Panel, which is going to focus on the implementation of the refugee act of 1980. And moderating that potential is eric schwartz, former assistant secretary of state for population refugees and migration under the obama administration. He was Senior Adviser for humanitarian affairs during the Clinton Administration on the National Security council and most importantly on the highest board. He also happens to be the president of Refugees International and hes seated next to the expresident of Refugees International. Eric . Thanks. Thank you, mark. It is a distinct pleasure to be here today and i want to thank hias, and the Carter Center for bringing us all together for this very important event. This is a critical time for us to be considering not only the refugee act of 1980, but also the very future of refugee protection in the United States and around the world. At a time when the number of people displaced by conflict, human rights violations, persecution is at the highest number in recorded history, governments around the world and in the United States in particular are using nativist rhetoric, designed to appeal to peoples fear and to encourage hostility toward refugees and others who are forced to flee. They are closing borders and making life more difficult for refugees. This panel and this day long event is timely. Our panel will consider refugee protection issues in the context of implementation of the refugee act of 1980. We have flee highly distinguished panelists. It is an added benefit for me that all are friends of mine, with whom i worked over decades on a variety of projects. Professor david martin, our first presenter, is a leading scholar on immigration. Constitutional and International Law and one of the countrys foremost authorities on Immigration Law and policy. He helped to shape gracing policy while serving in several key u. S. Government pot posts. While at the state department, weighs deeply involved in legal and policy developments related to the refugee act f 1980, the folk of todays discussion. He also held senior positions in the departments of justice and homeland security. He played major roles related to asylum. During the decade of the 1990s, and during the obama administration, he was deeply engaged in Administration Reforms relating to immigration and enforcement priorities as well as a range of key immigration issues. Our second speaker, ambassador frank loy, had many careers as a senior diplomat, as a business and nonprofit executive, as an attorney focusing on a range of topics from environmental issues, to economic affairs, to international humanitarianism. And refugees and beyond and i wont try to list all of franks jobs. I will say from 19with the pers rank of ambassador, and was deeply involved in the issues were considering today, between 1998 and 2001, he served as the u. S. Undersecretary of state for global affairs. Giving him responsibilities that oversaw the work of population refugees and migration, the success of europe to the refugee programs that he directed during the Carter Administration. Final speaker, lionel rosenblatt, a former american diplomat who spent much of his oversees diplomatic career oversees in southeast asia. Lionel is a legendary refugee advocate. When in the midst of the north vietnamee take over of vietnam, he was frustrated at the slow pace of efforts to rescue the vietnamese. He and a colleague made an unauthorized trip to vietnam to help secure the rescue of some 200 individuals. From 1999 to 2001, he served as president of Refugees International, establishing the organization as a critical ally of vulnerable populations around the world and it is a high honor for me to serve as the current steward of an organization that lionel put on the lap. The legacy of service and impact is an inspiration to us all. Our topic today, implementation of the act could cover a multitude of issues. I asked a panelist to consider in no particular order the following questions. First, what were the expectations around the 1980 refugee act with respect to both refugee admissions and asylum. Second, how did reality interfere . Both with respect to the cuban exodus and requiring response to protection needs that went outside the contours or stretched the contours of the refugee act of 1980. Third, how would you characterize and assess overall implelttion of the u. S. Refugee Admissions Program over the years. Finally, based on your observations, what lessons can we draw and bring to bear on current policy challenges . Each panelist will speak for about seven minutes, well move to questions from the audience and rather than offer my own perspectives on these issues now, i will assume the moderators prerogative and perhaps does one or two preliminary questions. With that, please join me in welcoming david martin. