enterprise in the

8:09

United States has been very much

8:11

propelled. by first-generation immigrants and second-generation

8:13

immigrants who are often more likely

8:15

to be attracted to the STEM

8:17

fields. That's good for all Americans.

8:20

It's good for if you think

8:22

it's important for the United States

8:24

to retain its leading role in

8:26

scientific commercial innovation and in its

8:28

military capacity and I do agree

8:30

with all those things. I agree

8:33

that immigrants bring their skills and

8:35

talent and help the U.S. economy

8:37

grow. I completely agree with that.

8:39

I think the moment we start

8:41

thinking about skills migration, we start

8:44

creating a class barrier to legal

8:46

status. What does that mean? That

8:48

means that lower skilled immigrants tend

8:50

to be derailed to temporary worker

8:52

programs that do not provide a

8:54

pathway to citizenship or lawful permanent

8:57

residency. and then they overstay their

8:59

visas and stay undocumented. And I

9:01

want to propose something different. I'm

9:03

proposing that instead we should expand

9:05

the legal pathways of entry in

9:08

legal residency to the United States

9:10

even more regardless of skill level

9:12

or class background of the immigrants

9:14

because we both need high-scale immigrants

9:16

and we need lower-scale immigrants to

9:18

work in construction and farming and

9:21

agriculture. And the reason for... is

9:23

simple. Most of the people in

9:25

the world do not want to

9:27

migrate. Only 3.6% of the entire

9:29

global population migrates. Most people want

9:31

to stay where they're born or

9:34

in the country where their people

9:36

speak their language, share their culture,

9:38

where they feel most comfortable. If

9:40

you let people go to the

9:42

United States with legal status, that

9:45

means that they can leave the

9:47

United States and more easily re-enter

9:49

if it ever makes sense, whether

9:51

it's because we need scientists to

9:53

help us with national security, or

9:55

if we need agricultural workers for

9:58

the season to do the harvest.

10:00

And then they can go back

10:02

home with the investments they gain

10:04

to diversify their economic well-being back

10:06

in their country of origin. But

10:09

the moment that we start creating

10:11

restrictions on legal immigration, we start

10:13

creating undocumented populations because people will

10:15

migrate regardless of your immigration loss.

10:17

And if there is no legal

10:19

way to migrate, they're going to

10:22

migrate without authorization. And I think

10:24

across the political spectrum, nobody really

10:26

likes undocumented immigration for two reasons.

10:28

On the left, you can say

10:30

people who love immigrants. who are

10:33

relatives and friends with undocumented immigrants

10:35

don't want to see their loved

10:37

ones hurt. And just in the

10:39

US, 22 million people here in

10:41

the United States have relationships, family

10:43

members, friends who are undocumented. And

10:46

from the more conservative side, people

10:48

fear undocumented immigration because they don't

10:50

know who has come in, they

10:52

don't know if it poses a

10:54

security threat. But if you let

10:57

people migrate legally more easily, you

10:59

can both not harm people. but

11:01

also know who's in your country,

11:03

do the biometric background checks that

11:05

you need to do to make

11:07

sure that they're not going to

11:10

harm U.S. security. And in a

11:12

way, it also helps perpetuate like

11:14

natural economic demands for skills and

11:16

low-scale labor. So I think in

11:18

general agreement with what's been said

11:21

here, I'll just add a little

11:23

wrinkle to this. we think of

11:25

immigration when we talk about skills-based

11:27

migration and so on and so

11:29

forth as our perspective is like

11:31

what do we need what does

11:34

the United States need right and

11:36

I think one additional reframing our

11:38

way to think about it is

11:40

what is our impact on the

11:42

world right and how does that

11:44

drive migration to this country so

11:47

there are places where the United

11:49

States takes actions for instance in

11:51

Afghanistan where we undertook military action

11:53

which creates populations that when we

11:55

depart are stuck there and subject

11:58

to violence we've also taken lots

12:00

of political action in Central America

12:02

so on and so forth and

12:04

so part of our immigration policy

12:06

it behoves us to consider when

12:08

we're out there whether for a

12:11

good reason or a bad reason

12:13

doing things in the world and

12:15

creating populations that are then dependent

12:17

on our largeness or our support

12:19

and absent that they are subject

12:22

to violence or death, what is

12:24

the pathway for those? And we

12:26

do have some pathways that are

12:28

built for that, but the proposition

12:30

should be that those should be

12:32

expanded and certainly should be more

12:35

effective than they are instead of

12:37

creating a situation where there's several

12:39

years of wait time for those

12:41

populations that are stuck in those

12:43

countries. Yeah, does the public understand

12:46

any of this? Well, it goes

12:48

back and forth. First, I'd like

12:50

to, I'm here on the panel

12:52

on immigration because it comes from

12:54

my heart, not for my head.

12:56

I've done a lot of work

12:59

on immigration over the years. I

13:01

did all the immigration polling for

13:03

George W. Bush when he was

13:05

president. Interestingly enough, at the same

13:07

time, I was also doing polling

13:10

for the Catholic bishops on immigration

13:12

during that period of time. Because

13:14

at that period of time, the

13:16

Catholic Church was looking at the

13:18

immigrants coming from South America, Central

13:20

America, as boosting their... volume of

13:23

Catholics in this country. It was

13:25

interesting by the end of the

13:27

four years. they stopped the polling

13:29

because they were finding all the

13:31

all the immigrants coming in that

13:33

were Catholic were finding the Catholic

13:36

Church in America to liberal and

13:38

they went off to evangelical churches

13:40

which is white as all these

13:42

this big boost of all the

13:44

evangelicals. But I come to it

13:47

I just want to tell you

13:49

a little bit of background in

13:51

my story. I grew up in

13:53

Army Brad. My family was, I

13:55

know the immigrant story, I was

13:57

a direct descendant of a famous

14:00

humanist from Portugal in the 1500s

14:02

who was put to death under

14:04

the Portuguese Inquisition and my family

14:06

then went to Macau for 300

14:08

years and then Hawaii in the

14:11

1840s. My father when he was

14:13

young walking home after serving mass

14:15

one morning saw the smoke coming

14:17

up from Paul Harbor. and all

14:19

he ever wanted to do is

14:21

go in the military, which he

14:24

did. I went to 15 schools

14:26

in 12 years, graduated from high

14:28

school in Heidelberg Germany, so I

14:30

had a lot of exposure everywhere.

14:32

But one of the stories I

14:35

like to tell about him, he

14:37

always kind of taught me lessons.

14:39

And in 1957, by the way,

14:41

he went to Vietnam and... Korea

14:43

got three bronze stars and died

14:45

of Asian orange when he was

14:48

61. But in 1957, on 1959,

14:50

I was on a ship on

14:52

the way to Germany the first

14:54

time and the news came that

14:56

Hawaii had been made estate and

14:59

he knew it was coming and

15:01

he took a flag out of

15:03

the suitcase that he had so

15:05

that he had had hidden and

15:07

we as a family sat in

15:09

the middle of the Atlantic and

15:12

so to star on that flag.

15:14

He also had a cigar box

15:16

and I was seven, you know,

15:18

dad is that candy. No, my

15:20

mom and I, your mom and

15:22

I plan on having more kids,

15:25

which just totally went over my

15:27

head. And a year later, my

15:29

brother was born in Frankfurt and

15:31

as he was prone to do,

15:33

I was the oldest son. He

15:36

said, Camaro, I want you to

15:38

see this. And he had the

15:40

cigar box. And he took the

15:42

scar box and asked for the

15:44

head nurse and when he talked

15:46

to her he said in this

15:49

box is dirt from America And

15:51

you will put it under the

15:53

mattress for my child is being

15:55

born Because I want him to

15:57

be born on America's soil Which

16:00

I get a little bit crazed

16:02

when I hear what Trump is

16:04

trying to do on birthright citizenship.

