Conference on Immigration Law and migration at the u. S. Mexico border. Kevin mcaleenan was scheduled to deliver opening remarks, but left the stage after being interrupted multiple times by protesters. This portion of the event also included a Panel Discussion on immigration policy and the 2020 election cycle. Good morning. This time, im interrupting you, for real. Good morning, everybody. We will to those of you in the room and work on those to you joining us on cspan. I am the president of the migration policy institute. So long with our partners, catholic legal integration clinic endorsed down law, we are very delighted to a commute to the 16th annual policy confronts. Do you get a we will in a moment from executive director but i wanted to join with clooney and also thinking for hosting us and once again for this meeting to go to the dean slave trader, and to all of the staff that were involved in putting this together. Our team has been involved in putting this together. There are people here onstage, so thank you to all of you as well. In 16 years, our organizations have connected this confronts we work very hard to bring a richer way of viewpoints on current rates and mitigation and law and policy. From policymakers and the federal state and local loophole level, from experts and academics, from journalists and Service Providers from advocates and from Law Enforcement leaders as political strategists and many others. Today, you will hear voices from across the spectrum and from different vantage points, and you will not agree with all of them, but every aspect of immigration has become so polarized, we believe firmly it is more important than ever to hear directly from the keystone stakeholders to question them for a thoughtful, civil, and informed dialogue. So again, welcome, and we look forward to a full day of engaging and provocative discussions. Let me introduce the keynote speaker for the day, acting secretary of Homeland Security, kevin mcaleenan. He became acting secretary at the helm of a 240,000person agency. The department is responsible for everything from cyber security, to emergency response, travel, prevention of terrorism, and more. More importantly, dhs is responsible for many of the most crucial aspects of immigration. There are component agencies, u. S. Order and customs to action immigration, and customs enforcement. Before becoming acting secretary, secretary mcaleenan held important roles such as commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and director of one of the largest field commands. Secretary mcaleenan received a president ial award, in 2015, the highest Civil Service award. A decade before that, he received a medal for spearheading efforts for a post9 11 comprehensive antiterrorism strategy. He holds a law degree from the university of chicago. Immigration is as contentious, complex, and polarized a subject as exists today. Dhs and acting secretary at the center of that with changes in asylum policies unfolding, cooperation agreements with mexico and Central American countries will be reshaping refugee policy. We will discuss that at length. I know youre eager to hear from secretary mcaleenan and importantly, to be able to ask the secretary questions during the questionandanswer period following his remarks. I will turn it over to you, secretary mcaleenan. Secretary mcaleenan. [applause] sec. Mcaleenan thank you. [protesters chanting] when immigrants are under attack . What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. When immigrants are under attack, what do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do when democracy is under attack . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Ok. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Please, that is enough now. Thank you very much. We hear you. This is a forum where we respect free speech, we respect your right to protest, but with respect to the audience, that wants to hear the speaker, lets save the rest for the q a period. [protesters chanting] thank you very much. Please be seated. We would like to hear the speaker now. Please be seated. Jacqueline, age seven. Carlos, age 16. [protesters chanting] please, please folks. Jose ramirez vasquez. This is enough. [protesters chanting] please be seated so we can hear the speaker and engage in a dialogue. Please be seated. [applause] mr. Mcaleenan . Sec. Mcaleenan good morning, everyone. [protesters chanting] sec. Mcaleenan thank you for the kind introduction. [protesters chanting] what do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. That is enough. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Children are under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Please be seated or take the protest outside. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. We hear you, we hear you, we hear you. We hear you, we hear you. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. This audience is here to engage in a dialogue and listen to this speaker. [indiscernible] nikki henriquez. Melissa ramirez. [indiscernible] it is time to finish this. You are robbing the rest of this audience of an opportunity to engage in a dialogue that is important to have on a university campus. [applause] please, please. People are being robbed of their lives until we hear, we are not in a conversation. So, lets stop the oneway street, listen to the speaker and have an exchange. Thank you very much. Lets try again. Sec. Mcaleenan ok. I want to thank the migration and sza, the georgetown law migration institute, the georgetown law center, the immigration network, for the opportunity to join you today. What do we do when immigrants are under attack . Stand up, fight back. Immigrants are under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Could you please have some respect for this audience who came here to listen to this speaker . Democracy is under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Democracy is under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Sec. Mcaleenan one more time. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. And in fighting back, lets have an opportunity to engage with people that are making the decisions. Please allow the speaker to make his remarks, and this audience, who has come here for this purpose, to hear and engage. Please. You may stay standing, but please stop shouting. [applause] sec. Mcaleenan thanks, doris. We will give it one more shot. As a career Law Enforcement professional, i have dedicated my career to protecting the right to free speech and all the values we hold dear in america, from all threats. So, we will go ahead and try one more time. But otherwise, i am going to go back to work and keep trying to secure this country. [protesters chanting] sec. Mcaleenan [indiscernible] [protesters chanting] sec. Mcaleenan you can post it on your web. Colleagues, you are invoking democracy. Democracy requires dialogue, it requires listening, it requires a twoway street. The secretary has agreed to take questions and answers. We are robbing time from the period of questions and answers. Could we please listen to his remarks and have a chance to question him, including those who disagree with him . Sec. Mcaleenan ok. Last time, team. Lots to cover today, some very serious issues we can talk about. In candor, in a real dialogue, or we can continue to shout. What i would like to start with is i would like to take our dialogue this morning above the politics and the daily news cycle and talk about the challenges and efforts we face we faced over the past year, but also given this is primarily an audience of Immigration Lawyers, advocates, and law students, its also talk about some of the fundamental issues we face in the current Legal Framework and its ability to address largescale Immigration Laws. [protesters chanting] children are under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. Democracy is under attack. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. What do we do . Stand up, fight back. [applause] you have denied democracy. The wrong place. [applause] are you prepared to say for the rest of the confronts . Yes. Then please be seated so that we can continue. All right. It is 9 30. Our next panel was to begin at 9 45. They will begin in five minutes after we have had a chance for toa gallagher, the director make some opening comments and get this conference off on other elements. Good morning. My name is anna gallagher. I am the new executive director of catholic Legal Immigration network. Here in the d. C. Area, and im very pleased to be here. Before i give you my brief welcoming remarks, i would just like to note a few things. We understand and appreciate your concerns. We all have years of history and working in the immigration and refugee world. In the United States, abroad, in sending countries and receiving countries. So, we appreciate your concerns and understand them. We are disappointed that we could not use this opportunity to raise questions and ask the secretary to explain why this administration is doing what theyre doing. I appreciate your point, it is the right point, and i think it is the wrong place, because i do believe most people that are here wanted to hear and answer questions. And to question. [applause] miss anna now, i would like to take those minute to officially we officially welcome all of you and to thank you for attending the 16th Immigration Law policy conference. As the new executive director of clinic, this is my first opportunity to cohost this conference, and frankly, its a great honor for me. I have attended several of the conferences in the past and i was always impressed and moved by the speakers and walked away with both questions and some answers. And appreciate it and feel honored to be here. Im also appreciative of longstanding institutes that have been with this conference. Im especially pleased to be sitting at this table with these individuals. It is more important than ever, that all of us with an interest in a fair and just administration of our laws, come together to actively discuss what is happening now and what we can do. So, i welcome you all and i look forward to a robust discussion during our question and answer period. So i will now hand it off to doris meiser to introduce our panel. Thank you very much for being here. [applause] thanks, anna, i will do a little changing of the guard here now. [whispering] doris ok, once more, good morning. Good morning to my panel here. We those of you oh, usually put the names on both sides. That is actually one of my favorite problems about being a speaker, that the names are outside and you dont know where you are supposed to sit moses unless it is printed on the other side. So, good morning, my name is doris meiser. Those of you have been regulars at this conference will know what i will say to those who are new to this conference, and that is for many years, the first panel of this gathering, has been what we call a state of plain. In the state of play, we try to talk about what is current and what is the state of the immigration enterprise and the state of immigration Politics State of immigration politics, events, and developments. And every year, it gets a little bit more interesting and a little bit more charged, and i guess we certainly miss that standard we certainly missed that standard this year, havent we . We have a terrific panel here of people that know politics on both says of the aisle as well as people that cover these issues, so let me quickly run through the speakers. And then, we are going to have as much of a conversation as we can. Im going to ask questions. The panel will answer panelists will answer and there will be time at the end for the audience for participation. On the left is a former speaker for policy and trade council. Paul ryan was a speaker of the she was a speaker of the house of representatives, she is now with agent gump. Next to her is ms. Braley who is president of Community Change action and Vice President for Community Change. And this is the new job. So we are welcoming her to her new post. As the organization you might have known the best is