Transcripts For CSPAN3 Immigration 20240713

Well what is the problem . And when you start thinking about what is the problem, it goes to a lot of different directions. You have an issue of global migration, you have immigration and immigration policy. You have refugees and displaced persons, and you have the treatment and according to the un, there are 272 million migrants in the world, so you talk about people that have moved from country to country, that is a large number. There have been three and a half part of the global perception, but the bigger number is 70 million displaced persons, and if you think about, that we are living at a time when we see more people forced out of their lives and out of their homes. And you see these people on the move. Over half of the refugees that are in other countries are from three countries, syria afghanistan, and south sudan, which is also really striking. When you think about what this means for policies, then theres obviously policies for handling refugees, policies for migration, policy for immigration of people who arent refugees and the country, still today that has the largest foreign born population is the United States. We have, according to 2015 statistics alas once i saw, over 12 and a half percent of the u. S. Population born in a foreign country over 39 Million People. That is quite substantial. And we are still in nation of immigrants, that puts a premium on what is the right immigration policy. So to address these questions that the audience we have, we have a terrific group of people, we have professor juan gomez, who is director of the immigration human rights clinic here in florida, and we are gray grateful to david and to ambassador green for being here. We have professor peter scary from boston college, we have and richard, who is a former assistant secretary for population refugees and migration, at an ideal professor at georgetown, and we have a least a massive may know, a former director of human rights first and at the Georgetown Law School having a chair in human rights. So, we cover the gamut of all of these different issues, with all the people on this panel. And i think the first question that i want to throw out to you is, i just spent a little time describing the nature of the phenomenon and a little bit of the problem. But in your own words, and maybe one we can start with you, what is going on . Why are so many people moving, and what are our responsibilities . I think you have a combination of push factors and pull factors. One of the problems is that its basically is the mic working . I couldnt afford the battery. My wife says its best do not have a battery. Can you hear me now . Well, while we figure this out, well get some Technical Assistance on stage, and ill pose the same question to peter. So give us a sense of how you see the happening this phenomenon of people moving, what is causing it, and what are our responsibilities. I think there are a lot of factors, and we have a political instability in various places for sure, we have a factor that gets overlooked, we have increasing standards of living and while we think of immigrants as people being driven by desperation the evidence, historically and contemporaneously is that immigrants are the people who have aspirations who, want to get more. So i think some of that is the factor as well, to the extent that we talk about more than just immigrants, we are talking about refugees and displaced persons, and it starts a factor. One of them is if its people looking for a better life because theyre countries causing some kind of an economic challenge, and they feel they can make a better life elsewhere, that leads to to a conclusion that its nice, but why is that our responsibility. If youre looking for people fleeing conflict or human rights abuses, you have a different reaction. I think, for my money, thats the 64,000 dollar question that we very seldom pose, i applaud you for posing it. And we almost never answer because from my perspective there is a fundamental distinction that is not easy to draw, but that must be drawn and that we seem almost incapable of drawing these days between people who flee for their lives or for some very compelling, overwhelming reason, which we broadly defined as refugees or asylees, and people that are coming, who may be, in some strange economic circumstance. Or have something to which they then aspire to more. And our migrants. We dont seem to be able to draw those distinctions and our politics, to my mind continually confound those distinctions. Lets make an effort, and this panel wants to draw these distinctions. Let me turn to alicia, lets take a look at the immigration policies. People who are voluntarily leaving who seek a better life, may have family members here. We obviously want immigrants. How many . What is the right number, and how do we handle this. What about the immigration policy side . Well, first of all, its great to be back here, and thank you for being here, and thanks to david for convening all of us, its really great for all of these folks to come together and get a chance to see each other. You know, i was thinking about this during the very first presentation of the few study. There was a question i hope i dont mess this up but about should we limit ilLegal Immigration, democrats are somewhere around 20 , and republicans around 63 . To me, the framing of that question is a big part of our problem, because it masks this, a lot of the fundamental questions that you originally post, which is im in favor of Legal Immigration, i just dont like ilLegal Immigration, but then we need to ask ourselves, do our laws make any sense . Do they serve american interests, are they connected in any way to our values, and do they uphold our values as a country. We dont tend to talk about those things, so that means that the debate about immigration is just about as broken as the immigration system itself. Because we are completely talking past each other we have restrictions that ten minute to claim we are a nation of laws, so we need to obey the law and you have pro immigrant communities who