16:06

It is just such a deep

16:08

tradition in this country and so

16:10

real in this country and I

16:13

think it's unfortunate we I think

16:15

everyone on the panel has been

16:17

right on what they're saying if

16:19

you put it together as a

16:21

whole. The problem in this country

16:24

is that right now we're trying

16:26

to deal with two problems. We're

16:28

trying to deal with border security

16:30

problem, which is separate than the

16:32

immigration problem. Our immigration system has

16:34

been broken for 40 years. And

16:37

it's been broken because we haven't

16:39

allowed the speed limit of legal

16:41

immigrants to come in. to this

16:43

country to supply the economic needs

16:45

that our country has. And quite

16:48

frankly, discussions about high-skill workers have

16:50

distorted that because they put such

16:52

an emphasis on high-skill workers that

16:54

even lowered the amount of medium

16:56

and low-skill workers coming into this

16:58

country. So what we have to

17:01

do first is fix the border

17:03

problem, but then we have to

17:05

fix the immigration problem. And the

17:07

immigration problem is in 1908 they

17:09

put a million people before then

17:12

they were right. If you got

17:14

to the border and you didn't

17:16

have cholera you're on your way

17:18

to becoming a citizen very quickly

17:20

but they they then put a

17:22

limit of a million a year

17:25

I think when Reagan changed it

17:27

moved it up to 1.2 million

17:29

that got squeezed by an emphasis

17:31

on high-skilled workers and the bottom

17:33

line is the reason why we

17:35

have a border problem is because

17:38

we haven't allowed enough legal citizens

17:40

to come in to meet our

17:42

country's economic needs. And until we

17:44

do that, those that are illegal

17:46

are going to see the jobs

17:49

here, and they're going to figure

17:51

out a way to climb over,

17:53

dig on, or swim around, whatever

17:55

barriers. we put up. And so

17:57

part of what we have to

17:59

do is we have to clean

18:02

up the border problem, but we

18:04

need to do it in a

18:06

way that we then open the

18:08

door for fixing real immigration in

18:10

terms of fixing the right speed

18:13

limit of illegals coming in to

18:15

meet our country's economic needs and

18:17

the demands. from outside this country.

18:19

That's how our country was built.

18:21

So and the last thing I

18:23

will say in this, the last

18:26

shot I'll take at Donald Trump,

18:28

is that there is a segment,

18:30

and I think this is unfortunate,

18:32

and I fought against it as

18:34

a Republican, and my Republican firm,

18:37

there's a segment of Republicans who

18:39

want no immigration in this country,

18:41

legal or illegal. And what's unfortunate

18:43

is the rhetoric that Trump is

18:45

using today about illegals is poisoning

18:47

the well for all immigrants and

18:50

how they're viewed. During the Bush

18:52

years, one of the things we

18:54

found is the best way to

18:56

encourage immigration reform is to remind

18:58

people of their story about immigration,

19:01

because once you remind them of

19:03

their story, they then relate to

19:05

the new immigrants wanting to come

19:07

in. This raises so many possible

19:09

follow-ups. Let me just do a

19:11

couple of them. There seems to

19:14

be general agreement here, even though

19:16

there might be differences over skills

19:18

versus unskilled, that we need immigration

19:20

and we need legal immigration. How

19:22

do we determine the appropriate number

19:24

of legal immigrants? Stephen, you want

19:27

to start? Sure. A couple things.

19:29

First I... Just want to reiterate

19:31

one point I do think came

19:33

up previously. We do owe a

19:35

special obligation to say people in

19:38

Afghanistan who helped out U.S. military

19:40

forces and I just want to

19:42

endorse that point. I think the

19:44

challenging you're getting to it is

19:46

how do we construct a politically

19:48

durable immigration policy that achieves the

19:51

benefits that we've been talking about

19:53

on this panel with different degrees?

19:55

of emphasis and I think getting

19:57

controlled the border is one issue

19:59

one aspect of it. I do

20:02

think it's possible to get control

20:04

of the border even with a

20:06

restrictive immigration policy like it or

20:08

not and I don't like the

20:10

way Trump has gone about it.

20:12

He's had tremendous success in reducing

20:15

the inflow across the southern border

20:17

because he's altered the incentives. I

20:19

think there were far more humane

20:21

and durable ways to have achieved

20:23

that same end. But I do

20:26

think it's a political precondition, and

20:28

I gather maybe everybody shares this,

20:30

that getting control of our borders

20:32

in a way that is transparent

20:34

to the American citizenry is an

20:36

essential political precondition to a sound

20:39

immigration policy. Okay? And you do

20:41

that by... making it clear that

20:43

if you cross the border unlawfully

20:45

your case will be adjudicated very

20:47

quickly and you will be returned.

20:50

We haven't been doing that. And

20:52

so people come here with the

20:54

with cases that take years to

20:56

adjudicate. They hope that they'll be

20:58

able to stay. It's a very

21:00

natural impulse, but we have created

21:03

the incentives. It got worse under

21:05

the Biden administration until the very

21:07

end for people to enter unlawfully.

21:09

So the extent of unlawful immigration

21:11

is only partly about the restrict

21:13

the restrict lawful immigration. I'll say

21:16

one more point and then I'll

21:18

turn it to somebody else. One

21:20

of the reasons, I outlined the

21:22

economic benefits of a focus on

21:24

high-scale immigration earlier, but there's a

21:27

second reason, and I'll put it

21:29

on the table in my view

21:31

because some people may disagree about

21:33

this claim, I think it's easier

21:35

to construct a politically durable policy

21:37

with vigorous immigration if you start

21:40

with highly skilled people because the

21:42

benefits that they bring to American

21:44

economy and society are easier for

21:46

the average voter to see because

21:48

better educated people tend to integrate

21:51

more quickly and assimilate more into

21:53

the society. I am also in

21:55

favor of broader immigration, but politically

21:57

it's easier to start, I think,

21:59

with highly talented people and build

22:01

that political support for robust immigration

22:04

policy. But if we don't have

22:06

the less skilled folks, how are

22:08

we going to rebuild after say

22:10

the palisades, fire, and how are

22:12

we going to harvest all the

22:15

crops? that we have in central

22:17

California, which people don't understand, is

22:19

actually the agricultural heartland of America

22:21

more than the Midwest. Anybody can

22:23

take that up. You know, it

22:25

actually is, it's an interesting question.

22:28

It's one of those things that

22:30

comes up all the time. And

22:32

you know, I got some, you

22:34

know, great political thinkers here with

22:36

me. And I think that we

22:39

can all agree that immigration played

22:41

an outsized role in... the last

22:43

election. I think that between immigration

22:45

and inflation, those are the two

22:47

issues that drove the election. And

22:49

Donald Trump himself says immigration's really

22:52

the one that put him over

22:54

the top. And he's the guy

22:56

that won. So he probably has

22:58

a better perspective on it. And

23:00

it's important to, you know, take

23:03

a look at, you know, who

23:05

voted for Donald Trump, you know,

23:07

who came out. You know, broad

23:09

spectrum of people voted for both

23:11

candidates. But I think that we

23:13

could accept the fact that, you

23:16

know, many people who view themselves

23:18

as forgotten Americans, even if they're

23:20

not, are people who were, you

23:22

know, more predisposed to vote for

23:24

Donald Trump. I live in Western

23:26

North Carolina. I live in a

23:29

region of the country that used

23:31

to be mill country. And all

23:33

around me, I can see crumbling

23:35

mills that, you know, NAFTA, eventually

23:37

drove out of the United States.

23:40

People are hurting. The labor participation

23:42

rate. for native-born men ages 18

23:44

to 64 right now is 75.6

23:46

percent. Almost one quarter of all.

23:48

working age men or out of

23:50

labor force. To give you an

23:53

idea what that looks like in

23:55

the past in 2006, it was

23:57

80.5%. In 2000, it was 82.6%.

23:59

So we have a huge population

24:01

of people who are working age,

24:04

but not working in this country.

24:06

When you look at all the

24:08

problems that we have, drug addiction,

24:10

crime and violence, domestic violence, I

24:12

was a judge. And I can

24:14

tell you right now. Drugs, unemployment.

24:17

violence all work together. So you

24:19

know I think that as you

24:21

talk about you know we need

24:23

additional people to come here if

24:25

you want to build a durable

24:28

immigration policy you first start with

24:30

the people that you have here

24:32

putting a larger proportion of those

24:34

working-age men to work is going

24:36

to be a way that you

24:38

will build the economy and you

24:41

will create a need for people

24:43

to come here. skilled or unskilled.

24:45

And if you don't address that,

24:47

I mean you could say that

24:49

it's you know a good idea

24:52

or a bad idea, but the

24:54

fact is the only way to

24:56

have a politically durable way of

24:58

doing this is to address those

25:00

forgotten Americans or those people who

25:02

view themselves as forgotten Americans who

25:05

looked at what happened at the

25:07

border over the last four years

25:09

and weren't happened. Yeah, I'll agree

25:11

with most of kind of what

25:13

you said, but I'll add a

25:15

few thoughts. political realities are also

25:18

created, right? So we did a

25:20

study a couple of years back

25:22

that looked at unemployment rates within

25:24

the larger undocumented population, and they

25:26

tended to be lower based on

25:29

our survey than in the legal

25:31

population, so to speak, in the

25:33

United States. The only difference is

25:35

that these people are working lower

25:37

than subsistence wages. They are living

25:39

with families in unsafe housing. 12,

25:42

20, 30 people in a house,

25:44

right? So they're accepting a low...

