[applause] he completed the 2012 ironman North Carolina in the 2016 which raised over 20000 for nonprofits. That is amazing. [applause] his first book he will be discussing is america is better than this which tells the inside story of how one senator when no background is immigration activist became a leading advocate for reform of the brutal policies that are creating a humanitarian crisis on the southern u. S. Border. It represents a heartfelt of the concerned americans who believes his country stands for something far bigger and better. Tonight, senator merkley will be joined and conversation with ralph ronald. He is currently the executive producer of Community Engagement of public radio he has worked since 1987 serving previously as news director and Program Director and also serving as the host of the record and awardwinning program the conversation. Among many other programs. Please help me in joining them both. [applause] on there has been so much going n the border just in the last few days, as owners try to catch up on the news i realized it might be useful to begin with what has been happening lately and i wonder if you can update us on what has gone on in the last week or so on the immigration issue. Thank you everybody for coming tonight to talk about this. We are in a very disturbing phase here in the United States of america and to answer your question, i almost have to go back 14 months if you do not mind and that is when i first went down to the border because i read Jeff Sessions speech called zerotolerance and it was six months before the election and not surprising to hear that from a republican. Then i read the details and said this cannot be. It sounds like they are going to tear children away from their parents and that would never happen in the United States of america. So som someone on my team said e way to find out. Go to the border. I thought that is right. So i did. That is when i became the first member of congress to see children who had just been removed from the parents being put in cages and warehouse in an hour later up the road i went up the road because advocates had said the hundreds who have been separated were being warehoused in a walmart. We see something going horribly wrong and there is a lot going horribly wrong but it was just a few weeks later trump held a press conference and he said ive heard it from melania and ivanka. I want to put an end to child separation. The press conference was a complete lie because he wasnt ending child separation, the court just ended it. What was on the table in front of him was an order with three strategies for the imprisonment of children. The strategies were first go to the courts and ask them to reverse the Settlement Agreement that agreement said you have to treat children humanely. That is what it boiled down to you have to provide nutrition and a place to sleep and hygie hygiene. And you cant lock them up in prison for more than three days or 20 days if there is a huge influx. Humane treatment that is what it was. They went to the court, the court threw that out second this legislation that became deeply involved in the imprisonment and thats the regulation that has been introduced. Once theres a regulation to implement it, then however the regulation doesnt implement it. It destroys florez and says there will be no state licensing which is what it calls for, no state inspection window outside groups coming to inspect, which is what they give power to both lawyers and doctors to come in and expect. By the way the requirement that children ought to be locked up in prison if destroyed by the regulation that allows indefinite imprisonment of children. Or perhaps months and years until the adjudication is completed but that is what they are doing. Ive just been reading this week that they are going to deny flu shots to these children in detention. You think about this administration saying we dont want state licensing or inspection because trust us, but th is the president that said im going to block the children from playing soccer because we cant afford to monitor them on a soccer field. I always lock them up without xers eyes. This is the president ial team that said as you pointed out even though three children have died, at least substantially as a result of the flu and there may have been other complicating factors we are not going to supplsupply Data Processing cens customs in touch with centers because we just dont do that in this explanation. And this is an administration that appealed a District Court decision to a Circuit Court because they didnt like the fact that they were required to provide betting in toothpaste and soap. Theres no way we should ever trust any administration to operate without a form of spiritual oversight and there is also talk of perhaps longterm internment camps on the border. The president s team is operating from a premise that has been spoken to the first time in 13 days into the administration following john kelly who was the head of the Department Secretary of the department of Homeland Security and a month later they launched an operation in the san diego sector was an operation done essentially secretly, but the premise that has been throughout from then until now has been if we inflict trauma on refugees including refugee children, we will discourage immigration and they just divided as immorality. I find it utterly evil and dark and unacceptable under any ethical code, religious tradition, moral framework, they justify it by saying that it will deter immigration. It will deter immigration. This is wrong, and its like Lady Libertys torch has been snuffed out. [applause] and i wrote this to say that we have to relight it and restore decency in the United States of america. [applause] working with Jeff Sessions as a senator on the legislation you went and talked to him as the attorney general on the policy and what kind of a reaction did you get . I thought i could have a personal conversation