say we are a nation immigrants, so come. And we have to be both, a nation of laws and immigrants, we benefit from it, and we need immigrants. Study after study shows that we need immigrants. So we have to be both. Richard land always said we have to signs up at the border, no trespassing, and help wanted. And as a country, we just have not been able to sort out which, we need both. We need both. And we have the statue of liberty. Lets put that to wanda, whats the answer . The framing is that we have regular immigration and what you want to call irregular, ilLegal Immigration. The only reason we have a regular immigration its because we did not anticipate, almost like the person who thinks that the Business Card is always going up, and it doesnt anticipate a problem. And doesnt plan for different means. We have the Federal Reserve that manages monetary policy, but we have no one trying to manage in, a practical sense who we need and we dont need. So we have a problem because i dont think its a question of choosing opportunity, you have an element of that, and nothing is ever monolithic, but you do have a situation where you have people leave where its not working out, you leave because its the same idea. You saw your used car because not because you want a new one, but maybe the one you have is not the best thing you have. In the countries where we see most immigration to the u. S. At the moment, we see problems that we should have anticipated. But its almost like we covered our eyes europe is in the same situation because europe should have known what was happening and what was bound to happen because once you have a conflict youre going to have people flowing, what you have people fleeing you have the hottest times, where do you think you are going to go . And we have that beacon that we promised people that we were going to have fairness and due process but the problem is the people that are anti ilLegal Immigration ardennes Legal Immigration because there is a no nothingness that is no we need to have law and order and that is not always true. It is significant how notches restrictions but significant xenophobes part of the anti Immigration Movement, are here and they were closely allied with saint actors in europe. To be fair to the argument, what you said is true that we are the destination of choice, we are the destination country in a lot of cases. People dislocated whether its by war or economics, and there is a reaction here. In our population that say, enough or too much or why is it only asked, and that is the same argument. That is why you have the message . Thats what people are saying, but who are these people . Its like we are the people, its an abstraction, but what is really going on is that you have this fearmongering going on that, all, can we take more . Its almost like, and you see it in the media when you say people are tired of the homeless, what the homeless dont just eat on thanksgiving, you know. And what did you think would happen . What process. If youre going to have a legal system to have people come, in lets have a fair legal system. I think i would disagree and i disagree rather strongly, to be sure there is lots of fearmongering going on and there is somebody in the white house who have played off of that and done that to great and negative effect, i would argue. But he has not done it alone, because what donald trump represents in my opinion is the combination of two or three decades of our elites, business and governmental elites promoting a pro immigration agenda that refused and still refuses, in many ways, to acknowledge that there is any pushback, that there is any reason for large numbers of americans, large numbers of americans to have anxieties about the massive cultural, as well as demographic challenges of mass migration. And the lace favorite version of this that i must dredge up as an example is the washington leaders for two decades gloriously talking about us being transformed into a majority, minority society. The Immigration Commissioner under president clinton probably the best Immigration Commission we have ever had, went around saying that we are becoming a majority, minority society. Well, how long do you think large numbers of ordinary white americans are going to like hearing that . That their culture, their way of life, apparently are going to be challenged and undermined. Miss miner was the commissioner during one of the most anti immigration faces. And you had extreme restriction in the clinton administration, and every attempt by the people who know that they are doing to come up with safety mechanisms, you have the Mccain Kennedy bill, you have all of the efforts that were made to try to deal with problems a little bit at a time, and to try to create mechanisms, and if you think of the crises that you knew around the 1980 because the law was not fair all the time. It wasnt you come and because the doors are open, for more than 30 years, the laws have been really harshly anti immigrant. Those laws that are harshly restrictive, the numbers did not show that. The restrictive laws you are talking about were largely kabuki theater at the southern border. Contrary, i lived there. And thank you for being here i led to efforts to lead a comprehensive Immigration Reform, and not succeeded. It was a genuine hardfought, bipartisan effort and not getting anywhere. Does anyone here see the prospects for any kind of bipartisan, major comprehensive Immigration Reform ahead of us . Dont forget what was said about senator durban saying, were not going to get any kind of a deal, as long as Stephen Miller is the representative. So we have legitimate questions and then we have a white house that is just shutting everything down, so their issues that are controversial, issues that are not controversial, but we still see the white house shutting the door to people coming to the United States. Migration is a human phenomenon, there are a lot of positive benefits for migration that are completely non controversial. This is people coming in and investing here . Students from other countries studying at our universities . Not