25:46

standard of living but they're working

25:48

right and I think if you

25:50

if the conversation there is a

25:53

tie a deep tie between economic

25:55

inequality which is rising in this

25:57

country since 1978 and this feeling

25:59

that the reason why this is

26:01

happening or blaming immigrants right when

26:03

when instead of it's harder to

26:06

address economic inequality it's easier to

26:08

say That guy or that girl,

26:10

whoever from El Salvador, is the

26:12

cause of your problems, right? They

26:14

have jobs, they're working, and there's

26:17

lots of Americans that are legal

26:19

that will refuse to take those

26:21

jobs and will not work. So

26:23

part of kind of looking at

26:25

immigration. The way we talk about

26:27

immigration is not just the reality

26:30

on the ground, but the message

26:32

that our politicians tell people, kind

26:34

of the blame game that goes

26:36

on, rather than saying, they're contributing

26:38

to the economy, and so can

26:41

you, and here's our plan, to

26:43

do it, rather than saying, let's

26:45

kick all of these folks out.

26:47

Because as we know, not to

26:49

get into this, if you're gonna

26:51

get to it, but I'm intimately

26:54

familiar with the costs of deportation

26:56

and removal, it is a highly,

26:58

highly, system of dealing with folks

27:00

that are in this country on

27:02

an undocumented basis? I would also,

27:04

I just want to turn out,

27:07

this election was not about immigration.

27:09

This election was about border security.

27:11

two very separate issues. One may

27:13

be caused by the other not

27:15

being fixed, but it is two

27:18

very separate issues. And the one

27:20

thing I've seen in the polling

27:22

is that the rhetoric coming from

27:24

Trump about illegals and the criminals

27:26

and the type of people that

27:28

are there, it's made the American

27:31

public start looking around and saying,

27:33

more brown faces, more black faces,

27:35

more different faces, and being uneasy

27:37

about it. And that's the result

27:39

of the focus on border security,

27:42

not a focus on immigration on

27:44

whether our policy is correct. The

27:46

interesting thing I think we keep

27:48

ignoring when we talk about long-range

27:50

immigration control is the amount of

27:52

money that employers spend defending their

27:55

people that they have trained to

27:57

work in their industry. They are

27:59

spending a tremendous amount of money

28:01

trying to keep them there and

28:03

to save them to get them

28:06

into the process. Why don't we

28:08

put that on the front end?

28:10

Why don't we identify people wanting

28:12

to come into this country on

28:14

high-skilled, medium-skilled, low-skilled? and then put

28:16

them together as a list and

28:19

almost act as a employment agency

28:21

for all the workers in this

28:23

country, all the companies in this

28:25

country, and have them pay $2,000

28:27

for a low-skilled worker and $5,000

28:30

for a medium-skilled worker and $10,000,

28:32

the system could pay for itself

28:34

if we were smarter on how

28:36

we were approaching it on the

28:38

front end as opposed to the

28:40

back end. I'm going to push

28:43

you in a minute on that,

28:45

and on public opinion, but Daisy

28:47

I want to give you a

28:49

chance first. On this issue with

28:51

borders, I think we need to

28:54

differentiate things here a little bit

28:56

because a lot of the people

28:58

who were waiting at the border

29:00

to enter the United States were

29:02

asylum seekers. And according to our

29:04

laws right now, they have the

29:07

right to go up to the

29:09

border and seek asylum. It's either

29:11

that or wait in a refugee

29:13

camp to be resettled somewhere in

29:15

the world. So it is one

29:17

of the main avenues that we

29:20

have to protect people who are

29:22

fleeing catastrophes, civil wars, persecution. And

29:24

a lot of the people who

29:26

were in the border in the

29:28

US during this last presidential campaign

29:31

war from Venezuela, which has an

29:33

autocratic regime that has... the economy

29:35

has completely collapsed, people are being

29:37

persecuted, they're fleeing the country. Essentially

29:39

a quarter of the population has

29:41

left. They also included Haitians who

29:44

have had terrible natural disaster catastrophes

29:46

and the government is also collapsing.

29:48

And so you have legal pathways

29:50

for asylum that people were trying

29:52

to follow. They weren't getting their

29:55

cases reviewed fast enough. There's a

29:57

lot of backlog. There was a

29:59

lot of efforts from the US

30:01

government to tell people to wait

30:03

in Colombia, to wait in Mexico,

30:05

to wait in Guatemala, and not

30:08

just let them enter and apply

30:10

for asylum, have their case review

30:12

in a court, and then let

30:14

the system decide whether or not

30:16

they should get asylum or refugee

30:19

status. So a lot of this

30:21

rhetoric about The borders are. like

30:23

out of control are we it's

30:25

really false I think it was

30:27

a political strategy the Biden administration

30:29

tried to create a border control

30:32

bill with bipartisan support Trump deliberately

30:34

said I don't assign don't sign

30:36

that border bill because I want

30:38

to run on immigration immigration wins

30:40

both so chaos or the perception

30:43

of chaos helps this like very

30:45

right-wing perspective on immigration it creates

30:47

a sense of urgency and threat

30:49

about the other like non-white immigrants

30:51

and it helps perpetuate these policies.

30:53

But also sociologists have studied this.

30:56

Does border control actually work? That's

30:58

a question that I think it's

31:00

a research question, it's a question

31:02

that we really need to ask

31:04

and Douglas Massey who's an incredible

31:06

migration scholar at Princeton University and

31:09

his colleagues examine how for how

31:11

immigration authorities had increased their budget

31:13

on border patrol. And the more

31:15

they spend our tax dollars on

31:17

border patrol, the more the undocumented

31:20

population increased in the United States.

31:22

And this is because it became

31:24

more dangerous to enter and leave

31:26

the United States. So people who

31:28

used to be seasonal workers or

31:30

who used to want to leave

31:33

were forced to stay in the

31:35

United States, settle and then bring

31:37

their families undocumented. And so some

31:39

of the solutions. of border enforcement

31:41

like we need to think a

31:44

little bit about. whether or not

31:46

we really have as a country

31:48

the resources to control every single

31:50

entry point into the United States.

31:52

The United States has the best

31:54

territory. Some countries have already realized

31:57

that they can't control every single

31:59

possible legal or unauthorized entry points

32:01

so they focus more on how

32:03

do we like get the most

32:05

out of the immigrants who are

32:08

here? How do we legalize them

32:10

so that they can work legally

32:12

and pay taxes? and contribute to

32:14

society faster regardless of their skill

32:16

level. Let me follow up on

32:18

that before I press it on

32:21

something else. After the shameful history

32:23

of the US in the 1930s

32:25

in terms of turning away people

32:27

who were seeking asylum and who

32:29

were sent back to certain death

32:32

in Europe, it was in the

32:34

late 1940s that Harry Truman and

32:36

the US begin to say we

32:38

have to treat people seeking asylum

32:40

in a different way. And right

32:42

now you're correct that legally they

32:45

have a right to show up

32:47

at the border and say I

32:49

want asylum. But that brings a

32:51

large flood of people in the

32:53

case of place like Venezuela. Do

32:55

we have to change that? Do

32:58

we have to change the way

33:00

we deal with asylum? I have

33:02

a very quick response and then

33:04

I'll let the other panelist answer.

33:06

Most of refugees and asylum seekers

33:09

in the world live in lower

33:11

income countries. So more Syrians live

33:13

in Lebanon and Jordan and Turkey.

33:15

Most Venezuelans live in South America,

33:17

primarily in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and

33:19

Chile. The United States gets a

33:22

small portion of all international humanitarian

33:24

immigrants or asylum seekers or refugees.

33:26

This is the same for the

33:28

European Union. because these wealthy countries

33:30

have figured out multiple strategies to

33:33

keep asylum seekers away from their

33:35

territory so that they don't ask

33:37

for asylum. So I think also

33:39

I would push back in this

33:41

myth that everybody coming to the

33:43

United States. Actually everybody's going to

33:46

neighboring countries and most of them

33:48

are settling there. We can look

33:50

at the statistics that we can

33:52

see the countries that receive the

33:54

largest number of asylum seekers. By

33:57

the way, our asylum system is

33:59

based on the 1951 Refugee Convention.

34:01

We did sign on to the

34:03

51 Convention. We did sign on

34:05

to the 51 Convention. We did

34:07

sign on. to the 67 protocol.

34:10

But Truman did begin to leave

34:12

in a lot of a, let

34:14

in a lot of refugees. And

34:16

that's after, you know, this is,

34:18

and you know, that we could

34:21

have a whole panel about that,

34:23

because even before we had signed

34:25

on to the 1967 protocol, we

34:27

ran our own quasi-immigration asylum system,

34:29

and it probably worked better than

34:31

the asylum system that we have

34:34

right now. You know, we focused

34:36

on the Displaced Persons Act, as

34:38

you're aware of. And we found

34:40

ways for people to come into

34:42

the United States. So, but you

34:44

know, in 1980, we adopted the

34:47

system that we have right now.

34:49

The three largest asylum receiving countries

34:51

in the world right now are

34:53

the United States. Germany and Mexico.

