Next, todays White House Briefing with press secretary mr. Sarbanes sarah sanders. She discussed President Trumps tweet criticizing new york senator gillibrand and denied it included sexual innuendo. His is 35 minutes. Sarah good morning. Hes here to provide a briefing on the attempted suicide bombing in new york and how it was enabled by flaws in our immigration system. After he speaks and takes your question, ill be back up to answer questions on other news. As always, if you can stay focused on the topic at hand, that would be great. Hanks so much. Hello. Im here to talk to you about yesterdays incident and give you some of the context and perspective in the immigration system, how to works or how it didnt work in this case. And what are the sorts of things that our administrations proposing to change to make it better. As you all the know, yesterday, the suspect was arrested in an attempted bombing in new york city. And theres an immigration aspect to this. The immigration aspect is that he immigrated to this country. He was a green cardholder. Lawful permanent resident. He came to this country based on a Family Connection to a u. S. Citizen. Mr. Sicc mr. Cissna the u. S. Citizen in question was his uncle. That u. S. Citizen many years ago came to this country originally as a visa lottery winner. So this is the general background. I now want to try to explain what all that means, where those terms come from. What the significance of all that is. First, i would explain that for those who arent aware, our immigration system has two principle components. Theres a familybased component. Through which the suspect in yesterdays attack, it alleged bombing incident, came through. And theres an employmentbased component. In any given year, we have about one million immigrants. One Million People come here and get green cards, immigrant visas. In fiscal year 2015, for example, of that one million, about 72 of our immigrants came based on a Family Connection. And only 6 or about one out of 15, came based on employment or job connection, job offer. So you can see the immigration system is heavily weight toward family migration weighted toward family migration. There are other categories of people who immigrate as well. Including refugee, asylumees and the visa lottery people i referenced. Those are very small compared to the two larger categories. I want to talk now about these in particular. The familybased, employmentbased and the visa lottery. In the familybased migration category, there are multiple kate categories of people categories of people. The principle categories are called immediate relatives. These are people who are the spouses or children, Nuclear Family members of u. S. Citizens. In a given year you have about half a Million People in that ategory. In fiscal year 2016 in that category, these are people who are the Nuclear Family members of u. S. Citizens, there were about 566,000 people that immigrated. Additional category in the familybased universe are what are called preference categories. These are more extended Family Connections. Unmarried the first category. Unmarried sons and daughters of u. S. Citizens. Second category, spouses of green cardholders. Sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Thats the category that yesterdays suspect came in under. So, suspect in yesterdays bombing came in under the most extreme, remote possible familybased connection that you can have under current u. S. Immigration law. That being the child of the sibling of a u. S. Citizen. Under the employmentbased categories, thats a much smaller number. Only 140,000 slots are allocated in a year to that category but you really only get half that number of actual workers. Because the spouses and children account toward that. There you have a number of categories including categories for extraordinary ability workers, you have people with advanced degrees. You have people who are skilled professionals. And immigrant investors. Multiple categories. But much smaller number than the familybased categories. And again, i remind you. Only one out of 15 of our immigrants come in under those skilled categories. Let me turn now to the diversity visa. Which is the other visa program that is relevant to yesterdays events. The diversity visa or visa lottery as its called colloquialy, is a program that was established back in 1990. There were precursor programs before that. But basically the program as we know it was established in 1990. That lets in about lets in 50,000 people a year based on immigration lottery. The qualification for registering for the lottery are that you have to be from a country that had low immigration, in previous five years. And the person who is applying for the lottery has to either have a High School Degree or, if they have no education, at least two years of experience in a job that requires two years of training. So the criteria are very low. The problems with the visa lottery are various. First, because the criteria are so low, either you have no education at all and very little skills, or you have a minimummed of education and no skills at all. And because its a lottery, pretty much anybody on the plan whote is from a equal fige country can take advantage of this. The state department in 2003, the state departments Inspector General office observed that this low Eligibility Criteria could lead to exploitation by terrorists. They warned about this in 2003. The g. A. O. In 2007 echoed that warning. Again, warning that terrorists could take advantage of the Diversity Visa Program. Also, the program is racked with fraud. In 2003 the state department i. G. 15 years ago noted that the program was ripe with pervasive fraud. The fraud, the low eligibility standards, all this contribute to its potential exploitation by terrorists and other actors. Bangladesh is an interesting case. Thats the country where yesterdays suspect came from. That country was a high user of the visa