Just on serving immigrant in texas both document specially undocumented and, you know, the fun any thing a little bit of a paradox because we talk about Immigration Reform and we talk about need for something to happen so that these people come out of the shadows and we can get the full economic benefit but given the problem unless the law changes to do something about that and my guess is we are going to have to continue to spend money to protect, one thing that we advocate for for immigrant both documented and undocumented and we are very strong about making everybody aware that theres this problem with immigration consultants, so those are the numbers that i have for you and im just very grateful that we texas baptist get to do this kind of ministry because, you know, it puts us in contact with people we are not dealing with obstructions, these are real people, these are the strangers among us and and they have work and they have dignity and we have to do as a Christian Organization as texas baptist do anything that we can to care for them and protect them, so thank you very much. [applause] before i turn to a first question, im also looking to receiving questions up here from all of you on the floor, i just want to think for a moment, reflect for a moment on the importance of religious voice in this effort. One of the important voices in washington is something called the Interfaith Immigration Coalition where members of the jewish faith, we often gray to the floor the notion of remembering that you were strangers in the line of egypt, and we speak about that and to be mindful of the stranger and to see that he and she are well treated and a concept that we share with baptist, with catholics, with muslims, with many faith groups working together to try to bring so thank you for that testimony. So i want to turn to the issue of the notion that somehow immigrant are taking away jobs from americans and perhaps play a little bit of a devils advocate since we are in unison here. The one commentator that said the problem is not that undocumented immigrant are taking jobs that americans wont do, the commentator said they are taking jobs that americans cant do because of minimum wage laws, laws having to do with safety and workplace and labor laws and employers are in effect of hiring people in a way thats not in conformity with the laws that thats actually cheaper and that we in a way we are seeing the benefit in our some place in the economy of cheaper prices but equitable thing to do and its one of the reasons why the jobs are not are not being taken by americans because we are dealing with jobs that are not being done in a proper setting. On top of that in this now famous wall street journal article earlier, famous in this room anyway, we were told that as the arizona economy recovered, first depassed Immigration Laws, they had bad economy at the time so it wasnt clear what the impact of that was going to be but they began to feel shortage as the economy began to improve and what they found, what this article reports happened is that there was a worker shortage and that wages rose about 15 for arizona farm workers, these are legal residents between 2010 and 2014 according to bureau of labor statistics and some employers say their need for workers have increased since then leading them to boost and their ability to expand. In terms of boosting wages more rapidly, i guess the question is whats wrong with that. Thats the question that i put to you and anyone else. Ly start as you directed to me, richard. Obviously there are people who abuse the system. Theres no question about that. It happens and its unfortunate that happens. Thats not the typical situation. Basically some of the folks look in lowerwage industries. A lot of situations they simply are not there. Thats a situation thats a situation where we find ourselves in. The numbers as you know, a lot of our friends at pew center, 75 plus of these folks are paying withholding, income tax, social security, you know, its not a case of of what a lot of people perceive it to be. The other thing put on the subject and its important to recognize because i will throw a couple of the numbers, we agree on and put them together for a minute. In texas we have roughly 12 million folks working, our population 27 million give or take. So somewhere around for every worker theres two and a half people. Thereabouts. Populations 1. 6 and 1. 8 undocumented folks. Workforce is 1. 2. So if you takes. 6, thats one and a third, if you takes. 8 is one and a half and those folks are counted in our state population. They actually bring that average down to be about two and a half if you take them out, okay. So you have two and a half versus onethird and one and a half. These folks are coming here to work. They are coming here when jobs are available and in demand. If its one and a third people, that means every worker, theres only one spouse that comes in for every three workers and when you Start Talking about children its even an lower number. Its not a case of one of the myths that you hear, a person comes in, spouse, seven or eight kids. Those numbers dont hold up. You dont get one point six million if thats the case. The number dont hold up. These are people who are respond to go a labor market and responding to a labor market shortage and the situation did occur in arizona where wages did go up but also the situation in arizona where they had a pure worker shortage and they could not get things to be built. Again, its a balance, its a balancing thing. If we have Immigration Reform would it raise wages, probably so, is there anything wrong with that, probably not. But you have to keep in mind very much function of supply and demand