34:55

Every country in the Western Hemisphere

34:58

except for Cuba and Guyana is

35:00

a signatory to the 1951 Refugee

35:02

Convention of the 1967 Protocol. You

35:04

can go to any one of

35:06

those countries and you can receive

35:08

protection. And one of the things

35:11

that we saw and you know

35:13

when we talked about the large

35:15

number of Venezuelans that we saw

35:17

in the United States, the difference,

35:19

the reason that there were that

35:22

the number of apprehensions that the

35:24

border increased is because the law

35:26

right now requires every person who

35:28

shows up at the border requests

35:30

asylum to be screened by an

35:32

asylum officer and then be detained.

35:35

And they're supposed to be detained

35:37

until the moment they're either released

35:39

into the United States with asylum

35:41

or until they're removed from the

35:43

United States. The Biden administration ignored

35:46

that in 88.5% of all cases

35:48

involving people who weren't expelled under

35:50

Title 42. And Bob if we

35:52

want to have a whole Title

35:54

42 session that's another conversation for

35:56

a different day. But it again

35:59

you know I was a judge

36:01

in immigration in a detained court

36:03

and there is an uneasiness in

36:05

the United States with the idea

36:07

that you know someone is an

36:10

asylum seeker but we hold them

36:12

until we can make that determination.

36:14

When I was a judge, I

36:16

could generally get to a determination

36:18

in about 21 to 28 days.

36:20

Right now, if you're not detained,

36:23

you're going to be in immigration

36:25

proceedings for anywhere between four and

36:27

10 years. And then there's an

36:29

entire category of cases that are

36:31

administratively closed for 17 years. So

36:34

the asylum system, when it's actually

36:36

enforced at the border. really does

36:38

work. We know that because prior

36:40

to 2009 when the Obama administration

36:42

began ignoring that congressional mandate releasing

36:44

people into the United States about

36:47

four to five percent of all

36:49

of the people who showed up

36:51

at the border and the ports

36:53

actually requested asylum and the rest

36:55

of them you know that they

36:57

were trying to sneak in they

37:00

couldn't. And we got to those

37:02

cases very quickly. Daisy made the

37:04

point before I think we need

37:06

to We need to expedite the

37:08

speed at which we make these

37:11

determinations. But in order to do

37:13

that, you need to keep the

37:15

numbers low, which means you need

37:17

to follow the rules that Congress

37:19

has said, Leah Moses, district court

37:21

judge down in Texas, in ruling

37:24

in favor of the Biden administration

37:26

in a case involving cutting razor

37:28

wire that the state of Texas

37:30

had put up. about a year

37:32

and a half ago said the

37:35

immigration system as dysfunctional as it

37:37

is would work if it were

37:39

simply allowed to work. Unfortunately egotism

37:41

and political rancor has entered the

37:43

conversation which is why I'm glad

37:45

that we're having this conversation but

37:48

you know that's how it's supposed

37:50

to work and that's how it

37:52

probably should work. you want to

37:54

say something, you had to deal

37:56

with this. Yeah, I don't know

37:59

if I want to say something.

38:01

I mean, look, this is going

38:03

to be a hot take, but

38:05

I think the asylum system in

38:07

this country is broken, right? And

38:09

part of the reason why is

38:12

that what we really need is

38:14

we need a multifaceted approach to

38:16

dealing with people who come to

38:18

the United States, who are undocumented.

38:20

In many cases, we call them

38:23

undocumented immigrants, but by and large

38:25

many of them are refugees. I

38:27

was one. I was a refugee

38:29

to the United States. I came

38:31

through, I didn't come through the

38:33

land border, but my family applied

38:36

for refugee entry and that's how

38:38

we came in. Many people are

38:40

seeking asylum, but maybe the way

38:42

that they enter into the United

38:44

States should be through a different

38:46

pathway. And so the only option

38:49

they're offered in many cases is

38:51

to seek asylum. And then that

38:53

places a burden upon the judicial

38:55

system and the immigration system to

38:57

then adjudicate and consider their application.

39:00

And were there other ways, looking

39:02

at you Congress, to other pathways

39:04

for them to come in and

39:06

work that were not complicated, I

39:08

mean we have visa systems for

39:10

instance. that are quite complicated for

39:13

folks to address and assess and

39:15

even find out that that's a

39:17

pathway. And so a lot of

39:19

folks are being told, at least

39:21

this is what we would witness,

39:24

showing up to the land border,

39:26

southern land border, and you know

39:28

applying for asylum, which in some

39:30

cases is the way to go,

39:32

to your point it does work

39:34

if it's properly run and properly

39:37

funded. But in many cases that

39:39

is not what folks are seeking,

39:41

right. And so part of the...

39:43

Part of the solve on this

39:45

is to think, and I think

39:48

everybody here will agree, is for

39:50

Congress to take leadership and to

39:52

actually think of more intelligent and

39:54

sophisticated ways to create pathways for

39:56

entry and exit to the US

39:58

for folks that want to be

40:01

here. I will say one thing.

40:03

I always what I always think

40:05

is that if folks want to

40:07

come to this country if they're

40:09

willing My family was willing to

40:12

live in refugee camps and travel

40:14

thousands of miles to come to

40:16

this is a it's terrible for

40:18

them from a humanitarian perspective But

40:20

it is we should be happy

40:22

that people are willing to do

40:25

this to come to this country

40:27

the problem starts happening when people

40:29

are like you know what? Not

40:31

going to go to the US

40:33

I'm going to go to this

40:35

country instead. That's where the action

40:38

is. That's where I'm going to

40:40

make a life. That will say

40:42

something about how vibrant our country

40:44

is, right? I mean, there is

40:46

something attracting people to this country.

40:49

We just have to give them

40:51

a way to come here safely

40:53

and contribute in a way that

40:55

also advances the national economic interest

40:57

of this country. I don't want

40:59

to speak twice on the same

41:02

question. I apologize. I didn't actually

41:04

think that was a hot take

41:06

at all. caption of this of

41:08

this discussion is, is there a

41:10

way forward? And you know, you've

41:13

actually just laid out something that

41:15

I've never thought about and I

41:17

think about immigration about 18 hours

41:19

a day. And that is that

41:21

if you have areas of the

41:23

world in which we know that

41:26

there are conflicts, that we know

41:28

that they're not the midst of

41:30

war, but you know there are

41:32

issues there. And you talk about,

41:34

you know, encouraging people to come

41:37

to the United States, why don't

41:39

we prioritize those countries first? you

41:41

know to you facilitate the Venezuelan

41:43

who would want to come to

41:45

this country. Again, you know, we

41:47

have limits on the number of

41:50

people who come here, but there's

41:52

some fine institutions, a higher learning

41:54

in Venezuela, a lot of good

41:56

doctors, engineers, people who can contribute.

41:58

And again, about 61 percent of

42:01

all immigration in the United States

42:03

is family-based. Remember what Barbara Jordan

42:05

said it should be skills-based, about

42:07

61 percent. you know which if

42:09

you think about it in terms

42:11

of the University of Southern California

42:14

imagine that you know the class

42:16

of 2030 is based upon people

42:18

who graduate in the class 2025

42:20

and then their brother and then

42:22

their sister and then from that

42:25

point forward. You can actually marry

42:27

up the two things. You can

42:29

marry the humanitarian instinct, which is

42:31

a huge part of the United

42:33

States, to the need for labor

42:35

and skills in the United States.

42:38

And again, we could, again, we

42:40

could have another panel on that,

42:42

but I think that's actually a

42:44

great solution. So there's been a

42:46

very useful discussion drawing out the

42:48

broken nature of the asylum system.

42:51

I just want to add one

42:53

point. In the near term... for

42:55

the next few years, we need

42:57

many more immigration officers and judges

42:59

to adjudicate the backlog quickly. That

43:02

backlog doesn't serve anybody's interest. And

43:04

we have to get out of

43:06

this giant hole that we're in

43:08

now in that respect. And that

43:10

also requires an act of Congress,

43:12

as I understand it, to appropriate

43:15

the funds to hire the officers

43:17

of the judges who can adjudicate

43:19

these cases. Okay. The thing I

43:21

look at is in 1908 when

43:23

we put a million people allowed

43:26

in here and then it gets

43:28

watered down from things like asylum.

43:30

That should be handled as different.

43:32

That was our economic need that

43:34

we had in this country. We

43:36

now have it at 1.2 million.

43:39

Do you know how much bigger

43:41

our economy is today than in

43:43

1908? I checked yesterday. 962 times

43:45

larger than it was in 1908.