a controversial. Tourists coming in . You dont have to explain this to florida, so i just to a for anyone listening and, there are a lot of positives, this is all migration. One of the things the u. S. Has been a leader on is speaking out against exploited migrants, people that have been trafficked, this will talk about later today, people that are smuggled in, so that criminal enterprises are benefiting from that, and the u. S. And the human rights world and the world that i wasnt spoke out against, and were leaders in saying we have to manage migration. Instead, what we see has happened is too much fearmongering and the idea that migrants are automatically criminals, they are somehow a threat to us. Underneath that, if you listen to some politicians there is this hidden layer of racism that is anti not always so. Anti brown scan, anti muslim, anti poor people, essentially. One of the legitimate questions is, who do we want to bring to the United States . I dont believe that we are full, shut the door thing. We have a great story to tell about how immigrants to this country have revitalized our country. So who do you want to come . A legitimate question to look at is under what circumstances . The past things were decided was that we have discriminate against populates of the world, so they were changes to allow people to come from different parts. I personally think that you dont have to bring in high skilled people, because i think that we have seen it doesnt matter, people do well here whether they are coming super skilled or not, but i know one of the policies that we push in some circles is that we need a more meritbased system the more that canadians have. One of the things, i want to pick up on something that peter said about the and securities of americans about immigration. I think we have to be careful there, there is kind of a parallel to the greediness panel where we make statements about americans dont support, and such and such, but it turns out, according to the polls, they do support that. Majorities to. Putin is a lot of polls, and they also do some on immigration, and successive polling by pew and other groups have shown that a majority of americans actually their views are not reflected by the extremist rhetoric, they generally support moving people out of the shadows, the 10. 5 million undocumented, getting them on a pathway to citizenship, there is this silent majority who believes we can solve these problems. One just going back to the first point i made about illegal versus Legal Immigration, unbeknownst to most americans, this administration is transforming all immigration into ilLegal Immigration. By closing off the avenues for refugees to seek asylum, essentially stopping resettling refugees and allowing people to seek asylum. Theres a human rights fiasco on the southern border now, with people under the euphemistically named migrant protection protocols that are basically forcing people who have fled for their lives to remain in mexico, and hundreds of those people have been attacked, kidnapped, be in up, raped, including children. Its a terrible scenario down there, but mostly it is an attempt by Stephen Miller, led by Stephen Miller to shut down all immigration. So that all immigration becomes all ilLegal Immigration people should just wait and line, people say. I want to close off the discussion with, what should the immigration policy and can we get there . Im going to take a step in that direction. Im a little bit stunned at this point in time that you can claim that poll support for immigration, clearly lots of american support immigration, but just as Many Americans dont, and there are mobilized and angry and i dont think you can whistle past that. Having said that, how about talking about what we can agree on. I will stipulate that Stephen Miller is not my guy, okay . IlLegal Immigration, what can we do about that . Because i think that is a real problem. I think there is a lot to do. Theres a solution to that whats the solution . You dont have a mechanism for most people who find themselves trying to emigrate to the u. S. , you have the family based system and the employment based system, and then you have the visa lottery here and asylum processing and refugee processing, right . The truth is that the numbers are significantly restricted. Understanding that we have a quota system. When anyone talks about uncontrolled numbers, i laugh because i say what are you talking about . We have the statisticians that spent a career deciding these are the numbers we let in every. Year we are being very self destructive in that we are the incentivizing people coming to the u. S. , as we did not have a future for you, when there is another situation where we start barring people or we create an anti immigrant environment, you have no future. The problem that weve had for decades of, you come, you said you might have a future, that is fading. So we have to deal with commercial immigration as it helps our academy on one side, and we need to understand that individuals, on Something Like a merit system could come to the u. S. , but not using the same process hes that we have now because they dont work. The process that we have now that is a problem is that, most of the people that he would refer to as Illegal Immigrants are really just fleeing a crisis. They are not just coming here to clean our homes, do you understand . They are leaving because their lives and their childrens lives are in danger. I disagree. You have no basis for saying. That i dont Central America . Central america as one part. What other part. You dont know, you dont sit here and argue seriously that the reason why all of those Central Americans are coming, because theyre fleeing for their lives. You dont know that and i dont know that. Some are, but you dont know that. Do you really believe that any of these people, you sit here and tell me this. How many of these individuals have you sat with, how many of these individuals have you tried to get a fair hearing for, and they dont have a chance to tell about the gang member, the drug dealer, the corrupt police officer, the