for workers, they simply cant get the people to do the jobs. You have to ep keep it in balance. I will jump in here on that. I will hold it up. I think its a great first question and im really excited about. There are problems with immigration system, thats why we are trying to fix immigration system. There are bad actors in immigration system whether they are people taking advantage of people with immigration fraud, whether they are paying to work for 5 an hour, i get up every single day and what we hear they find problem with immigration system, you guys just want more immigrant. Hold on a second, we were are trying to fix the broken immigration system. Let me explain what i mean by that. There are people who are in the Construction Industry paying people 4 an hour with no benefits. Well, the people that are paying 4 an hour to are often put in the position do i call the police or do i work for 4 an hour or whatever it may be. I work in this space as somebody im a jew who grew up in st. Louis, missouri, the idea if something happened up that i couldnt pick up the phone, the idea that if saw a woman assaulted, if i would not pick up the phone because i wouldnt want somebody to be deported was never part of my experience growing up, but by denying people legal status, people outside the law, they dont have the protections of these things, whether thats bringing, whether that is not being paid a minimum wage, whether its so many things in life. So i think the important thing to keep in mind here is what im advocating for is to put everybody in a level Playing Field so you dont see that. You look at that arizona study, what you see in there is when you remove huge numbers of people its economic disaster, if you look at mass deportations proposals right now there are two study that is have come out in the last six months, 11 and a half Million People would cause 892 million. Put that in a context, we can do x, y and z, a hundred billion dollars to go to the month and took ten years to do it. It would cost us six to nine times to remove this population and have a 2 trillion Economic Impact according to studies on what this is. There are bad actors in the immigration system. We need Immigration Reform to put everybody in a level Playing Field. People can come here legally. Thats whats so important. The last thing about the wall street journal story when you read it, and this is what so hard in the immigration debate, there are two groups senate for Immigration Studies and the federation for Immigration Reform, if you, you know, they like to say that they are antiimmigration, the full removal of the undocumented immigration, they would like to call a tenyear pod, thats all. Quite frankly if you go back, it started by groups in 1970s. But they get printed in the wall street journal as groups who want to care about border control. To get you an idea about how the fight that is we see, these are the people that we fight every single day, so okay, let me ask this. Just one thing. Part of what we need to recognize is that as we treat undocumented immigrant or others in ways that diminish their incomes, diminish levels of education, et cetera, what we are doing is really diminishing our own resources, Human Resources as a competitive nation. So you see, for example, if you look at poverty rates for just taking hispanics because we dont have as good a data for all undocumented immigrant, just hispanics because they have a larger portion of the people who are undocumented at least in places like texas who are hispanic, but you find their incomes are 20 to 30 to 40 less an average. Poverty rates two to three times as high. High School Graduation rates, High School Levels of education that are 20 to 30 or more as a whole. So as we as they get into jobs and sometimes we could say as we put them in jobs of that nature we actually create a situation that has a potential to make an society on an ongoing basis less competitive so we are really not doing a terrible thing to them, we are, in fact, doing terrible things to ourselves and to our society and to our economy as we go forward. Thank you, let me i have one more question and im questions coming up here in the front and really has to do paper which paints the picture of not only absolute numbers of immigrant increasing but the percentage has been increasing over time and so one issue which is how do we treat the undocumented here now that they are treated humanly an coming out of the shadows and then theres a futureoriented question of having done that, whats the policy for the future, the favorite lawyers question, whats the limiting principle if 41. 3 million immigrant is good, maybe three times the amount is great. Is there a limiting principle in terms of what we should be advocating for in terms of numbers of immigrant that should be coming into this country . I dont think i have a good answer for that. I dont know what that number would be. Certainly as our population ages and our workforce is aging, we are going to have increased demand for additional labor and its most likely that that labor, certainly it cant come from people who look like me because we are just not going to be here. Im sorry to say but we are literally dying out, okay. In a broad statistical. What we had at stake in immigration is really to extent nature, but we really have a stake with them, our own future and our future economically and otherwise as well. Do we have questions . So the first one is basically points and statistics, i certainly agree with that. Since politicians are spreading hatred and misinformation, what can we do to get the real facts to the public. I just wand to remind everybody we are a nonpartisan organization. [laughter] any