43:47

and we've only increased it by

43:50

20% of just what there and

43:52

as much as we talk about

43:54

backlogs what if in the 40

43:56

years since we changed it to

43:58

1.2 we had it 500,000 more

44:00

per year over that 40 years

44:03

that's 20 million people that is

44:05

exactly how many illegals they say

44:07

are in this country today so

44:09

we wouldn't have the backlog if

44:11

we had fixed it right in

44:14

the first place and adjusted our

44:16

increases that we allowed based on

44:18

our country's economic needs and the

44:20

draw that we're bringing of people

44:22

coming into this country. We hear

44:24

about violence all the time in

44:27

the news, yet we rarely hear

44:29

stories about peace. There are so

44:31

many people who are working hard

44:33

to promote solutions to violence, toxic

44:35

polarization, and authoritarianism, often at great

44:37

personal risk. We never hear about

44:40

these stories, but at what cost.

44:42

On Making Peace Visible, we speak

44:44

with journalists, storytellers, and peacebuilders who

44:46

are on the front lines of

44:48

both peace and conflict. You can

44:51

find Making Peace Visible wherever you

44:53

listen to podcasts. We seem to

44:55

have some common ground both on

44:57

what to do about asylum and

44:59

on the fact that we need

45:01

immigration. for the country to succeed

45:04

economically. We also, people have noted

45:06

this, face the problem of a

45:08

lot of political rhetoric out there,

45:10

which tends to delegitimize the idea

45:12

of immigration. So whatever immigration reform

45:15

regime we establish is going to

45:17

require broad public support. So Ed,

45:19

I'll do this to you first.

45:21

How have public attitudes toward immigration

45:23

changed over time? And how, if

45:25

possible, can we overcome the apparently

45:28

entrenched divisions in our public life

45:30

and our politics about this issue?

45:32

Your client, George W. Bush, tried

45:34

with Ted Kennedy and John McCain

45:36

and couldn't get anywhere. Right. And,

45:39

you know, what's interesting, one of

45:41

the things I saw in the

45:43

polling with George W. Bush, he

45:45

moved in his first election, he

45:47

got 31% of the Hispanic vote.

45:49

In the second election he got

45:52

45% in the Hispanic vote. The

45:54

story that... I know that made

45:56

me very sad. Well, except... story

45:58

that was never told that we

46:00

were able to track down is

46:03

that increase of 14% all came

46:05

from Hispanic families who had a

46:07

member of their family in the

46:09

military and it was a result

46:11

of how he handled 9-11 that

46:13

he increased the Hispanic vote not

46:16

because of what he was doing

46:18

on immigration and it tells you

46:20

the type of people that we

46:22

want to be Americans, want to

46:24

be part of the American model.

46:26

So I don't know who said

46:29

it earlier. But, you know, when,

46:31

unless we, we, we, we fix

46:33

the system and, and I, I

46:35

work very closely with James Lankford.

46:37

I was, you know, I, I

46:40

think I may be misled. I'm

46:42

saying, look, the immigration border problem

46:44

needs to be fixed first before

46:46

we get to immigration. And he

46:48

put his whole effort on working

46:50

with Democrats to get a beginning

46:53

compromise to start on the problem.

46:55

And how the hell can a

46:57

President of the United States say

46:59

kill the bill because they want

47:01

to campaign on an issue when

47:04

he's at the same time telling

47:06

the country that it's the most

47:08

critical issue in this country? But

47:10

let's delay it eight months to

47:12

do anything about it because I

47:14

want a campaign on it. Someone

47:17

should have called him on it.

47:19

Someone should have, and it should

47:21

have been on the Republican side.

47:23

But how do we shape public

47:25

opinion and anybody can address this

47:28

so that we actually don't end

47:30

up like Japan where we... exclude

47:32

immigrants and we go into a

47:34

prolonged economic slowdown, which is what

47:36

the Japanese have faced. Yeah. There's

47:38

many parts to the answer to

47:41

that question, but we've already discussed

47:43

some of it. So I'll mention

47:45

something that hasn't come up yet.

47:47

It's important to recognize that the

47:49

cost and benefits of immigration, both

47:52

lawful and unlawful, are highly unevenly

47:54

distributed across different parts of the

47:56

country in terms of geography, income

47:58

classes and so on. There

48:00

really are some communities that find

48:03

their school systems, their local health

48:05

care systems, their social assistance programs

48:07

overwhelmed by large influxes of immigrants.

48:09

And because immigration is a federal

48:12

policy, it's the federal government that

48:14

is responsible for the flows of

48:16

immigration, in my view, there's a

48:18

role for the federal government to

48:20

step in and provide assistance to

48:23

the communities that are really bearing...

48:25

the fiscal burden side of immigration.

48:27

And there is a fiscal burden

48:29

side. There's a fiscal benefit side

48:31

as well. So part of what

48:34

I think Trump has played on

48:36

is highly visible episodes, which are

48:38

not representative, but make for good

48:40

TV, make for good political rhetoric,

48:42

demagogry. It's to point out the

48:45

problems that exist in some places.

48:47

And it's a policy failure. also

48:49

simply unfair to those people were

48:51

asking to bear the burden of

48:54

immigration that we haven't done more

48:56

to deal with that. So I

48:58

think part of building the durable

49:00

coalition, political coalition, for immigration, I

49:02

don't think we're going to become

49:05

Japan but not going closer in

49:07

that direction, is to also have

49:09

a set of policies that even

49:11

out the cost and benefits across

49:13

different parts of the country. Yeah,

49:16

I mean, I'll say something, I'll

49:18

add to that a little bit.

49:20

You know, we are a dying

49:22

country, and when I say dying,

49:24

I mean that without immigration, the

49:27

population in this country is on

49:29

the decline. We are increasingly getting

49:31

older, and we are not at

49:33

a, our birth rate is not

49:36

sufficient to sustain our population, right?

49:38

So part of the political calculus

49:40

is reframing immigration. Not as just

49:42

a crisis at the border and

49:44

all of that, and I'm not

49:47

going to get into how a

49:49

lot of that is just not

49:51

right. But reframe. that without immigration

49:53

there is a crisis in this

49:55

country. There is a crisis, an

49:58

economic crisis, an innovation crisis, an

50:00

aging crisis, right? And that we

50:02

need, we must have immigration in

50:04

order to stay competitive in order

50:06

to surprise. You brought up Japan,

50:09

Japan has one of the lowest

50:11

birth rates on the planet. And

50:13

yet they continue, now they're kind

50:15

of freaking out about it, but

50:18

they continue. to push back on

50:20

comprehensive immigration. So a lot of

50:22

this is restructuring and reframing how

50:24

we think about the word crisis

50:26

and immigration, not just of a

50:29

border crisis, but of a existential

50:31

crisis. Yeah, by the way, when

50:33

you say we're getting older, I

50:35

have to comment that I resemble

50:37

that remark. But you're hardcore, I

50:40

mean, you're getting into fights. I'm

50:42

going to turn this over to

50:44

the audience. in a couple minutes,

50:46

but I want to throw out

50:48

one last, maybe controversial question. I

50:51

described briefly the history of immigration

50:53

policy and some of its uglier

50:55

aspects when I was introducing this

50:57

panel. Is resistance to the changing

51:00

character of America, which is becoming

51:02

a majority non-like country? Is there

51:04

a danger that that will take

51:06

us back to a time when

51:08

we overtly explicitly preferred? some racial

51:11

and ethnic groups and excluded others?

51:13

Only if we let it, right?

51:15

Only if we as a population

51:17

allow this to happen. There is

51:19

a danger of a minority population

51:22

feeling anxiety and angst and a

51:24

loss of political or economic hegemony,

51:26

taking steps to protect their interests.

51:28

On the flip side, I tend

51:30

to be more of an optimistic

51:33

and positive person, even though I

51:35

work in civil rights. you know,

51:37

I feel that we are well

51:39

past a tipping point and the

51:42

larger crises that will will confront

51:44

us will be those that are

51:46

more class and economic based over

51:48

time. Not to say that racism

51:50

is going away, sadly, or is

51:53

dying, but that those are the

51:55

larger, look what we've been talking

51:57

about here primarily. And so my

51:59

approach to this is that those

52:01

are the things that kind of

52:04

unite positively or negatively the people

52:06

in this country, and you can

52:08

see this in the results, whether

52:10

some people like it or not,

52:12

and I'm a progressive. politically progressive

52:15

individual but Donald Trump did take

52:17

a large share of a vote

52:19

from people of color which was

52:21

unprecedented given given how people were

52:24

analyzing his campaign and so I

52:26

think I am not too worried

52:28

on that front unless we as

52:30

a people and I don't want

52:32

to get into the fact that

52:35

you know how we how we

52:37

are advertised to and spoken to

52:39

as a big part of it

52:41

and the role of money in

52:43

politics and things like that. Okay,

52:46

anybody else have a take on

52:48

this? Let me just seize mine

52:50

on one thing because the talk

52:52

about Trump getting more of certain

52:54

groups in this election, it's a

52:57

false read. Trump got three million

52:59

more votes than he did last

53:01

time. Harris got six million less

53:03

votes than Biden did. And believe

53:05

me, the three million votes didn't

53:08

come out of the six million

53:10

votes. And so all the what

53:12

various groups voted are all based

53:14

on exit polling that you had

53:17

a different makeup of the exit

53:19

polling. He could have kept the

53:21

same percentage as what he had

53:23

the first time of African Americans,

53:25

but because there were so many

53:28

less on the other side of

53:30

the equation didn't turn out, it

53:32

makes it look like he got

53:34

more. So I just want to

53:36

say, you know, I keep hearing

53:39

people wring in their hands over

53:41

that. Yeah, certainly not a mandate.