massage announced, the anti whatever religion the person is, the homophobe, you keep going down the list, and you will see that a vast majority of these people are being hell. The vast majority of the people you talk to our. Why dont we talk about what we can agree . On you ask what we can agree, on and kurt, you did too. On the issue of refugees, i think we can agree that we have an obligation, a legal obligation, but also a moral obligation to find out whether people who come seeking protection in americas arms, and its a very difficult standard to reach. To be declared a refugee, and to get asylum, but we have an obligation to find out. Right now, we are not doing that. So, the first thing that we can do, and i think we agree on this, we have to change the system we have now under the Trump Administration, and start to do right by people who are asking for our help and find out whether they are eligible. I think, when you have a system that is so dysfunctional like this, its not serving our interests economically, our interests morally and it needs a massive overhaul. Kurt, you asked what are the prospects of legislative reform of this, i mean, without you have to have two parties who want to work together. We dont have that right now, you have to have leadership from the white house that wants to find a solution to, this we dont have that now, so the situation is not right, but what we can do now and the interim is stop violating peoples rights, try to make sure that we are taking care of people who are entitled to protection under international and u. S. Law and start to plan to build alliances across party lines to solve this issue in a way that upholds our values and serves americas interests. I actually think, and having served on a bunch of Different Task forces, and efforts to wrestle this problem that have been bipartisan, there is quite a lot of agreement on fundamental principles, that is not reflected in the political debate right. Now and large part because there has always been an relevant of xenophobia and racism in our country from the beginning. It is not a majority, but when you have that candle in there and then you have an incendiary president that we have now lighting it on fire, it seems like a conflagration that is bigger than what i think it really is. Peter, quickly . I just want to respond, because we are dealing with a very complicated human situation here when we talk about migration, whether its immigrants who are refugees. We are dealing with human beings who make choices. Even under extreme duress, and i would argue that many of the people coming up from Central America listen to conversations like this and hear people either here or elsewhere who are unwilling to make distinctions and their rhetoric and in the way they talk about policy ought to be between the motives of someone who is looking for work, temporary work to save money to go back home, or someone fleeing Domestic Violence or fleeing for their lives from political and gang persecution. There is a whole lot of complicated motives there and the people who come up from Central America or other parts of the world migrating to europe have complicated and mixed motives, which is why i would agree with a lisa, we have to do Due Diligence to make sure we find out what those motives are. Some of those motives are peoples merely seeking to come up here, to improve their lives and we dont necessarily owe them a thing. If i can second on that, one of the problems is access to council. People dont understand, most people in this from, im sure, go to a professional to deal with their finances, a doctor to deal with your health, a lawyer if you have legal questions, i assure you that the jargon and the immigration process, the mechanism, the nonsense, when you see the case law, when you see the policies and the regulation, when you see the incentivizing of denying of applications, when you see the motivating of officers to, no, no you go back across the border. When you see that system, and that person isnt represented, and whats even worse is that person is an educated, they have no idea how the legal system works. And how are we respecting our values our system when we are just processing people like widgets, as opposed to human beings. I can answer. That were gonna close off this part of the discussion. Can i put it in a different direction . Let me just say. I have to take away from this debate. One of them is, its not black and white. Who is coming here under extreme duress, that you would see is a refugee and who is making a choice to come here, because there are circumstances are terrible. There is a spectrum here. And i think one of the policy questions that we as a country should grapple with is, how do we try to make sense out of this where is the line . And the second thing that is related to that, its how much of this is our our responsibility in the United States, its our job, as opposed to its not our responsibility. Those are i think are the policy questions there. But there is a third one which elissa brought up i want to come back to maybe this is where you want to go. There are certain things, where i dont think there should be a debate about our responsibility, which is humane treatment and respect for human rights. I think here we have actually seen child separation policy with some of the things you described elissa on the southern border, we are not living up to that standard either. And maybe that would be a good place to start on policy levels, to try to get to these hard questions. Sure. Sure. Im going to pause their. You want to take it in a different direction. Go for. It then i have a followup in a different area and i want the audience to be thinking about what questions you want to ask, because in about ten minutes were going to turn to. You two quick things, one, i highly recommend, if you want to know whats going on at the southern border, there was an excellent report by my former organization it just came out a couple of weeks ago call human rights fiasco. It deals with the remains put mexico policy in whats happening to people in mexico it is