lottery program. In fact, in 2007, which was the peak year for that countrys use of the visa lottery, the 27 of the immigrants from that country came through that program, through the visa lottery program. Uzbekistan, the country of origin of the alleged the truck driver from october 31 in w york city, in 2010, 70 , came through the visa lottery program. So that program was used as a prime avenue for immigration for many countries. Finally, let me touch on the subject of chain migration. When i use that word, what im talking about is a person who comes to this country and who in turn employs one of these many avenues that i just described. Principally familybased. To sponsor relatives who are in home country to come and join him or her. Because the categories that we have that i just described in familybased migration is so expensive extensive, its not just Nuclear Family. You also have, as i say, adult unmarried children, brothers and sisters, hes ins and nephews. You can nieces and nephews. You can sponsor a person like yesterdays alleged terrorist at the extremity of that chain and then that person in turn can sponsor people and so on and so on indefinitely. Hundreds of thousands of people come into this country every year based on these extended family migration categories. And it is my view, it is our administrations view that that is not the way that we should be running our immigration system. A system like that, that includes Something Like the Diversity Visa Program, these extended family categories, are not the way anybody would design them gration system if we were to start from cratch today this immigration system if we were to start from scratch today. We want to be able to select the types of people who are coming here based on die their criteria that assure their success. And random lotteries, extended Family Connections, thats not the way to run our immigration system. So i appeal, we appeal to the congress as they consider these matters, as we speak. And in the coming weeks, to seriously take into account these concerns that we have with the way the immigration system is structured and its vulnerabilities. Nd correct that. At that point, my formal comments are concluded. I would answer any questions ou have. Reporter is there anything the president can do on his ownby executive action, by executive order to change the process for either chain migration or the visa lottery . Mr. Cissna well, i mean, thats something were looking at right now. In uscis, my agency. Which is the agency that administers all these visa programs. There are some things that we could do. There are some things that the president has directed us to do by executive order. In particular, with the temporary visa categories. Were talking about green cards here. But if you look at temporary visa categories, yes, there are a lot of things we can do and were going to do, for example, to increase protections of american workers. In the green card could he domain, its a little harder domain, its a little harder. Congress has occupied that field more densely than it has in the temporary visa area. But there could be. There could be some things we could do to clarify how these categories are administered, yes. Reporter theres so much talk about daca legislation right now. Do you think any daca bill would have to be tied to bring in a meritbased system . Mr. Cissna well, we about two months ago, the president announced his immigration priorities. You can find it on the white house website. Its a long list of about several dozen priorities that we, career officials at d. H. S. And at the other relevant immigration agencies, at the time i was a career official, came up with, things we need to be able to do our jobs. In that list there are these fixes that im talking about. Including getting rid of the Diversity Visa Program, because its just it just degrades the integrity of our immigration visa programs generally. Ending chain migration. These are all things we have suggested in the priorities that the president s advanced. So we hope, we hope and expect that congress will take those priorities seriously and well do will do as much as they can to accomplish the goals we set forth. Reporter [inaudible] the president signs a daca bill, it has to have a meritbased [inaudible] mr. Cissna i cant speak for the president s priorities on what he does or doesnt want in a bill. I know what i want is something that i can implement and that i can implement well to get at the priorities that weve set forth as something that we need to do our job. Reporter would you be in favor of extending the blanket travel ban as far as the countries that are concerned . Such as bangladesh, which isnt on the list currently. Mr. Cissna my position on that is that my agency needs as much information as it can get from these other countries to vet and screen people adequately to ensure that bad actors dont come into the country. To the degree that that can be done, under the executive order , the protocols established by the executive order, im all for it. But im not in a position to prescribe whether the blanket ban as you put it should be extended or not. I want the information that these countries can give us to screen people. Reporter how do you deal with people who have been here for yorse and then become radicalized once theyre here . How would any of that deal with what happened in new york . Hed been here for many years. Mr. Cissna two points. The criticisms that we have of the Diversity Visa Program and the chain migration, in particular the Diversity Visa Program, the vulnerability to exploitation by terrorists, because of the low Eligibility Criteria, and because of the prevalence of fraud, thats not changing. Thats a sad fact of that program. For that reason, regardless of when the person became radicalized, i just want that door shut. Because its a vulnerability, its been recognized for 15 years. With respect to that person in