53:43

But it is different from the

53:45

makeup of his prior, from 2016

53:47

certainly. Any quick takes from? Yes.

53:50

I just want to push back

53:52

a little bit. Yes, we. the

53:54

premise of your question, Bob. Yes,

53:56

we have ugly episodes in immigration

53:59

policy in the United States. You

54:01

mentioned the 1920s, the Chinese Exclusion

54:03

Act of 1882. But it's worth

54:05

remembering that. over the broad sweep

54:07

of history, this is one of

54:10

the most welcoming societies to immigrants

54:12

in the history of the world

54:14

and remain so today and it's

54:16

part of the reason why people

54:18

want to come here. So we

54:21

shouldn't entirely focus on the negative

54:23

aspects of our immigration policy. And

54:25

I guess it's consistent with what

54:27

I understand to be the thrust

54:29

of some of the other comments

54:32

is despite Trump's victory, there is

54:34

an idea of an American that

54:36

isn't based on your race, your

54:38

ethnicity, your religion. It's based on

54:41

your adherence to a to a

54:43

creed. Yeah, I had to ask

54:45

that question because I think it's

54:47

an important question, but I tend

54:49

to share the view that over

54:52

time people are going to resist

54:54

that. Yes. I think about this

54:56

as short term and long term.

54:58

So short term we have a

55:00

crisis in terms of political crisis

55:03

where everybody's civil liberties are at

55:05

risk right now. Not just immigrants,

55:07

we need to fight for those.

55:09

But I think I think what

55:11

a lot of the panelists here

55:14

have highlighted is that Americans right

55:16

now want solutions for their economic

55:18

uncertainty, for the cost of living,

55:20

for like precarious unemployment, potential automation

55:23

that's going to increase and displace

55:25

workers. And so we need to

55:27

also think long term of like

55:29

how we can tap into that

55:31

disappointment or that hypocrisy that's going

55:34

to be exposed in the future

55:36

to elect leaders that are actually

55:38

going to solve problems that people

55:40

care about instead of giving them

55:42

a third target over here to

55:45

focus on and say that if

55:47

we close the borders, you're going

55:49

to pay less for groceries. And

55:51

I think right now what we're

55:53

seeing, especially with this trade war

55:56

with Canada and Mexico, which are

55:58

our biggest trading partners in the

56:00

US, is we're going to have

56:02

an increase in the cost. of

56:05

living again, but also there is

56:07

an interconnected that goes beyond the

56:09

United States that I think you've

56:11

discussed it and how the U.S.

56:13

is not just isolated making policy

56:16

for the U.S. We have foreign

56:18

policy, we have immigrants who are

56:20

Americans in Latin America, we have

56:22

many expats as they people like

56:24

to call them who moved to

56:27

Mexico for the retirement. And so

56:29

I think moving forward we want

56:31

to envision a solution, we have

56:33

to take into account how we're

56:35

interconnected across borders. our economies and

56:38

our societies, our families sometimes are

56:40

living across all these borders in

56:42

close proximity and if we're going

56:44

to have immigration policies we need

56:47

to level the playing field just

56:49

like it's easy right now for

56:51

Americans to go to Mexico retire

56:53

work, become a nomad in Mexico

56:55

City, it should be easy for

56:58

Mexicans to come to the United

57:00

States, live work, retire and live

57:02

legally. And so to do that

57:04

we need regional, more like international

57:06

agreements within the bordering countries, our

57:09

main migrants sending countries to the

57:11

United States which tend to be

57:13

in Latin America, and really great

57:15

policies that facilitate legal migration because

57:17

there is already in Mexico. interconnected

57:20

economy that's unfolding between the countries,

57:22

between our societies. And for me,

57:24

the future that we need to

57:26

think about is more of like

57:29

exposing those connections. I think people

57:31

right now are very aware of

57:33

how tariffs are actually going to

57:35

affect everybody badly. It's going to

57:37

affect Canadians badly, the Americans Valley,

57:40

Mexicans badly, and like we're seeing

57:42

that interconnectedness, but I think it

57:44

runs much deeper in a discourse

57:46

that really brings that out can

57:48

help us move forward. Okay, I

57:51

want to turn this over to

57:53

the audience. Oh, you got to

57:55

let them talk. Okay, go ahead.

57:57

I love to hear myself talk.

57:59

No, the, I actually agree with

58:02

everything that I hear on this.

58:04

side of the dance. And it's

58:06

important to note the fact that,

58:08

you know, most people forget this,

58:10

there was a huge wave of

58:13

anti-German hysteria in the United States

58:15

in 1917, 1918. There was... Oregon

58:17

outlawed the speaking of Germans. Before

58:19

the First World War, there were

58:22

a thousand German language newspapers in

58:24

the United States and 500,000 students

58:26

went to German language schools. By

58:28

1920... That was all gone. There was

58:30

no more German language education in the

58:32

United States, and those German newspapers dwindled

58:34

to about eight. So this was a

58:36

huge thing. One of the things that

58:39

people have said in the past was

58:41

that it was this huge wave of

58:43

migration that had happened in the 1890s

58:45

that created disruptions. And there may be

58:47

something to that. I can't really comment

58:49

on that. I'm not a sociologist. But

58:51

in the 1890s, which would have

58:53

been that precursor precursor period, about

58:55

14.9% of the US population was

58:57

foreign-born. Today, 15.5% of the population

59:00

is foreign born. We actually have

59:02

a higher proportion of people. The

59:04

American culture, and I'm here in

59:06

Los Angeles, which is the center

59:08

of American culture, does a really

59:11

good job of integrating people in.

59:13

Even people who aren't in the

59:15

United States get very sucked into

59:17

American culture. I think about one

59:19

of my favorite buildings, the Thomas

59:22

Jefferson building, the library of Congress.

59:24

If you think about the library

59:26

Congress, it's technically the Thomas Jefferson

59:28

building. If you walk around, there are

59:30

freezes on the front of the 36 races

59:32

of men. If you could imagine that when

59:34

that building was built in the

59:37

1880s, 1890s, we were like breaking

59:39

people into small groups like that.

59:41

I think of the story of

59:43

my great-grandparents, Billy Malligan, my great-grandfather

59:45

married Stella Shoemaker, my great-great-grandmother, and

59:47

there was a German Catholic church

59:49

and an Irish Catholic church and

59:51

Billy started going to the German

59:53

Catholic church and the priest came

59:55

over and said to him, Billy,

59:57

you're breaking my heart, you left the

59:59

church. You know, because we literally differentiated

1:00:01

between two different groups of Catholics. People

1:00:04

in America today, I couldn't agree more,

1:00:06

are, you know, more... balkanized if you

1:00:08

would based on economic terms and on

1:00:10

religious terms. There are you know if

1:00:13

you go to an evangelical church in

1:00:15

the South you're going to see all

1:00:17

races of people in that evangelical church

1:00:19

because you know that's just sort of

1:00:22

how the separation happens. So yeah I

1:00:24

don't really worry Bob that that's going

1:00:26

to happen but we do have an

1:00:29

economic issue. My question, request for comment,

1:00:31

will be a follow-on to two interesting

1:00:33

points that Ms. Del Real made, but

1:00:35

could be for anyone to experts on

1:00:38

stage. Just to contextualize it, I'll say

1:00:40

a couple things about myself, my own

1:00:42

father's and immigrant. I'm a candidate for

1:00:44

California State Legislature in the single most

1:00:47

ethnically diverse district in California. I try

1:00:49

to be an economic realist, and my

1:00:51

pro-immigration stance comes from that, or tries

1:00:54

to. A couple points you made was

1:00:56

that folks will migrate regardless of the

1:00:58

laws of a country and then raising

1:01:00

the question does border control work. And

1:01:03

I just wanted to say that there

1:01:05

could be a difference between the laws

1:01:07

on the books and the laws that

1:01:09

are enforced. And maybe if there wasn't

1:01:12

daylight between those there might be more

1:01:14

of a correlation between the laws of

1:01:16

a country and whether people migrate and

1:01:18

the category of law that I would

1:01:21

bring up as American labor law. The

1:01:23

people on stage are more of an

1:01:25

expert than me, but I think we

1:01:28

haven't enforced our labor law for a

1:01:30

few decades now. And then maybe if

1:01:32

we did, and maybe we don't really

1:01:34

want to, I don't think the United

1:01:37

States really wants to enforce its labor

1:01:39

law, but if we did, maybe we

1:01:41

wouldn't need any border control because nobody

1:01:43

would actually be able to work here.