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure for me to be here. I want to say special thank you to mark and hias for putting this together. Also say a special word of tribute to president carter. I do wish he were here. His it was his emphasis on human rights policy as a candidate and early part of his presidency that inspired me to go to state department. I didnt know refugees were part of the package at the sotime i signed up for it. By the time a rived, the flow of the boat flow was enormous. I got called into that and it shaped my career. And i felt very happy to have the opportunity to work both on human rights policy and refugee policy. Let me begin with a few Simple Truths about the achievements of the refugee act and then introduce a few complexities that became apparent with implementati implementation. I want to say, first of all, the refugee act did achieve a great deal, very solidly in ways we dont think about very much anymore. Theyre not points of controversy. They accomplished the primary and i really want to say that, we need to say that, because there is so much cynicism about the effectiveness of Government Action and legislation. And this is generally overall quite a Success Story and we need to say that. To appreciate what im saying, i want to emphasize one distinction that gets lost. The refugee act dealt with, quote, refugees, in a couple in two situations that are related but they really have very different dynamics. One is the overseas refugee program, selecting people overseas in refugee camps, bringing them here after processing. That was the main focus at the time that was the crying issue in southeast asia. The second one is asylum. Enveloping people who get here on their own. It poses more clefhallenging problems in a lot of settings. It didnt receive top billing, not the central focus initially. Important to keep those separate. There is some overlaps. In analyzing issues about that, the Supreme Court failed to do that in a case very important called stevic versus ins which wound up interpreting to said a higher standard, more demanding standard than what applies when people are applying for asylum and they really misquoted some of the legislative history. It went clearly to overseas refugees was applied to asylum in reaching that decision. I regret that happened. Thats part of our framework now. Four things the refugee act achieved. First of all, it set the framework and the procedures for regular and timely decisions on resettlement and admissions. And replaced conditional entry and parole which for all the reasons we have been hearing about didnt hit very well or presented their own problems. It preserved a role for congress, last panel mentioned some things about that, by providing a very structured consultation process with demand for certain very specific kinds of information that are extremely important for anybody trying to follow and understand the refugee program. Those annual consultation documents. It did not give congress a specific voting role. It left that power with the president which thank goodness largely avoids deadlock that we have we didnt foresee the kind of Political Climate we have now. That puts the power on the president. Can he do it badly . Yes. We have evidence. Recent evidence. But legal design can take us only so far and i put im reminded of a comment made about James Buchanan that was widely regarded as the worst president that we had. Senator john sherman said the constitution provides for every accidental condition contingency in the executive except for vacancy in the mind of a president. Second, framework for helping resettle refugees, replaced a lot of special legislation that has specific programs for this group or that group. Expiration dates that had to get extended, did it on a more abstract basis. The assistance arrangement recognizes the role of ngos and engages the states. Third, the statute provided Clear Authority to offer asylum both to people already in the United States and people at the border, excludable aliens and deportable aliens is the old terminology. More importantly, with regard to asylum, point number four, it provided clear status for asylees. Before that, people got documents of various kinds, said parole and if youre not a refugee if youre not into Immigration Law business, you look at a card that says somebody is here on parole, you think of the criminal justice system. It didnt clarify what was going on. It provided clear status and importantly it provided direct mechanism, authorization for direct mechanism for people to become green cardholders after a year. Those were significant changes, mostly routine now and people dont think about it a lot. It is significant for those reasons, the refugee act was popular and celebrate d and people were disillusioned. I remember seeing editorials and opeds, we passed a new refugee act, why doesnt that solve the problem it turns out there is no magic bullet, no magic bullet to address situations when people come in very large numbers suddenly and without much advance notice or planning. Refugee issues are complicated. The field is rife with sudden emergencies that pose big logistical and operational challenges. And the whole business of refugee protection gets deeply involved and entangled with politics, international and domestic. So the mariel boat lift caused that problem after a few weeks of not really figuring out how to deal with it. Sending mixed signals about the u. S. Response, eventually it became clear that the bet flow had to be stopped. And the decision was made to stop the south bound flow using various kinds of maritime authorities. All the boats down there will be able to come back with the people that they had on board. It began to look like a finite problem. It led to 125,000 people coming. Meantime, the challenges of screening, and accommodation upon arrival were substantial. A lot of people were housed after a preliminary processing at tamiami park moved to the orange bowl. Various kinds of contrived tents. They were living outside in that way. That sounds like some things we have seen recently either here or in mexico along the southwest border. Eventually sent to military bases, especially fort chaffey in arkansas. That had a negative political impact. A young progressive arkansas governor was defeated for reelection in 1980. Thats been attributed to backlash against the refugees at fort chaffey, bill clinton. He ran six times for