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 theyr