horrific. Hundreds of documented cases. We are not coming anywhere close to living up to. This is on all of us this is our government that is doing this. So read it at your peril but i urge you to read it. I do want to, its very interesting that were doing this panel on immigration in the state of the world 2020 which is mostly focused on u. S. Policy, you know we have panels on china and the middle east, but i just want to bring this back to, we always rush to the debate about the border. When we talk about immigration and refugee protection but you know its important to see this in the global context and what it means when the United States do you ask why do i have to solve this problem . Rhetorically im asking that. You know you look at the world and you see that there is a global refugee crisis that is larger more people have been forced to flee their homes than at any time on record since world war ii. More than that. Thats a problem that cant be solved by anyone country no matter how powerful. It requires cooperation it also requires American Leadership and the most powerful kind of leadership is leadership by example. We cannot do our job as a country to help solve this problem globally the solution is not the United States should take everyone, except we should lead to create a diplomatic and protection solution that brings countries together to do that. And that is pitching into an because that was your job how is it going . Now if we look at the globe, and this phenomenon that people are moving for lots of different reasons, and sometimes for more than one reason, is global. Thats what happened in the mediterranean. We had people who were who, with meet the definition of a refugee and some who would meet the definition of an and economic migrant. But some people had seen devastating climactic conditions at home. Couldnt eat drowned, for, and their governments were repressing them. So this is not just happening at our border where people are moving for more than one reason. The answer is careful screening, where people come in, but the answer beyond that is to look at what is forcing them to move in their home countries and thats why we have diplomatic instruments and tools and Development Agencies and humanitarians who tried to prevent them having to move in the first place. So that is very very important part of that. I think what is happening in the u. S. Is that, we see swings based on reaction to the headlines. A couple people here witnessed with me the incredible animosity to refugees when they were falsely accused of being part of the paris attacks in 2015 we see now that President Trump has said that the governor should have to approve, whether wet refugees come in or not. The 41 governors have actually said it is okay. The other nine, including the governor of the state have yet to say, and it is being taken up in the courts, whether that really makes any sense to have mayors and county executives and governors all individually deciding whether refugees i think 15 of them are republican. Yes of the 41, that includes republican governors like the governor of utah who came out and said they are welcome here. Let us stay on the global side of things for minute. 17 million displaced persons is a lot of people. So 17 Million People are forcibly displaced. Of that fluff, 40 million are still in their home countries. They are the internally displaced persons. One of the bigger issues we have identified when we look at the humanitarian response is that the responsibility for helping them with their own governments. They are being neglected from the rest of the world by and large. The refugees, and there are roughly 26 million refugees, they have been displaced from their homes and have crossed an International Border so they have a convention that requires us, those of us nations who have signed on to it, to provide them with protection. They also have an agency that un high commissioner for refugees in geneva that is responsible for helping them. They have more protection, but they are looking to us the International Community to provide them help. I should also say that this is another example. We talked about this in a Previous Panel where the u. S. Congress is providing more funding to help refugees and displaced persons than the Trump Administration is asking for. I just want to add a couple of dimensions to this. When you look at the displaced from country to country as well, you are seeing real tube Geopolitical Impact on that, you look at lebanon and the millions of refugees that they have had to take from syria, is a huge percentage of the total population of the people and limit on. Same thing in jordan. Look at the impact of the millions of refugees in germany, and it has completely turned upside down german politics. That is the key for our diplomatic engagement with other countries. Its what are we modeling . And how are we helping . So if we go to, as i did, to lebanon and say, please dont push syrians back to syria they can get killed. Theyre going to say what are you doing to help . Our country is full. One of the things we do to help to settle refugees in the United States, it is just a fraction for the worlds refugees, they would say you are just taking a small number, and i would be able to say back yes but, when they come here, after a number of years, they can take the test, they can become citizens, and they just as much are in american at that point as i am. Then, in addition to that, we would be providing a lot of assistance for the major donor through lead to International Aid engine sees that care about these folks. And the other dimension to this twos that you cannot separate the refugees from so if you have intervention from libya the regime falls its probably a good thing but, without support to help the country stabilize collect arms create the real solution is that we need more peace around the world. Thats right so i think it connects directly to foreign policy, national security, u. S. Engagement in the world on the geostrategic side. As well as the impact side. But we invasion this. Im sorry. We envisioned this back