governor, won five out of those six, but the antiimmigrant candidate defeated him that one time in 1980 in the wake of that movement. Perhaps that mariel boat lift had a role in president carters loss. It is not so much the numbers that pose the problem. Carters vietnam initiatives to settle a lot of people there were accepted much more readily. It is the perception of lost control that provides red meat for antirefugee or antiimmigrant candidates and we have to Pay Attention to that. We have seen that kind of reaction in europe since the large movements of 2015 to 2016, the socalled merkel million ive heard it called. A backlash that gets rolling and response to perceptions of lost control leads not only to bad refugee policy, but quite dangerously it also leads to the growing strength of openly authoritarian parties, not just antiimmigrant. Hungary with victor orban is a key example. That really poses the greatest challenge to todays refugee and asylum policy. We are really facing an enormous dilemma. It is somewhat hard to be optimistic. Some figures put it in context in 1950 to 51, the Key International refugee instruments were being drafted, rural population was 2. 5 billion. In 1980, when the refugee act was passed, do it was 4. 5 billion. In 2020, the population was rural population 7. 5 billion, triple the level at the time of the 1950 convention. There will be more people on the move. And now today were getting the equivalent of a mariel boat lift total each month along the southwest border with no sign of a significant end point. The coast guard cant be deployed it deal with this, even if you wanted to. I think were at a very critical time and i worry this issue is going to tip to be crucial in the election. I come to the one last word, i come to the mexico agreement recently announced with great wariness. I do hope, it is not clear now whether thats going to be the case, i hope there will be something more, something in there that will really focus on what mexico says they want to major aid and Assistance Program in central america. There are ways that that can work. Socalled martial plan for that area. Thats a critical component and clearly the u. S. Administration has no interest in that, they have gone in the other direction. But in addition to that, some reduction in flow would ease some of the sheer logistical challenges. That are not fully appreciated along the southwest border. Four governments and especially for ngos who have done a heroic job meeting people at the bus station when they get dropped off by dhs to help them move forward. So maybe some slowdown would rehelp reduce the effectiveness of antiimmigrant or antirefugee demagoguery and help hold our hold us for a longterm and sustainable support for refugee protection. We have a long way to go. We have a real challenge today. Thank you. [ applause ] so this panel deals with the implementation of the act, not its justification or its origins. And i think it is important to recognize that you can write an act that sounds pretty damn right and pretty good on paper, but when you try to implement it, youre going to have a hard time. And let me just talk a little bit about the implementation problems that we faced immediately after the passage of the 1980 act. I say i want to be clear, i think president carters decision to push for that act and to implement it was a hugely important humanitarian decision. And he deserves every bit of credit that we heard here today. That said, we have to be realistic and say that doesnt solve all the problems and in fact it creates some. Lets talk about some of the ones that we in the state Department Bureau of refugee programs faced in the immediate aftermath of the passage of that act. The first thing was vietnam. And in vietnam we had a huge moral imperative to act, especially to protect vietnamese that had been working with us, had helped us, had sided with us, and were in the kind of difficulty you can imagine after we pulled out. So we were using the act to identify vietnamese who were eligible under the terms of the act and what we found is that we interviewed, we interviewed in the field, we interviewed boat people, we interviewed people that crossed borders. What we found is that most of the stories sounded the same. It was pretty clear there was a path of responses that went from applicant one, to applicant two, to applicant 25. And so the actual identification of persons who have a well justified fear by reason of their religion and so forth, after a while you realize that it is a little hard to tell who had that well justified fear and who doesnt. And we have to recognize that thats going to be with us as long as we have standards like that written into the law and we should, that means that youre going to have to make some very tough decisions and some of those may be negative and with consequences to the individual. If you dont do that, you are likely to be overwhelmed with applicants for status under the act that had questionable validity. So thats a first point. The second point that we dealt with in the difficulty of administering the act was the numbers of applicants and our ability to bring to the United States under the law certain number, but what do you do with the others . So we spent a lot of time with third countries, hong kong, thailand, malaysia, singapore. Trying to end with some considerable success, but not total success and not quick success, trying to get the country involved to accept some of the applicants for status that we had we had interviewed, we found them credible. But we had numbers problems in the United States that made it hard for