1:01:46

The question is we should sanction employers

1:01:48

who hire undocumented immigrants. I just sort

1:01:50

of we've been into the conversation like

1:01:53

you mentioned people will migrate regardless of

1:01:55

your law right but as far as

1:01:57

I know we don't enforce our law

1:01:59

what so what why don't we And

1:02:02

what would it look like if we

1:02:04

did? Okay, so just to clarify the

1:02:06

point, one of the points was as

1:02:08

you increase border surveillance and technology and

1:02:11

enforcement, people go through more dangerous routes

1:02:13

but still enter the United States. So

1:02:15

you're still enforcing the border control law,

1:02:17

spending more money in doing it, but

1:02:20

people figure out ways to overcome it.

1:02:22

In terms of enforcing American labor law,

1:02:24

right? Historically, business lobbies have been pro-immigrant

1:02:27

and they like undocumented immigrants in particular

1:02:29

because they're more easily exploitable. If you

1:02:31

want to cheap rotating labor force, you

1:02:33

can easily fire all your undocumented immigrants,

1:02:36

don't give them any severance, don't necessarily

1:02:38

pay their wages because they're so vulnerable,

1:02:40

you hire a new set. And so

1:02:42

I think there's been... an agreement between

1:02:45

business lobbies and the U.S. government to

1:02:47

kind of uphold that, like not enforce

1:02:49

that. Is it going to be enforced

1:02:51

now? I think in this political climate

1:02:54

where we have very wealthy billionaires running

1:02:56

the show, highly unlikely. And if I

1:02:58

could comment on that, sorry if you

1:03:01

want to go, when I was a

1:03:03

trial attorney at San Francisco for the

1:03:05

INS, I was the employer sanctions council,

1:03:07

I had jurisdiction to do exactly what

1:03:10

you're saying from an immigration standpoint. Do

1:03:12

you know how big my jurisdiction was

1:03:14

for one lawyer from Kern County to

1:03:16

the Oregon border? The two-thirds of the

1:03:19

state of California was my jurisdiction. So,

1:03:21

but you know, and I think Daisy's

1:03:23

point is well taken. And I'm gonna,

1:03:26

you know, take it one step further.

1:03:28

An employer that is willing to cheat

1:03:30

on the immigration laws, cheats on every

1:03:32

other. employment, every other labor law that

1:03:35

you can imagine. They're not going to

1:03:37

follow wage and hour loss. They're not

1:03:39

going to follow OSHA regulations. If you're

1:03:41

paying people under the table, if you

1:03:44

have a compliant population of people that

1:03:46

you can work, you can exploit them.

1:03:48

You can cut all those other corners.

1:03:50

I talk to employers across the United

1:03:53

States all the time. who are upset.

1:03:55

They know that the guy who's a

1:03:57

roofer are doing the other thing, that

1:04:00

they do have an unauthorized population working

1:04:02

for him, and it's killing, it's killing

1:04:04

their business. We need to enforce all

1:04:06

of those laws because that's going to

1:04:09

be the best thing for workers in

1:04:11

the United States. E-Verified, electronic verification system,

1:04:13

talk about how business doesn't like this

1:04:15

going on. In 1986 we created the

1:04:18

employer sanction system, which is when we

1:04:20

verified that people could work. We didn't

1:04:22

have computers, so it was done on

1:04:25

paper. Today, it's still done on paper,

1:04:27

even though we have computers. There is

1:04:29

a pilot program authorized by law. The

1:04:31

president could actually make it mandatory where

1:04:34

everybody would have to go online to

1:04:36

verify the employment eligibility of their employees.

1:04:38

That doesn't happen. But if it did,

1:04:40

when you talk about, we haven't talked

1:04:43

about amnesty, we've alluded to it. But

1:04:45

if you really wanted to legalize the

1:04:47

population of people who are here illegally,

1:04:49

create political momentum, that's the way to

1:04:52

do it. If you take away the

1:04:54

workers. you're actually probably going to reach

1:04:56

a consensus a lot quicker than you

1:04:59

think. And I know there's examples of

1:05:01

underpayment of illegals, but I also know

1:05:03

my family is from the agricultural community

1:05:05

in Fresno and they pay top dollar

1:05:08

to pick the peaches to do the

1:05:10

different things. They quite frankly they've tried

1:05:12

to get others to come and they

1:05:14

work for about two hours and I

1:05:17

don't want to do this and they

1:05:19

leave. And it's not because the pay

1:05:21

is because they don't like the hard

1:05:23

work that is there. And so I

1:05:26

think a lot of times there's a

1:05:28

lot of talking about the underpayment of

1:05:30

the workers. There's a lot of overpayment

1:05:33

of the workers too just to get

1:05:35

them to do the job in the

1:05:37

work out there and I think it's

1:05:39

overplayed. I think the one thing we're

1:05:42

not talking about is no matter what

1:05:44

we do to fix the system, we

1:05:46

have to have part of the problem

1:05:48

the system is broken is that such

1:05:51

a backlog and until we number one

1:05:53

come up with the right system. and

1:05:55

improve it, but also have a time

1:05:58

period to do way with the backlog,

1:06:00

the problems are going to still exist.

1:06:02

So we have to have a two-phase

1:06:04

problem on working in immigration reform. Thank

1:06:07

you for being here. Two comments. Number

1:06:09

one, I'm not sure we really want

1:06:11

to fix the border problem because it's

1:06:13

been this way for over 40 years.

1:06:16

Like drugs, I don't really think we

1:06:18

want to solve it because if we

1:06:20

really wanted to, I think we would

1:06:22

have a while back or earnestly had.

1:06:25

We would enforce the laws that are

1:06:27

there. Number two, I read in WAPo

1:06:29

or... Bullwork an established magazine a couple

1:06:32

days ago that a lot of businesses

1:06:34

are stressing please do not come and

1:06:36

do a massive cleanup of their businesses

1:06:38

because like you said he verification has

1:06:41

not been used for a long time

1:06:43

and everybody knows they are hiring illegal

1:06:45

immigrants as Trump is for his business

1:06:47

so they've already said just stay away

1:06:50

don't bother which is a threat flag

1:06:52

that they do so those are just

1:06:54

comments and whoever wants to say anything.

1:06:57

Anybody want to respond? I largely agree

1:06:59

with you. It's a matter of whether

1:07:01

we want to enforce our borders. There

1:07:03

are episodes in U.S. history in the

1:07:06

past where we've successfully closed borders. After

1:07:08

1882, we largely prevented Chinese immigrants from

1:07:10

coming to the Western United States. It

1:07:12

was much harder to police borders than

1:07:15

than it is now. And they were

1:07:17

a big part of the workforce in

1:07:19

the Western United States at that time.

1:07:21

We talked about the restrictive immigration legislation

1:07:24

in the 1920s, that very much clamped

1:07:26

down on immigration. Shamefully, we did, as

1:07:28

you also mentioned, Bob, we kept most

1:07:31

Jewish refugees away from the United States

1:07:33

during the 1930s and early 1940s. So

1:07:35

yes, it's not a good idea in

1:07:37

my view, but it is within the

1:07:40

power of the government, if it wants

1:07:42

to, to exercise type control over its

1:07:44

borders. And I'll actually, I can actually

1:07:46

give statistics that support this because I

1:07:49

was looking at them this morning in

1:07:51

connection with something else. Trump said that,

1:07:53

you know, we have had the lowest

1:07:55

number of legal entries, you know, in

1:07:58

history and people came back and said,

1:08:00

no, they were lower in 1968 or

1:08:02

something like that. We can look at

1:08:05

border patrol statistics and know how many

1:08:07

people actually weren't apprehended. I can tell

1:08:09

you how many apprehensions there were to

1:08:11

a seven-digit number, six-digit number. But we

1:08:14

know how many people actually invaded immigration

1:08:16

before. And I believe somebody on this

1:08:18

panel talked about this, that we tighten

1:08:20

up the border people, we no longer

1:08:23

have the circular flow of people in

1:08:25

and out of the United States. In

1:08:27

2003, 2004, we only caught about one

1:08:30

out of every three people coming illegally.

1:08:32

Today, it's up to about 78%. It's

1:08:34

a 1,954 mile border. Stop to patrol

1:08:36

the whole thing. So we're actually doing

1:08:39

a much better job of that now.