in the eighties. You had the idea that we would try to solve the source problem, and that we would sit with the people who are being affected, and the truth is that, that never went anywhere. We have never try to resort resolve source problems really. Then you end up with multigenerational refugees. Think of kenya, other places we can go through the list. Then, even better. We know that in certain hold and holding pens if you want to, the refugee camps in the civil war did not work. It was not going to work. The question is, refugee camps might be a short of sort short term emergency solution. Refugee processing is not necessarily a solution. We are not the only country thats going through this. If you look at how brazil has treated the haitians. You have some people would argue chile is having situations thats an example. If you see the flow from one country to another, depending on whatever crisis is going on you see that at one point all countries tend to react somehow, but the thing is that we we thought we had a system of laws that we would follow up on the truth is we are at this point gaming those laws the laws not just the u. S. But other countries you have organizations that have spent decades trying to promote their agenda, which is what the anti Immigration Movement is in the u. S. And it is true in europe also. In that they are now in power and enabled to implement, implement using the crisis model. Look at venezuelans in the crisis that is happening in columbia and other surrounding countries. Our venezuelans really going to be long term, resettled in countries like columbia . Not likely. With what do you think theyre going to go . Peter you want to comment and then we will turn to the audience. I just wanted to say, to make it clear, i believe we have important fundamental responsibilities. To large numbers of people around the globe who are genuinely in refugee or at least and that status and by the way that categories the highly contestant category. Theres all sorts of efforts to push and expand. Im not sure it shouldnt be expanded to some extent. Thats one thing for to assert that and to say that but pretty quickly these discussions get up into lullaby theres only so much that we can do. I take ones proposal, as a kind of Legal Services arrangements for the world. We simply are never going to be able to provide adequate Legal Services for all the people who would want to try to come here and make some claims against us. Which isnt to say there are people who need legal help, and there are people who have overriding and serious claims to come here as refugees but its very easy and to very deep and turbulent waters. These discussions and i think these discussions its somewhat. Can i respond to that . Its not proposing Legal Services for everyone, once you complicate the law to the point where it where you cant understand it, you need a lawyer. For goodness sake, should we get a bit of lawyers . Well, my dean would be very upset with you the law is very complicated and most of them have no idea to make an envelope, in the next innovation is no idea how to use regular mail. Forgive me for those who disagree with me, but its amazing its silly things like notify thing the government of your address, if they dont know where the address is, you could end up deported. You could end up with the merits of the, case so that is the lawyers . Quickly on resources we have a president who deployed the military to the southwest border, that is a very wasteful use of resources, when, once again you should use a more proactive response. Okay, well we have people cued up now to ask questions, and i really want to hear from that, so lets start and you can introduce yourself. My name is vernon, i am an alumni. Im thankful to be here and thankful to be here in the u. S. , i am grateful to those who have paved a way for us to be here, as part of the florida community, as a black female, haitian woman and by the way, haiti is just around the corner from miami. I came here at 19 years of age at 1986 as a tourist, i quickly became displaced and homeless in an attempt by others to make haiti great again, and to make haiti become a democracy, i agree with mr. Scary who said they dont owe us anything, you are right. He did not only a thing, but i do want you to know that i did clean homes, i did have to babysit, i did have to do a lot of hard work in order to earn my way to be here. If i could go back home today, i would. If haiti was not the way it is now because of those who wanted to bring a democracy to haiti, i would be there. But i cant go back right now. Now, my question for any of you is, its their hope for haiti so i can go back . Because i want to go back . What is the role of the United States in regard to the globe, but specifically in regard to haiti . You see, today, i am a graduate of fei you, with a degree in disaster management. I worked hard to be where i am today. I am a teacher, i educate students. I wanted to be here. I took off two days from work to be here. I wanted to have a voice, so i do want to say thank you to everybody who is here and whatever way you have paved a way for me to be here. I want to say thank you because i did not want to be here, i was 19. So, i know there is a long line, i dont want to say thank you to those who have exhibited compassion and love and mercy and grace and for mr. Scary, its okay, i just will play for you. Thank you. Thank you. , i appreciate your willingness to pray for, me i can use it but i dont think you really understood what i was saying. I dont know many more about your particular situation than what you described but i did not say we dont owe you anything, i dont think that we owe anything to patients particular situations in haiti that americans may be complicit, and i would have to know more about your specific situation, but i am not opposed to the notion that america has obligations to publications that are endangered around the world, i did not emphasize that in Central America, like general kelly when he was the head of Southern Command acknowledged that we had given the wars and our drug habits. I