us to take all of them into the United States. So one of the things that seems to me a National Refugee policy on the part of the u. S. Isnt going to cut it. You need similar attitudes because youre going to need them as places where refugees can go if they cant come to the United States. A second problem and i dont want to sound all that negative, but my aim here is to identify problems that are going to have to be resolved and one was involved in cambodia. The pol pot regime was so irrational, and the cambodian authorities were so irrational in whom they designated as enemies, that you couldnt find any you couldnt identify this person as having a well founded fear of going back by reason of their Group Identity or their status or their religion because that wasnt the test, the test might have been whether you wore glasses or not, so that all of a sudden, the standards that we used in that case were simply not applicable. Again, probably wont have that happen very often, but you did have it happen in the case of cambodia and it was quite a difficult problem to resolve. In the case of the mariel boat lift, that was, of course, in some ways more dramatic because it was right on our shores and it was right in president carters office that decisions had to be made. The only time i ever dealt with a president was it was numerous times during those orderly days of the mariel boat lift, where the question was how do we make these investigative determinations as to whether these who these people are and why they should be admitted to the United States. So the idea is you do that before they come on shore because their status then changes to that to a totally different status, if theyre an asylum applicant than before. But in order to and you really would like to identify the legitimate refugees before they come. So you can in some way have some control of the flow. But in order to do that, you would have had to make these determinations at sea. And in fact president carters first thought was that we would do that. We would have investigations by intercepting boats, talking to people, finding out who was where, and that lasted about 24, 48 hours. And it simply was unworkable partly because the numbers involved. But also partly because of the risk involved. The risk involved there. So we dropped that and we had the investigations after they arrived. Just a footnote on the governor of arkansas, who lost his election because in the end, a third issue was then where do you put all these people while you make these investigations and while you try to resettle them. And later on when i was undersecretary in the Carter Administration in the clinto and dealt with the president on other issues, every time i walked into the office, he would say, you son of a bitch, you caused me that election. And i said, i dont think i did that. And he says, well, where do you think those bumper sticks came from that says, no cubans, no no cubans, no carter. No clinton. No commies, no cubans, no clinton. And that was all because of chaffey, where we placed a lot of them. And you have to figure out where to place them. So that was a very messy situation, as you can imagine. At the very last moment of the Carter Administration, we learn ed that the cubans were somewhat interested in talking to us about a possible deal where we would send back certain of the what we considered undesirables, people who had criminal records or legitimate inmates of mental hospitals, close to 3,000, Something Like that. We would try to send those back. And they would send to us certain undesirables, that they called, which were basically political troublemakers that they wanted to get rid of. And they could have jailed them. Many of them were jailed and were under house arrest. So i sought the authority to have those conversations and the answer is you can talk to them but you cant talk to them. It has to be in the u. S. And you cant use the state department to have those conversations because we cant have that kind of relationship and we wont permit that. In fact, you cant have any public facility for those conversations if you would ever get them. I think they never thought we would have them. So i made some we did have those conversations and we ended up having them in my dining room and they went on for 3 1 2 days and they ended about Something Like the ten10th of january, 20 of january was the end of the administration. And we made a deal. And we initialled an agreement. Next day we met again and the cubans came back and said we sent them back to havanna and they would like to make a deal with the new administration. That actually did happen. That transfer did happen in the different form about a year and a half later or two years later. Again the only point i want to make here is that in the administration of these laws, you are going to make observations that are a little less clean and a little less than optimum. Thats the world in which we live. Two more examples of this. Were running short on time. Am i running over . Yeah. I cant believe that. [ laughter ] im shocked, too, but all right. I cant handle any criticism from you on that point. So, no, you want eric on your side at all times. Let me just stop there and just say that i want to be clear, that the aim and the action of the president in putting forth this law and putting forth this standard and putting forth this very high level of ambition is absolutely necessary. If you dont have that, youve got nothing. But even if you have that, you have to recognize that the world in which we live is going to bring that down somewhat, as you try to administer it. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, eric, and fellow panelists. I wanted to start by citing jim purcells book. Right from the very beginning. I commend it to you. Hes only giving me a small commission. And i think its for sale outside. So, it really is a bible, a handbook, an incredible bit of history. I can commend it to you. I wanted to start by thanking, in particular, rosalyn carter, who came out to give the Indochina Refugee Program in 1979 a great, muchneeded boost. We, in three days took her to probably nine different sites and she was by the time she got off the plane. The last time we bangkok, nicest camp that we have. She was very upset because the soil was muddy. I picked up the phone and called iom and said get some gravel over here right away. Not only was it president carter but mrs. Carter who, early on, responded to Refugees National outside the white house gates. She engaged mrs. Carter in a conversation say iing rescue ou people. Theyre drowning at sea. Out of japan to begin to look for refugee boats that were afloat and have the. I thought i would concentrate. We were quite happy with parole, actually, in the field in that the switch for the cambodian caseload in particular was a real watershed moment that led to at least 18 months of entrenched warfare. And i talked prior to coming here a couple of days ago with doris meisner, ins commissioner, and was supposed to come down here as well but for Health Reason reasons couldnt make it. And initially what happened was that the ins officers used the definition to basically run off the reservation. Not walk off the reservation, run off the reservation. It dropped from 08 to 90 to 20 almost overnight. The interviewing officer has the right to make the add judication. They put together a framework of bringing the ins officers back to the state department for briefings. Nothing, nothing worked. And, finally, ultimately, leading into the reagan years, the attorney general went out there. Once again, he had no success. Why is it that after the attorney generals visit, the rejection rates were going up yet again and we had to go back through the white house, through the Justice Department and nfc to correct this matter. I have a memo in there as well. To the nsc saying we need to engage either giuliani or ken starr. Those were good guys back in those days, because somebody has to bring ins back to the reservation and doris is not able to do this on her own. Ultimately, theres a series of about a dozen socalled cables they were applying for Refugee Status role. My successor, refugee coordinator in bangkok, sent my old deputy down to supervise all this. Mac who unfortunately died a few months back, claimed he lost 40 pounds in his four months down there, trying to watch this process and make sure it got back on track. Among other things, reviewing officer in the case ought to be the same officer who rejected the case. Common sense, right . Any trick in the book they could come up with was applied by ins. They just didnt give up. Normally, you just simply have them walk away from this problem, move on from something else. It was trench war far, water shet moment that trench war fare, memorandum 93, very hard to get through the government. Which set the better tone for the way it was interpreted after that. You didnt have the kind of wholesale disregard for the applicant that we had seen at that time. One of the last instructions was you will sit down when you interview the applicant, rather than standing above him, which is what the in officers were doing. Every one of these had to be corrected. I had for the record i dont know where to leave it, one for the Carter Center, one for somebody else, the record of these cables that were required to bring them back on board. And it was no mean feet to do that. I guess maybe were running a little bit out of time. Well leave it there. Two other remarks. The geneva conference where i was privileged to go, the thai foreign minister. We helped right his remarks on the plane going over. From holbrook, we had the new level resettlement and say you need to publicly thank the United States for getting to this number and the first question was, will you be taking enough out of thailand . It shows how important the settlement level was to keep it going. They had reportedly pushed 42,000 and oddly enough its the anniversary that happened. Let me conclude on that note. We have some time before discussion, thankfully, and im just going to start by asking two questions to each of our panelists and i would ask you to choose which one you want to answer, if you want to answer both you may as well. I think weve probably got 15 minutes or so. Its a little bit of time. My first question is, how different are things today . 55 of americans disapproved of hungarians in the 50s coming to the United States, 65,000 hungarians. 52 of americans didnt want vietnamese to be resettled. 