1:08:41

And again, we talked about George Bush

1:08:43

and about, you know, how he... He

1:08:45

wanted an amnesty. I mean it's it's

1:08:48

no secret. And to do that we

1:08:50

had a huge border crackdown and a

1:08:52

huge immigration deportation program. President Obama did

1:08:54

the same thing. I served under both

1:08:57

of these presidents. So you know it

1:08:59

is one of those things that two

1:09:01

things do go hand in hand but

1:09:04

you know it's important to understand that

1:09:06

border is a lot tighter now than

1:09:08

it's ever been. First of all thank

1:09:10

you very much for this engaging discussion

1:09:13

and pleased to see that there actually

1:09:15

is quite a bit of common ground.

1:09:17

But the one question that you didn't

1:09:19

actually come up with an answer for

1:09:22

was, practically speaking, how we get to

1:09:24

the next level of immigration words. And

1:09:26

I think some of them, some of

1:09:29

you touched on some points. So for

1:09:31

example, first of all, separate the border

1:09:33

problem. Secondly skills-based and thirdly there may

1:09:35

be some ways to attack and maybe

1:09:38

separate economic and political immigration from each

1:09:40

other but I think you also have

1:09:42

to come up in responding to Bob's

1:09:44

question with what's the number and we

1:09:47

didn't get an answer to that. The

1:09:49

initial, I'm not talking about a number

1:09:51

that's here long after I'm gone, but

1:09:53

I'm talking about a number that perhaps

1:09:56

we see as we move beyond this

1:09:58

current political phase into something perhaps in

1:10:00

three or four more years. I would

1:10:03

like to say... that we shouldn't have

1:10:05

a number. We shouldn't have a number

1:10:07

because how are you going to know

1:10:09

how many people you're going to need?

1:10:12

How are you going to determine? It's

1:10:14

kind of the moment you're creating numbers

1:10:16

you impose a restriction. saying that we

1:10:18

value this kind of immigrant versus that

1:10:21

kind of immigrant an immigrant who's high-scale

1:10:23

versus low-skill you create a division and

1:10:25

the moment you say you don't value

1:10:27

one more than the other you start

1:10:30

justifying taking their rights allowing their undocumented

1:10:32

exploitation and so I don't think we

1:10:34

should have a number I think we

1:10:37

should just let people come and then

1:10:39

let them be legal so that they

1:10:41

can leave because one of the things

1:10:43

that most undocumented immigrants struggle with is

1:10:46

that once they enter the United States

1:10:48

it is extremely hard to exit and

1:10:50

reenter. So they are willing to be

1:10:52

separated from their children for decades. This

1:10:55

is mothers and fathers, not see their

1:10:57

children grow up because it's so hard

1:10:59

to reenter the United States. But if

1:11:02

they're here to document it, they can

1:11:04

leave, retire, come back if they want

1:11:06

to. I think we should allow this

1:11:08

more circular flows to exist and stop

1:11:11

putting so much restrictions on them. Since

1:11:13

this might be a place where we

1:11:15

don't. have common ground. Yes. Yeah. So

1:11:17

let me say two things. I do

1:11:20

think we need to regulate immigration flows.

1:11:22

I think that's the only politically viable

1:11:24

solution. And within that there should be

1:11:26

some room for this circular flow. But

1:11:29

to your point about the number, one

1:11:31

way to think about this is, how

1:11:33

is the US economy and society evolved

1:11:36

in recent decades? Population growth of one

1:11:38

or two percent per year net. Okay,

1:11:40

well what's happened in the last three

1:11:42

years has came up a little bit

1:11:45

earlier. The US population has been growing

1:11:47

about 1% of year in the last

1:11:49

three years. This is after the COVID

1:11:51

disruption. That's mostly net migration. So if

1:11:54

we think that we are accustomed to

1:11:56

an economy and society with population that

1:11:58

grows 1 or 2% per year, I

1:12:01

think we have to recognize as well.

1:12:03

that unless there's dramatic changes in the

1:12:05

fertility patterns of American-born persons most of

1:12:07

that net population increase will need to

1:12:10

come from immigrants that gives you a

1:12:12

least a ballpark way to think about

1:12:14

a number. Your question I'm thinking what's

1:12:16

the way forward right is this kind

1:12:19

of the question and I think a

1:12:21

lot of what's It's really weird to

1:12:23

have a panel where everybody kind of

1:12:25

agrees from different sides of the political

1:12:28

spectrum, which is why this is so

1:12:30

maddening is because you have a policy

1:12:32

area where people from the left, the

1:12:35

right, the center, libertarians, conservatives, progressives, generally

1:12:37

agree that immigration is good for this

1:12:39

country. It's needed for a variety of

1:12:41

purposes, which you've heard today, that there

1:12:44

should be comprehensive immigration reform. And yet

1:12:46

for the last several decades, because of

1:12:48

a variety of... maddening reasons nothing kind

1:12:50

of happens and so what you end

1:12:53

up having is a lot of what

1:12:55

you've heard about today you have increased

1:12:57

border enforcement and all of the negative

1:12:59

externalities that arise out of that in

1:13:02

terms of how we treat people and

1:13:04

sometimes when they come to the border

1:13:06

in terms of the you know what

1:13:09

it's billions of dollars it's the largest

1:13:11

part of the homeland security budget is

1:13:13

border enforcement I would rather have those

1:13:15

billions of dollars be spent on health

1:13:18

care right rather than moving people across

1:13:20

the border But there are, when Congress

1:13:22

is not taking a leadership role, and

1:13:24

when the people that elect those individuals

1:13:27

are not electing them on the basis

1:13:29

of taking that leadership role and just

1:13:31

electing incumbents again and again, and of

1:13:34

course, the role of money in that

1:13:36

political election and influencing the vote is

1:13:38

a big part of the reason why

1:13:40

they keep getting elected again and again,

1:13:43

that's when you start seeing these efforts

1:13:45

like border enforcement and trying to reform

1:13:47

asylum laws and executive actions. Now, there

1:13:49

are some radical for some folks proposals

1:13:52

that do exist in terms of what

1:13:54

is the way forward. One of those

1:13:56

is empowering states. When you start losing

1:13:58

when the federal government is unable to

1:14:01

or unwilling to take a responsibility or

1:14:03

leadership role, you may have to start

1:14:05

creating bespoke solutions that are state-based. So

1:14:08

California has different needs in terms of

1:14:10

vis-a-vis immigration than for instance Arkansas. So

1:14:12

that's kind of one way to kind

1:14:14

of work through these issues. We've also

1:14:17

tried DACA and DAPA and a lot

1:14:19

of these executive actions. But at the

1:14:21

end of the day, the way forward

1:14:23

really, and it's like we're a broken

1:14:26

record here, is for Congress. to really

1:14:28

take this up and do something about

1:14:30

it. And if they don't, we should

1:14:33

stop electing them and putting them in

1:14:35

positions of power. Okay, you have a

1:14:37

minute. I think there's a couple of

1:14:39

things you have to do. That's number

1:14:42

one, if we have two. 20 million

1:14:44

illegals in this country, most of which

1:14:46

who have found jobs, who have found

1:14:48

things that they're doing in this country.

1:14:51

We need to figure out how to

1:14:53

update that because that's the undercount that

1:14:55

we've had coming in because of our

1:14:57

economic needs in this country. They're here

1:15:00

because we didn't allow enough legals to

1:15:02

come in and they came here for

1:15:04

their jobs. And you have to get

1:15:07

caught up on that. But I think

1:15:09

you then have to develop some type

1:15:11

of, at least for not the other

1:15:13

forms of immigration. But for those that

1:15:16

you're looking at the economic driven, I

1:15:18

disagree that you have to qualify some

1:15:20

of them as low skilled, medium skilled,

1:15:22

high skilled. Otherwise what happens is what

1:15:25

has happened in the last 20 years.

1:15:27

As we put the focus just on

1:15:29

high skilled, and we squeeze out. all

1:15:31

those workers that need to come here.

1:15:34

So I think there is a way

1:15:36

to develop a sliding scale need of

1:15:38

how many you allow to come in

1:15:41

every year based on the economic growth

1:15:43

of this country. Now I think if

1:15:45

you did that you would then write

1:15:47

the ship in terms of where we've

1:15:50

been so wrong for the last 40

1:15:52

years. I think we're going to conclude

1:15:54

on that. I want to thank Jeff

1:15:56

White for a terrific question. I want

1:15:59

to thank Jeff and Sue for making

1:16:01

this possible. And that's not always easy

1:16:03

to find these days. I want to

1:16:06

thank everybody who is here with us,

1:16:08

those who are watching on Zoom or

1:16:10

Facebook Live, and all those who will

1:16:12

hear this enlightening discussion on our podcast,

1:16:15

Let's Find Common Ground. I think today

1:16:17

we did find some common ground. And

1:16:19

I would also invite you all to

1:16:21

join us on April 3rd for our

1:16:24

annual Climate Forward Conference in town and

1:16:26

gown. Thank you, and have a great

1:16:28

rest of the day. Thank

1:16:32

you for joining us

1:16:35

on Let's Find Common

1:16:37

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