think he misunderstood what i was saying, we do have responsibilities to people around the world, especially people who are impacted negatively by our policies. Mister scary, i understood, im educated, today i am. Today i am understood exactly what you said, and its okay. I just want you to know. That but i do want to say thank you to mr. Gomez for mentioning the haitians, because there was a lot of talk today about venezuela, cuba, iran, everywhere else except for high. High eighties right around the corner and you know what . Its okay thank you. No its not okay. It is not okay because you are suggesting that i did not really have any sympathy for somebody in your situation and that is not true. It is not true. I do not want to be singled out the way you singled me out, because you did not listen to what i had to say, and what i said as we have substantial responsibilities, but they are necessary limits than what i was hearing from some of my fellow panelists where that there were no realistic limits being put forward and if we dont have realistic limits we wont have anything, because we will get the reaction from the American People that we have right now, which contradicts what you may think i am not happy about. On the haitian issue the, very quickly. Is there hope for haiti . Hope is that we keep fighting. The only reason that there is temporary protected status today for her rations or else salvadorians, its because the federal court are still open, and the federal courts are keeping it alive, so that temporary protected status exists despite an administration that wants to close off programs that are still needed, and it took decades. In the 19 eighties, patients were just label as economic refugees and they were not. It took decades of fighting in the court, to finally get due process, and even today it is a joke how haitians are processed in our immigration system, and so the truth is we still need to fight and the courts. We need access to the courts. We need just courts. We do not need stat courts by people who pass litmus tests to just support the values of the people in certain type of legal organizations that only want certain rigid values forced. Thank you, im going to take a step and says very succinctly say as there is hope for her uv because of people like you. You have worked hard, you have built yourself into something formidable, as an educated person. You play a role in this country and i have no doubt you can play a role in haiti as well. I think there is hope for haiti. Let us take it over on the side. Is this thing on . Okay great thank you. Hi my name is nicholas Eli Velasquez and if i you i have a very quick question for the panel at large about account possible immigration compromise. Presently there are over 700,000 Doctorate Recipients in this country. I myself have the Great Fortune of knowing one of those individuals on our team and that individual is very limited and has access to opportunity due to his status, and a lot of these daca kids noise however i find it very disturbing that we can taken these immigrants without first addressing these daca kids that are already americans, essentially. Theyre integrated within society and speak english and you think there could be a possible compromise between both parties, to limit our of immigration as we are integrating those Daca Recipients . Okay we will take that question and take one more question, and then i think we will have to start wrapping it up. Out to paraphrase your question, is there a deal to be made . Is there a political deal to be made . Where we deal with those who were here already in the dhaka, and we put off the immigration. You want to take a few . Hello good afternoon my name is kimberley agustin. I have International Nations and Political Science degree from if i you im the prefers person to have that degree. Neither of my parents even finish high school, and speaking about immigration makes it very personal, especially here like in miami. The narrative of immigration is always right now, in this administration, seen as the border and something that is taking a lot of money from American People. But immigrants put a lot of money into this country and this country needs immigrants and coming to this country is not easy, and coming to this country as someone who has aspirations that narrative is never publicized as much. So you have the image of immigration as people coming here and wanting to take something. Most immigrants come here and give something back, and in more cases than i know, more immigrants are not going back to our countries because we cannot, or to go back to our countries we were struggling, or we are seen as a threat and our own countries, and could be a target. So you are here now working and putting into this country that you have to defend yourself to the very people in this country that dont see you as american. But when you are outside of this country, this is the only place that looks inviting. It looks like you can be an american but when you are here, you are met with so much opposition as an immigrant, so the question is how can you go about changing that narrative so that people see immigration in a positive light . I have not met an immigrant yet that has not been putting something positive into this country. Thank you. Lets go one more over here and then that will be the last question, im afraid because were out of time. It will come back to the panel. Yes michael opus part of the United Nations team. The question isnt specific to miss messy mean. You asked do our Immigration Laws makes sense and they serve our best interests . What do you believe would be the legal and constitutional repercussions a federal immigration allowing states to follow suit with their own immigration policies, taken into consideration seventh amendment. Tradeoff between dhaka and other immigration. I dont think we need to do that. The dhaka for childhood arrivals was an administrative acts action that Obama Administration took. It is one of countless fixes to a broken system that is like a bandaid that is not going to fix the system. It is to try to