Various infection agents. This is a process. Revolution has increased productivity in enormous weight. It has leveled off. There will be problems. We will have to increase in significant ways. I have seen commentary from people that suggested it would be substantial increases. I am not sure. In the interest of time, i would like to take three more questions. This gentleman. I am bob. I have adhd. This has been very challenging. I do not understand a lot of scientific staff. I have a short question. Tobacco ise fda said healthy for you. It is good for you. Thank you fda. We believe you. That is not a question. That is a preface to my statement. [laughter] wrong. To me what is andave weeds, we have tests are yields not five, i appreciate the drought resistant crops. We want to increase our yield. Toxins,ed poison roundup, on our crops and their cotton to kill the weeds and the pesticides. Is this correct . The court, we or the cows and the animals digest the products that have these super with pesticides. Is that going into us or is it not . Residues ofting the the roundup. We are consuming roundup. Your kids are consuming it. Is that not true . All sorts of pesticides, including roundup will stop one of the problems with them increasing is the fact that large amounts of the same crops are being planted without a scattering of other crops. When you get past, there is a huge feeding ground. There are lots of ways in which modern art or culture has become agriculture has become very reliant on pesticides and fusion mounts of fertilizers. On water usage that is unsustainable. There are a lot of problems with this operation. The use of gmos is part of the solution to the. You can deal with a number of the past issues. I do not think that jeff would that if you were to roll back from our agriculture, mechanized production, you would have food issues. Is not just an accident that we have gone from 60 of the population being engaged in far more to a larger percent of the population. That is why we do not have global hunger. This,t to respond to because of the crops, the weeds become resistant to what farmers use. Because of the herbicideresistant crops, the u. S. Uses 570 Million Pounds more herbicide just because of the gmos. Cropssecticideproducing reduces the amount of right by about 150 Million Pounds. The amount of pesticides produced in the cops that crops itself is double per acre that which is displaced. We eat that pesticide when we eat the corn. We consume the herbicide and pesticide produced by the corn kernel. The amount produced it has not gone down. I want to take one question over here and now we will go way back in the corner. The demographic here is fairly akin to mine. We have on 11yearold back here. I will encourage everyone to patronize local restaurants. I would like to have a little bit of detail. I am hearing and will a lot of differences. There is so much going on with regard to getting gmos and those products labeled. You have people organic community. There has to be huge difference between me going and buying something that is labeled nongmo and buying something that is organic. You mentioned something about. He popcorn not being nongmo but you see the verified nongmo label. Clarificationome of the differences between oabeling of nongm. The question is the difference between organic and nonlabeled gmos. If something is labeled 100 organic, it potentially does not use gmos. , it iss 95 organic nongmo. If it says it is made with organic soybeans or something similar, it has to be 70 organic. There is no required testing in organics. There can be contamination in the sea or the field. It is possible to buy it without even knowing it that it is contaminated. Nongmo project has testing requirements. They have a 0. 9 threshold. Sometimes you will see organic and nongmo projects on the whole package. That is the gold standard. Organic has other attributes. There are many benefits. The other thing is this. Roundup is being sprayed on weeds and barley and rye and tomatoes and 100 different types of fruit and vegetables. It is being absorbed into the crops. If you want to avoid roundup, then i organic is best. If you see organic and nongmo products, that is the gold standard. It is tested. Organic has been around a lot gmo. R than gm oh as far as understanding this, it is virtually impossible. And youon the site, think it sounds interesting, and then you read the other information. That makes sense. It is very difficult. There is a whole pattern here of confusion. To thinks very simple that gmos are awful. Thee was a book called product is confusion or Something Like that. It is about how you create uncertainty about these things that people do not know what to believe. It is difficult. That is the way it is. Not as of gmos, but any number of these things. You get into the technical arguments and it is impossible. One of the aspects of that is looking at peoples credentials and using common sense about what their motivations might be. I apologize to those of you who saw hands up. Questions, perhaps the gentleman will tell you after the program. I want to go to this young lady. Cracked it is hard for me to because i also have adhd. I have one question. Are gmos good or bad . [laughter] the question gets to the essence of the question. Are gmos good or bad . You might think that is a planted question. That is my daughter. She is a 10yearold. I think there is not a problem of gmos. They are neither good nor bad. It is a process. As i was saying before, you can use genetic modification of things that create are really horrendous and you can use it to create things are beneficial. We need to think about that. As an issue with the labeling. Frankly, before i was thinking about it, and this is a few months ago, i thought it made a lot of sense. But when you start thinking about it as a project, and jeff has said a lot about food i would like to know. I would like to know what food uses pesticides. I would like to know whether that food has been growing where people are paid a living wage. What country does it come from . What youre asking for is an inventory of the entire food system. It would keep track of all the processes involved in producing something that we eat. You can say, lets label that. It is hard when you start getting into processes to deny someone who want Something Else incorporated on a label. Notreason the fda does support that is because Food Labeling