71 of americans didnt want the cubans and so really, what are the principle differences today . Are things so very different . Thats my first question. Im very aware that the person asking the question often spends more time asking than the person answering. Let me start with let me my second question is, how to balance the predictability of the refugee act with the flexibility that you have to have as a Decision Maker if you want to respond to exogen circumstances . Lionel, let me go right across. In terms of flexibility, no, i dont know that maybe were not using that parole aspect of the refugee act more. Perhaps we should be using it more. Im not sure how it might be better engaged. There is a residual ability to have that work. The other thing that might be a fall back if youre running into ios difficulties in the future where youre just not able to exert the emphasis that we were able to do in the reagan years. I neglected to mention as part of this, ultimately, theres a letter from a dozen letters to reagan that were still not satisfied with this cambodian issue. It was put into the hands of shults, meeting with the president and i remember hat field saying, why are you always giving me a letter on refugees to give to the president whenever i meet with him . And he said you dont need to open it, senator. Just give it to the president. That finally solved the problem. I think we need to have that kind of command emphasis. Maybe that parole will be helpful. It pays to remember, by the way, that the endo chinese were saying we had an obligation to the vietnamese january and april 30th when vietnam fell, nobody wanted to take these people at all. They were cowards, losers, corrupt and a bunch of these younger officers had to push, push and push for anybody to take the parole request to the congress. Saigon fell april 30th. Didnt leave too much time. That doesnt always happen. Honorable exit if anybody of you want to read it, about that last six months of vietnam, the efforts to push the administration into acting. Kissinger blaming martin, our ambassador out there, and vice versa, very interesting. Frank . Interesting enough, geography is part of the answer to your question. If you have if youre talking about vietnam ease or even soviet jews, theres possible filter in the process between their decision to leave and the United States obligation of the United States desire to make them to have status here. If you have if the notion is you can walk across, that goes away and you have the feeling that you have lost control. And i think the answer is thats not the whole answer but it is certainly a big part of the answer. And theres validity to it. That is, at the rate were going were going to examine these applicants for asylum, you know, two years from now. A very different kind of a process if it is done outside the country at the beginning. As these numbers get high in ways that are beyond immediate control of the United States. Numbers may have polled negatively in earlier times on some of the groups that are coming in through the overseas proce process. I dont know that that led to the level of intensity that we often see when people are coming directly to the United States and people think the government doesnt have a handle on it. Thats why asylum is going to be the area focus and getting some more sense of control there is key for politic al development. Parole has been mentioned in some of the earlier panels and different views of it. It had been a grievance from congress that i remember encountering early in my conversations with Congressional Staff that the special provision of 17,000 members for refugees said parole shunlt be used and then johnson uses that at the signing ceremony for bringing cubans in. They wrote it into the statute that parole couldnt be used for refugees except in unusual circumstances affecting the individual. How then did we use parole for the boat lift . Well, it was a good legal question that came across the desks in my office and general couns counsels office. We were not paroling these people as refugees. It was cuban haitian entrance status pending and frankly, what else could you do . You could call them make up a word but when 125,000 people come and youre not in any kind of position to block them, make them drown at sea, force the boats back, i think that was legally justified. And then the longterm solution, one didnt have a problem necessarily for the cubans, seeing them get to the point of a green card because we had this special statute from 1965, the cuban adjustment act, that cubans who had been admitted or paroled. As was mentioned, finally, the haitians was very much the mix in dealing with the boat lift. The numbers were lower but the flow had been there a long time, lot of advocacy about that and it was pretty clear you couldnt just wave your hand and say okay, all the cubans are fine and not have anything to do with the haitians. In principle, it makes sense. You cant solve everything in advance with abstract statute but were not in a good position institutionally now so there would be creative use of these other sorts. The parole issue has something to not only in asylum but in the overseas program. This is going to be so much better. Were getting rid of the old biased previsions that provided people who its wonderful, universal u. N. Definition. Wait a minute, the u. N. Definition might not capture or might not easily capture everybody that we have, but that train was leaving the station. Advocate ways to change it. Something more specifically authorize use of categories to simplify some of the adjudication. In the Asylum Program your only handle on numbers is really some sort of application of the strict application of the u. N. Definition. Having asked the question, i want to offer my own answer to my own question. Okay. I think and let me part company a little bit from stu who made a distinction between immigrants and refugees. That aint the case today. Refugees and displaced persons is somebody who has, you know, every good reason to leave their country of origin. Nobody can say to them, you should be in your country of origin. They are forced out and that fact, and the fact that we are going to be confronted with so many varying situations to me means we need flexibility, legislation embedded with flexibility or administrative capacity for