alleviate the unfairness and pressure on a system that is fundamentally broken, and it was not a fix it that really ended up giving and i think the Obamas Administration knew this was not going to be permanent because it was not an legislation. I do think that there is a core consensus in the country and even in the congress that hes most of the kids, still, but young people, are an asset to the United States and ought to be protected. So that is where we should start and work from. Again, right now the system is so dysfunctional that it cannot solve any problems but, we will get there i am quite confident. Changing the narrative, was the last thing, right . I think that the narrative is changing. The dreamers there are lots and lots of people who know anybody who knows immigrants has a positive immigrant story. It is just a fact. Even people who are spouting trump like anti immigrant xenophobic racist will say, of the immigrants in their community, well i didnt mean that guy, not the guy that runs the bakery, or the dry cleaner. No he is part of our community. But i mean the legal people. So, somebody in the Previous Panel said one of trumps greatest assets is american ignorance, and that is where we have to do a better job of raising of the narratives that exist and communities around the country. Oh, and the federal that was the last thing. Do i think one of the solutions in having more power over federal Immigration Law at the state and local level . I dont. I think it is quintessentially constitutionally a federal issue. Particularly it is one of the things that the government exists to do, which is to you got police borders, and im not sure that you know it is quite heartening, wet and pointed out, about when you ask states, do you want more immigrants . Do you want refugees . These are people if you are starting a country from scratch, you want them on your team. So, maybe we can start to end on a positive note, which is, people in the world vote with their feet. The fact that people want to come to the United States, we should start to get worried when they dont want to come. I guess thats what im saying. Thank you very much a lisa. We are out of time i know there is a couple more things to say here. And i would like your idea let eventing on a positive note. So what i would like to ask each of you to do in very very short framing, give me when recommendation that you would like to see our country do now . Something that would make a positive difference in the way we handle any of these issues that we have talked about. But give me one concrete recommendation. Well start to peter and work our way down to an. There will not be a deal in the near future but there should be a deal with dhaka. But more generally, i would argue political realities to one side, that we ought to do something about the 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants in america. We are complicit in that. They are here because we let them be here, because we want them to be here, we should make them illegal. Thank you. There is a precedent for a solution of bipartisan solution and that was in 1998. You had congressman diaz billet and congresswoman carrie meek and you had her refer, which was the haitian refugee immigration, you have the american central real effect it wasnt just about nicaraguans, it included people from all soviet and it was a bipartisan solution and it included elements that would allow perspective solutions so that people could also include their immediate relatives. The dream act has a flaw as many of it has. Its not perspective. Any Immigration Law that does not have a perspective solution has a major weakness to it because you are not addressing the problem you are just creating to morals problem at lisa raised the refugee acceptance ceiling to be commensurate with the Global Crisis so that americans could credibly lead fully fund the Immigration Court system that will enable restrictions current restrictions will like that it will make it such that people who are entitled to relief will get that were waiting for years and anxiety worrying about their families thank you and i also agree that 18,000 refugees per your coming to the u. S. Is a ridiculously low number and we should change that immediately we should have a clock ticking with temporary protected status whatever numbers you want at that point that the clock is off seven years 12 years if people still cannot go home at that point they can stay for good because they are so clearly part of our communities and at that point and i are,. , greenlighting the word out about how we. Benefit. And how other countries can benefit from being more. , openminded about immigrants and refugees,, good examples like lieu kyle chobani,, who hires refugees he was in a. Mayor immigrant who came this country. And now everybodys eating chobani. And he is hiring people. This is an issue that is extremely competitive just understand. It has political and security complications. Human rights and moral complications, domestic and political complications. Thank me and joining this panel. applause . See spans washington journal live every day with news and issues that impact you. Coming up Tuesday Morning we will talk about the democratic president s show some of the super tuesday states and discuss super tuesday with the managing editor of the university of virginia crystal ball kyle conduct. Washington journal life at seven eastern Tuesday Morning. Join the discussion. Heres a look at our live coverage tuesday. On cspan the house is back at 10 am eastern for general speeches followed by legislative business that new. Members are considering for bills from the House Foreign Affairs committee, including one that would condemn continued violence against civilians in the Central African republic. Then in the evening, campaign 2020 coverage includes the results of super tuesday, which has the remaining democratic president ial candidates competing for pledged delegates in 14 states and one u. S. Territory that gets underway at 7 pm eastern. And cspan to, the senate is working on a Geothermal Research and development and not