particular party for that matter, but, you know, in terms of principles can be done to more effectively get information, the kind of information we are hearing here tonight out in the public. First let november happen. Its been identified as a core issue that can inflame emotions and like to get people involved. Right now i tell people i get all of these questions, what happens to x, y, and z proposal, i wont mention any names, who the person is, bottom line is, none of these proposals make sense. The second thing is to take comfort in that, none of the proposals are going to happen. [applause] [laughter] and you name the candidates, i could explain that to you, i promise you. So anyway, from either party, doesnt make any difference. Unfortunately its become an enflamed issue and i think its tapped into theres been a lot said about anger. People are looking for somebody to blame for whatever their life is not quite what they think it should be. Lets blame these folks, maybe they did it, who knows. I think theres a lot of that going on and we have to get to the election, i do things that things like this form, getting them out there in front of congress. I mean, over time information does impact things. It impacts things in significant ways. It is a substitute. [laughter] and so if you said it long enough and loud enough and with enough passion, i think that the people can hear you and and can help bring about some good and solid reforms in that regard. We have a person who in this audience tonight that have done things like that in the state of state that bring legislation to the forefront and get good things done but it does take i think it takes information and the ability to get out there and thats where your organization and others like it are so important because the issues and the information like organizations like yours are so important. To back what ray is saying, one of the things thats very helpful is simply take real figures and some of the not so real figures and discuss them with the group. You realize that this is the case, this means one of every x of your neighbors is undocumented, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, here are their characteristics according to those one side in terms of how much they work and if they want to work and all kinds of rhetoric, i find those very useful in a kind of almost livingroom kind of situation where you talk that people realize that some of what theyve heard in this election cycle right now joust cannot be true. And i think i think these conversations with people is a very important way to to get people to understand the realities. And im sorry, go ahead. So i cant stress enough if you are in the business of thinking its going get done before the election, then we have a disagreement and i get up every day and my job is to get this done as soon as possible but im incredibly optimistic after the election, let me explain why. I wont mention candidates. If you look at an iowa caucus elector, you win the iowa caucus, record turnout, 61,000 votes, 60 58 to 60 of iowa is selfidentified very conservative electorate, 13 to 14 of the public. New hampshire youre going to see some candidates, people we dont name doing better tonight and as we shift to general Election Year the demographics and politics take over. The general election is getting 2 to 2 and a half percent nonwhite over the years. Its not just florida and california, look at virginia, ohio, look where the growth is coming from, at some point in texas too, we are incredibly optimistic about that. I was saying over here we take the approach of forward when im trying to ask a member of congress, it takes the same approach i would ask with my wife if i was trying to get her to do something that maybe she didnt want to do. You explain to people why its the right thing to do. You tell them whats really important. What do i mean by that, each and every one of you will have an opportunity and go to town hall, see legislator, tell them what the policy that should happen here. The horrible policies we reject those. Give them the economics thats so important. Make it a little easier for them. If they say i need to hear more from the community, surround them with the people who matter, constituents and constituencies who are important. After you try to make it a little bit easier for them. You have to make sure its important. I cannot i just agree so much, the people that are impacted for this i have yet to have a conversation with a single policy maker who will have to look a dreamer in the eye, maybe not publicly but the fundamental problems we face with immigration system, for the undocumented population are so terrible and horrific that if you make if you put the all the pieces in place, putting someone in front of them is what forces people to come up with a solution and i cant stress that enough. Thank you. So the next one is directed specific at jesus and the question is what is the attitude of texas law makers regarding the scammers as you were describing . Is there any support or notion that has to be done about them . Yes, i think actually the attitude is actually very, very positive. We didnt tell you this earlier, but one of the things that we do at the isaac project is we organize 40hour Training Seminar for Immigration Law who want to be eia recognized and accredited. We work with a network of attorney who is come, mostly probono. They are added to this very positive i think we all hate the notarios and i think also the frustration is shared that we are not doing enough in the state of texas. Where it doesnt happen that way. In terms of numbers it is looking out for to 4. 