flexibility. Now on that side, 70 of americans didnt want to come to this country. A similar percentage in terms of should the trump administration, you know, continue to return or be harsh on migrants . I dont know. It could be 71 , 65 . My point is that we are underestimating the political importance on these issues. You know, when all of the republican members im not making a partisan point. Im make a descriptive point. When all the republican members of the house voted to effectively shut down, to my mind im not saying there arent large societal forces at play here. But i think we have to be careful about underestimating the importance of politic al leaders standing up for the right thing in the face of public opinion. No Nothing Movement in the 19th century. Father coughlin with antisemitic rants during the early part of the 20th century. He had tens of millions of followers in the United States. So, this notion that we have a tradition of consensus on behalf of diversity and inclusion, that has, at best, been a fragile consensus. And so i think we really have to be careful about diminishing these issues. Do we have time by all means, rebuttal, comments and then close. With deep apologies, the last panel really has to stick to time. Thats right. None of the earlier ones do. We do. In fact, were less than an hour for this panel. Thats me sounding defensive, so be it. Your last question was lessons for the future. I think we actually had one with the indochinese. Theyre going to have to do, unfortunately what can be done. Interviews have to be done down there. They have to be done well with much more attention from welltrained interviewers. We have to give the Mexican Government incentives. Trump saying its a terrible thing and were not going to get anywhere in this situation. Okay. Stu iverson made the distinction of refugees under the it definition of that term and migrants who come for economic, and you questioned the wisdom of that. Not the wisdom. The accuracy. All right. You questioned the accuracy. I would say that you should be very careful in this getting rid of that distinction. Even though the distinction is frequent frequent frequently not as Crystal Clear as it might be. You can persuade americans more easily, that they ought to have a very welcoming position, visavis people who are discriminated against under the Refugee Status. I dont think you can persuade them that we can solve the worlds poverty problem by bringing people to the United States. Thats right. And, therefore, from a political point of view, as well as from a practical point of view, i think theres merit to maintaining that distinction in order to keep the door open for what we call todays refugees. I actually dont disagree with your comment with respect to those fleeing poverty. What im saying is theres a continuum. People are fleeing all kinds of levels of violence that make their staying in their place of origin completely untenable. Thats a fact. How we deal with that, i think, has to be the subject of serious consideration. Because that woman at our border has no to be returned to her country of origin. I agree with the criticism of the sharp distinction between economic migrants and refugees. We have to bite the bullet and say we cant say yes to everybody who has some level of fear or for other reasons. Their conclusion is therefore we do nothing through relocation. Im not taking that. We can do something but cant do everything. We have to figure out a way to show people we are somehow balancing that so we can keep alive the optimum level of support. Even though its an unruly factor in the role of immigration. We have to recognize we cant solve and actually if our country collapsed into authoritarianism, i would hope people would stay, take on risks and try to address that. The realistic were facing. I think thats a really good point of departure for this panel. Please, join me in thanking our panelists. All week, were featuring programs as a preview of whats available, american artifacts, real america, the civil war oral histories. The presidency. Enjoy American History now and every weekend on cspan3. Week nights this month, were featuring American History programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan three. Purdue University Holds a discussion on the correlation between violence and political change from the time of the American Revolution to present day. Watch American History tonight 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Sunday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, a washington journal and American History tv live special callin Program Cultural and musical fem om none. Age of great dreams, america in the 1960s joins us to take your calls. Drugs matter. Who takes those drugs and why they had the affect they did in the 60s and 70s is still something were wrestling with as scholars to understand. The technology of drugs, we got David Cartwright in here, people thought long and hard about this, is imperative of understanding of not only the 60s but American History, what drugs we use in a period and place have incredible ability to change direction. Woodstock, 50 years and also available on American History on cspan cspan3. National book festival saturday august 31st. Our coverage includes author interviews with ruth bader ginsburg, david treuer, heartbeat of wounded knee. Sharon robinson talks about her book, child of the dream. Rick atkinson, author of the british are coming and thomas malone, center of intelligence discusses his book super minds Live Saturday august 31st at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on booktv on cspan2