particular, and what do we do of people who radicalize afterwards, my agency in particular is focused very much so on ensuring that immigration doesnt stop when the person gets the green card. Its an ongoing process. I view it that way. I think that we have well, i mean, because what you want is an immigrant to become a citizen. Citizenship is in the name of my agency. We ultimately want people to naturalize because naturalization is one of the best signs that a person has full where assimilated and its also, once fully assimilate the and also, once you naturalize, its a guaranteor of success in society. We want people to naturalize. My agency is seeking to do everything it can to ensure people are enabled to do that and succeed in that quest. Reporter is there a timetable on it . Reporter to follow up quickly, is it your understanding that the suspect was radicalized before he came here or do youity it happened here . If it did happen before he arrived, then something was inherently missed. Mr. Cissna i have no idea. Reporter can you give us any idea of where he [inaudible] mr. Cissna i have no idea if he was radicalized at all. I dont know about that part of the investigation. Reporter you just said that because of the criteria, how low it is, that chain migrant immigrants, or diversity lottery immigrants are more susceptible to being selfradicalized. Do you have data on that . Mr. Cissna no, i think my point is if you have immigrant visa programs where the Eligibility Criteria are low to nonexistent for even an outright lottery, youre not going youre not selecting for the types of people, according to that we want in this country, according to criteria that will ensure their success in our nation. That len sure that they will assimilate well to ensure that they will assimilate well. Reporter i get thats a matter of priority, you want to select immigrants. But you seem to be saying that these kinds of immigrants are more likely to become terrorists. Mr. Cissna no. What im saying is that if you have a system that doesnt select at all, or is barely selecting anybody, we dont know what were going to get. Its better if we take an active, affirmative role in our immigration process and establish criteria that correspondents to things that we want to see in our immigration pool. Reporter data shows that immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than nativeborn americans. Other than these isolated incidents, is there any data behind this plan . Mr. Cissna i dont know that i agree with your first point. I dont know where that data came from. But i cant comment any further. Reporter incarceration rates would be exun example. Mr. Cissna thats a bigger debate that i dont know that we have time for here. Based on my questioning the validity of the premise of your question, i dont know that i want to engage in that dialogue at this time. Reporter does this Administration Believe him that grants are more dangerous than u. S. Citizens . That immigrants are more dangerous than u. S. Citizens . Mr. Cissna i dont know that anybody has said that. Reporter i have you saying with the Diversity Visa Program that there is a certain vulnerability because of the low Eligibility Criteria. By that i think you mean because theres no Higher Education standards required, i mean, what is it that makes these people more vulnerable to radicalization and becoming terrorists . Mr. Cissna well, theres two parts to that. The my criticism of the Diversity Visa Program is the Eligibility Criteria are next to nothing. And theres a random element to it to it. Reporter you said vulnerability. Mr. Cissna right. Its vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists because the criteria and the ability to fraud the system. Fraud is pervasive in the program. If you want to use that program to come into this country, its easy to fake a High School Graduate certificate. Reporter the suspect was radicalized approximately 2014. He entered the United States in 2011. So that is why so many of us are asking these questions. It sounds like you are implying that u. S. Intelligence or Homeland Security missed something. Mr. Cissna im not implying that at all. Im just talking about the immigration program. Im not talking about this one guy. Reporter [inaudible] at screening out terrorists. Youre saying when they get here, because these people are more vulnerable, if they come in on this program, they are then subject to exploitation more easily . Mr. Cissna no. What im saying is reporter were not whats the next to us terrorist . Terrorism . Mr. Cissna if you have a visa program that is easily exploited by malified actors, including terrorists reporter [inaudible] mr. Cissna he didnt come in on the visa lottery program. He came in as be a extended familybased immigrant. With respect to the Diversity Visa Program, which is also at play here, that program is at the state department and i. G. Found 15 years ago and as the g. A. O. Confirmed in 2007 exploitable by terrorists or malified actors because the criteria are so low and easily faked. And its a lottery. So on multiple levels its an open door, its problematic. It needs to shut. Thats what im saying about that. With respect to the individual in yesterdays attempt, i would say i dont know. I dont have a command of the facts relating to the investigation as to whether or if he was ever radicalized d. What im Say Something if you have any sort of visa program which is normally minimally selective which is based solely on chance or lottery or low Eligibility Criteria, then we as a government arenting could our doing our job in picking the people that come to this country in a competent and careful and intelligent way. And if were not doing, that bad guys can come in. Reporter are lottery winners vetted . Mr. Cissna yes. Like any other immigrant. Reporter so its an intelligence failure. Mr. Cissna i dont know that theres any failure. Yes, last question. Reporter we know from