the center for Community Change which is going through a name rebranding. Delighted to have you here and in this new role. Next is immigration correspondent at the houston chronicle. Who has been very much on the frontlines on these issues. On these issues in her reporting. And then there is, of course, somebody that we all know and have such high regard for, julie preston. Julia, of course, is now contributing writer at the marshall project. The most of you will know her as the longstanding person immigration person reporting for the new york times. I think you and i here are the grayhaired people his table because we have been at this for a very long time. And that is exactly why we wanted julia to participate today. She has been a faithful audience member at these meetings, so she knows this job very well and has a perspective that very few others can bring that are here with us today. Let me just make this opening observation and that is going to ask two sets of questions. Questions that have to do with the border questions and to do with the politics of immigration as we go into a president ial election year. The issues that have to do with the border obviously are self evident. There is so much that is taken place since we met last year, just thinking back when we met last year, the caravans hadnt even began. Suddenly came the caravans and then came all of the visibility that surrounded them. The increases in the numbers to a very high loophole. A very high level. Peaking in may. The dismantling, basically, basically the countries asylum of the countrys asylum system. So there is so much to talk about. It has to do with the border. We cant cover all of, it but it is at the top of the state of play idea. And then of course, where the election is concerned, we know President Trump believes deeply that he won his presidency largely on issues of immigration. We have every reason to believe that immigration will continue and recur as a center stage issue in the reelection in 2020, so that of course is extremely important as wale. Im going to begin with the questions with our journalists. I am going to start first with julia for the reasons that i talked about. Im going to say that julia you have covered this issue and have followed it for decades. So you really do have perspective on how things have evolved. I wonder whether you could start us off with some observations about the degree to which the current era is different from what youve seen in the past. Or maybe its not different. Maybe it really is what we know, which is that immigration has been contentious. And maybe this is simply todays version of it. Talk to us about that. If there is any observation that you have from what it is you have seen that just happened, feel free to share that as well. Julia thank you very much, doris and andrew, for organizing this important in debt every year. Its such a fantastic gathering of people who care about the immigration system. Thank you very much. So i see some continuities between President Trump and bath and past administrations, but mostly very stark differences. Lets talk about some of the similarities. Border enforcement. I think that the president s the president s rhetoric about a porous border and billing the big beautiful wall and building the big beautiful wall obscures the fact that border enforcement has been strengthened and fortified with persons and border agents, surveillance technology, military style equipment, more enforcement, since basically the 1990s, and particularly on the end of the Bush Administration and president obama. There is a lot of continuity despite the rhetoric about the porous borders. There is a lot of continuity in terms of border enforcement. In terms of interior enforcement, i think its always good to remember that by the department of Homeland Securitys own statistics, president obama deported almost 3 million people. So, the history of permanent punitive family separation in the forum of deportation, its not new with this administration. Theres a legacy there from president obama that i think is possible to forget about in the current environment. I think on president bush, under president bush, president obama, and now congress has failed spectacularly to take on this take on its responsibilities to address the just extremely damaging, increasingly damaging dysfunction in our immigration system. The immigration system is to meet themy view, labor needs of the country, to live up to the United States humanitarian and responsibilities and obligations, in failing to failing to achieve the social imperative of the uniting and preserving and strengthening immigrant families, and congress has just been awol. Through several administrations. Its good to remember that. And also, in the absence of congressional actions, maybe something thats interesting for you, both president obama and now President Trump in a very aggressive way, have been tempted to use executive power to tinker with the immigration system in the interest of creating more deportations. And generally, this kind of executive tinkering if thats the right word, has led to a cascade of unintended consequences and more chaos in the system. The example i would point to, there are many examples of this. The example it would point to is the effort to speed up deportation proceedings for certain people in the immigration courts. It started with the rocket docket on president obama. There is a certain law of gravity or physics in the immigration courts, so that when we speed up one case, you have to postpone another. This seems to be a basic equation that seems to escape the notice of the executives who want to somehow gin up these courts to get deportations done faster. And really, all its done is create increasing chaos and increasing backlogs in the and a situation today we have more than a million cases in the backlog of the immigration courts. Its really a catastrophe in the courts. Am i staying that President Trump is continuity or that this is somehow more of the same . I am not staying that. This is a radica