5 million. Thats an estimate and deleted themselves undocumented and or his air u. S. Citizen born in the united states. The president and executive action were designed to prevent this from happening. The president announced 15 months ago that he was going to get temporary deportation. He had been a previously to help undocumented immigrants. Hes expanding it to parent and green card holders, 3. 2 Million People, how many kids they have if theres an overlap. So the astronomical human cost of orphaning, putting in Different Countries is not sending the same in this country. To get a perspective based on those numbers than the texas numbers, as far as the children who are citizens, we estimate somewhere around 350,000, 400,000, Something Like that. Right now today in texas theres 26,000 kids in foster care. You start to compare what this would actually mean. You are talking about depending on which proposals, whether or not you revoke citizenship of 4. 5 million u. S. Born u. S. Citizen. Even without that, the 11. 3 million, i think thats probably the closest paper talking about a population 100 times the internment camps. We use the term awful and absurd because it is important to strap the horrors as well as this completely correct that we do not believe that will happen for political reasons i wont go into. Retired to wrap wrap your head around. Okay, talking about deportation practice, what are the understandings for the relationship between the u. S. And mexico in terms of deporting illegal immigrants, structurally how does that work different than returning to legal immigrants who come here undocumented immigrants from central and south america. Does anybody want to comment on the mechanics of how this works . Deportation from mexico . To mexico or central and south america. But the relationship of the countries in making that happen and is it different in mexico . There have been some positive changes because it used to be the case for mexican undocumented immigrants being deported and just being dropped outside of our borders, which created all kinds of dangers of this migraine went all the way back to their villages from southern mexico for people who wanted to abuse them. There have been changes that now the government is being more humane and flying people closer to the interior of mexico. That is what i know. I think this kind of two points in terms of distinction. First is the difference between border removal because the population the undocumented population has been near an average for a really long time, they start family ties. You have seen more focused but none preventing people from coming. That is where you see about 75 of the removal. The interior removal and part of that is because the Obama Administration has decided the low security threat. For 15 years has Strong Family ties. The interior versus xt or is a really important distinction and where they are deported and how it goes very much depends on that. One of the things that is important to keep in mind is the difference between the undocumented population on the aggregate in this country for a fairly long time and what were seen at the border right now from central america. Its very important to understand the difference between an immigrant and refugee. There is gray area there, but what you are seeing in the three countries in central america, the northern triangle, countries have descended into gang led chaos and drug war and all these things. You are seeking a refugee crisis, migrant crisis, whichever term you want to use there. You know, that is very different from why we came here in the 90s and you know, the first decade of this century as well. It is important to keep those things in mind here. The deportation policies in the due process put in place there is different as well. That actually raises the summit the Agency Organized last year, the Baker Institute enhanced and had to do with them part looking at the root causes that are driving the immigration from central america. One of the questions we dealt with their and im interested to see whether anybody here have thoughts on it. A site in deciding what we will do with the undocumented here in the future, dont future, dont we need to also be thinking about how the u. S. Policy can help impact the circumstances that are driving people to want to come here in such numbers and then he so if anyone has on that challenge. I think that is enough for the big challenge because there are a lot of people here in the u. S. , for example, better understanding and very accepting of wanting to take care of people that are here. I think theres almost an isolationist than rights of the u. S. Right now. We see it as a political process, so we dont want to get messed up in somebody elses politics and other affairs. I think that is unlikely to go away real quickly. You really have some bad implications domestically as well. I was asked by some groups that are down there to rig the numbers down and talk about the troops on the borders and we have going on right now in texas obviously it has minimal effect. The one effect that it is having and some of these folks are citizens for four generations now carry their passport around with them. Theyve been citizens of this state in this country for four generations. They doubt the necessity to walk around town with their passport to prove they are citizens. That shouldnt be going on. Okay. Let me paraphrase another question, which is really responding to the discussion of the positive role of undocumented immigrants in our economy. The question in fact is what is the message being sent by that. Is that in effect encouraging people to come undocumented if the argument is being made that they have a positive Economic Impact and perhaps even more so for educed