because i knew him, i had worked with him and i have seen how this was unfolding and Jeff Sessions havent really seen it himself even though he was an architect of it. If we deter if we will be helping children when they dont take a difficult journey than they dont face the difficulties of the journey and therefore we help the children so hurting children became helping children in this kind of twisted world. That is a great point. At the premise that people are on the verge of being killed or tortured in a possible war or famine the different policy just doesnt work like that and let me give you an example. There was a woman an in her 50s six day old child limit on the border. Two weeks after my first trip to the border i took a congressional delegation that. On that page two weeks earlier there had bee peo camd out in the heat and bigoted in their seven to ten days because they were allowed but not through the doors of the u. S. Facility. This is utter contravention of the principle of the Refugee Convention and the federal law that says if someone presents themselves on the border asking for refuge, then it is our response ability to provide safe harbor since we were not providing safe harbor we were shoving people back. The Conference Rooms were empty back at the Border Patrol station and the rooms were far fewer people than i ha have seen two weeks earlier. They were at the cross and said when we vote them out so out came gabrielle and her baby in her arms and less than two month old baby. You have no resources or friends or family, you are at the mercy of the gang. I didnt know what to do. I said how did you get here to the american side and her face lit up for a moment because she had beat the cards on the bridge. She said while, i saw there were two bridges, pedestrian and car and there were folks washing windows for tips and somebody had an extra. I went into the road at and watched one close to the United States and one in the United States of america. Those kind of innovating problemsolving in the United States. [applause] you know what happened to her and her baby, did you follow the story . I dont know where she is or what shes doing. She was treated as if she crossed between the points of entry. Where is the opposition to this at this point in the courts or the colleagues in the senate on the republican side who were just concerned about this as your. The courts have been the effective mechanism to stop the administration from doing things time and time again. For example, the administration said we areot going to give an opportunity for an asylum process for anyone who crosses between the ports of entry this is wrong on two premises. People crossing between our crossing between them because they were objects at the ports of entry and they are desperate because they surrender to a Border Patrol officer then to be vulnerable to the gangs and the cities in mexico. The second reason is the u. S. Loss as you cross between ports of entry and you can apply for refugee status. This was a very deliberate part of the law enacted years ago. If they called people sneaking into the u. S. They want to return them rapidly into mexico but new you couldnt do that if they were refugees. It is written right into the law. The president thinks this is a winning policy for him politically. You are in a state with many different people and different views of migration and maybe have encountered them. They might tell you they support this idea of keeping out. What do you say to them . Very few people support the idea of deliberately harming children. Very few. And you asked me about where they stand in the senate. We are deeply divided, and its a result of the pressure of the presidency. He said at a press conference that is what is going to happen, theres going to be legislation so in the senate, there was a senator, two senators that have a bill to allow the unending incarceration of my grandchildren, tillis and cruise and i believe that it was the bill that ha had 40 republican sponsors, essentially 40 republican sponsors giving a thumbsup to reestablishing the system of internment camps in the united gate dates of americ. I couldnt believe that that so many would sign onto the vision. The policy was announced by Jeff Sessions, six months from the last election made immigration like the defining issue for the campaign. And if you think about it, i can characterize it this way. In general, republicans are trusted more on the National Security issues than democrats. They voted for more defense spending and therefore they have a fear factor that will help them in the elections. They looked at the issues from two years earlier. Evil i was no longer feasible because it wasnt scaring anyone anymore. It disappeared entirely reemerged in the remote section. Isis have scared people but thats no longer was a factor because they were mostly out of the territory. The idea of crime didnt really scare people because the crime rates have come way down. The republicans were in charge of all of the branches of government and so what was left . Immigration became the fear factor. This was the conscious strategy of the administration wants to drive that, and therefore it has really disrupted the collaboration. We have democrats and in the Republican Senate in 2013 bit of a comprehensive immigration bill. We had a dreamers bill that was bipartisan and the senate. The first bill that we passed in the senate, the comprehensive immigration went to the house and republicans in the hospital did. This was in 2013. The dreamer bill, the president pulled in democrats and republicans and had all the president s on a tuesday for the cameras rolling over an hour and it was a big bipartisan, bicameral festivity and the president said i will take the heat we will solve the problem to bring me a bipartisan bill and two days later i and the conservative senators, moderate senators went together and figure is the Bipartisan Senate bill and the president threw a tantrum because he had taken heat for two days from breitbart and the conservative side steve miller in his office and he had pulled it so we are deeply divided. We have a democrat in the Senate Holding firm on this. What is to be done quite. I say this because we have to publicize this. We have to have people understand its not just one little piece of information it is a major reason i wrote the book is to take all the visits ive done in these different facilities, all the conversations and try to line up the coherent understandable fashion along with stories of those that are fleeing persecution. So that is what i can do now and that means book groups, conversation, people talking to their neighbors, but in the near future, we are kind of almost there. If deans campaigns because it is through campaigns we can change the incumbent in office and put it Chuck Connell out of control of the u. S. Senate. [applause] they might say when you share concerns about whats happening on the border, we share concerns about migrants coming into the country. What do you say to them . We should work with the countries of north america in the last couple of decades the drug cartels have moved in and the money comes from selling drugs in america and arms come from the United States of america and if those factors coming to think of the gang or drug cartel that has money and guns that means they can ride their way in one strategy and put in your life with another and those are two very powerful instruments and they overwhelmed the traditional institutions of government and justice so if we want things to change for people fleeing death threats, then we are going to have to help the traditional institutions reestablish the control. Thats going to have to be an investment. We should hav have an improved asylum process where there is timely and adjudication in the range of four to six months so that people have enough time with assistance to get the information from their countries to present their case to the asylum judge so that it doesnt go on forever. Democrats and republicans have worked together on making that happen. And when we say what i am arguing for is simply when a person goes to that process we treat them with respect and peace in the way we would want our family to be treated if they were to arrive on the border of refugees, people kind of get it. How Many Americans have ancestors who fled persecution of some form and came here to the United States of america, anand this is something we can really identify with. With. With democratic president ial candidate has the best ideas on this issue . There are some really bad ideas we over here on the audience right, and theres a whole cluster of capable individuals that have very similar ideas. Essentially every senator that is running for office is a member cosponsor of the bill and has the same basic understanding of the issues that is decent treatment of people as they go through. Recognize this. When you go through the asylum process, that isnt a free ticket you have the burden of proof. It means a lot of people are sent home you have to prove a credible fear that you will be tortured or high leve highlevef likelihood that you will be injured or killed. Thats what you have to demonstrate and that is a high test their refugee status. Which one of them do you think has the best stand on immigration issues . There isnt much distinguishing factors right now. You may have seen in the debate and effort to create an argument over one piece which was crossing between the ports of entry. In general, former president s have used the penalty and you get caugh and get a civil penalty and get returned. You solve the debate who proceeded to say there should be no criminal penalty only a civilian penalty, and he put orourke on the defensive on that. You are using drugs across the border. In most cases it is the right way to go. You catch someone and you are returning them across the border so it wasnt a nuanced conversation. Let me put it that way. I dont think a lot of life as a chef on the topic. 19 states have challenged the regulation to destroy florez said they filed with Washington State so thank you very much. There may be a couple more added today so that is the big one. There is another one that is the place to be in flux facilities. We create the centers when theres a lot of people coming up on and we put a ton of children so in december of last year, there wer 2800 in this newly created facility in texas. You may have seen pictures of the desert and the refugee and the children are being marched in single file so there is no comfort going on they have no idea when or if they will see their parents and or get out of the facility. A there was anxiety for children but have no idea what was to become of them. Ahead of the nonprofit he agreed to set up the camp so that they wouldnt be in the holding pens. They are crammed together but he wasnt liking what he was seeing so he started to tell the administration from the inside he wasnt going to sign up for another contract after january. We called for the children already have sponsors and we were told there were 132800 but the administration would not release the children to the sponsors because they wanted to keep them locked up right back to the infected maximum pain inks so they called for those to be released in the shutdown. There is another 2700 from the camps released and they were shut down in january. It had such a Bad Reputation in part because across the country they had weighed in that no other contractor with pickup contract. So, that is a victory. Thank you for the public pressure so many people have added to make that happen. [applause] the administration said we want to increase the size of the forprofit prison in florida called homestead. Basically the same idea that hasnt been applied to the influx facility in the standard. The lead advocate of established when homestead is in a hurricane passedpat