is supposed to be about health and safety. Feel thateel, they there is not a health or safety issue associated with the process. There is, in terms of what is created. That is why testing is involved. Is an excellent question. I think that gmos she is good. We may beat someday able to manipulate genes individually i know what is going to happen. One gene could produce one protean and that is exactly how works. It is very easy. They realize that genes are networks and it is extremely complicated and it is getting more complex the more they look at it. Genetically engineered to mess up the dna pretty substantially right now. They do not even know how to test to see at they had done something wrong to human health because they do not know all the different laws of nature. I would say that. It is certainly possible that this process will become reliably save. Right now, i am confident that the process of health is too fraught with side effects, two new, and it was rushed to the market before the science was ready. It may be a Significant Health problem that we are facing. Im not even talking about the environmental impact. Everything that was sent to you tonight is mentioned in a book online. It is very easy to read and it looks at all of the talking wind that points. Points. It shows what the truth is. Recommend going online it is open source. You can read it and you will recognize many of the statements that were made tonight. You will see the scientific clarification. That there is a lot of Wishful Thinking about gmos. A lot of promises have been made that it will feed the world. They have not actually turned out to be true. Very quick, this idea of talking point. One of the reason that some of these things may occur as arguments again and again is that they are actually right. Many people are saying these things. They are not using them is talking points. The same arguments are made generally because they are well thought out. I think it is a little disingenuous to say that you have nothing against genetically modified organisms if they were tested enough. I have heard the same thing with environmentalism and other stuff. Not you personally, but everything is being done to prevent the kinds of testing that you would require in order to certify that something is safe. It is absolutely impossible to prove that something is safe. You cannot see any damage from it, given the kinds of tests that are done. You cannot make that proof. When field trials are ripped out by activists and when it is made very clear and difficult to do testing with these things, it sounds good to say, we love it, but it is not ready to stop when we accept it, but it is not quite ready. That is an endless path and we will never get there. It is a very high ground to take. The reality is that the world is racing forward and we cannot stop. All sorts of things are being introduced that have enormous implications. We do the best we can. Wisdom and knowledge have their own cost. Thank you everyone for being here and being so involved stop i did not see anybody nodding off. You were a great audience. I want to think or for their expertise and passion. It has been a privilege to be here. Next on cspan, a forum on immigration policy. Then a look at the state of the u. S. Gambling industry. And the iraqi ambassador previews elections. For over 35 years, cspan brings Public Events directly to you. Putting you in a roman at white house events, briefings, and conferences. And offering gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. We are cspan. Created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago. Brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. At a forum on immigration policy, political analysts examined the Obama Administrations record on immigration. Minutes. N hour and 20 welcome everybody if i can ask everybody to make sure your tune off your ringers turn off your ringers. I hope this will be eyeopening to many people here. It is on a hot topic in washington. The obama immigration and. Nforcement the president has not followed the law. Given them pause that he is a trustworthy partner. This is central to the way republicans are approaching the next few months and whether we will have an immigration bill not. Or this is a hot topic. There are dreamers demanding it did return to the country. The issue of what has really with border and Immigration Enforcement is really the single most important , and we are really pleased to have with us three experts from across the political spectrum, people who are well sides,d by people on all independent thinkers who have done a lot of work. There are no newbies here. We have a lot of new data. Been the mostways transparent institution. They have put out new data that has helped give a brandnew window into many of the issues we have been talking about to give us a fresh perspective and a new look at old topics. Any of you who worked on this issue no mark well. He has been a longtime thinker and leader in this arena. Next week they are publishing what will probably become the definitive take on this. Mark is going to preview a little bit of that but not all. He has to save some for next week. To mark is going to lead us off. On thisbeen working issue and has been a great collaborator. Whenever we have questions we call ted to make sure we are getting things right. Lastublished this pamphlet year on illegal migration to the border. He will offer some thoughts complementing what mark had covered. Finally, jamar jacoby and a great friend of ours who comes from a different perspective, a leader from the centerright for Immigration Reform. I want to applaud her for her courage and steadfastness and trying to bring along a part of our politics that is not always anxious to move in some of the directions we want to go in. Immigration works as a network of Small Businesses we have been advocating for a solution to our broken immigration system. We are glad she is here today. Then we will open it up for q a to all of you. Mark, want to take it away . Thanks. Thanks for having me and everyone for being here. I will give a preview of the todings and encourage you check out the full version later. Im going to focus on the three key trends in the deportation system. The first is that u. S. Deportations, the system has moved from one that focuses mostly on informal returns to one that mostly employs formal removal. Let me explain what that means. When an unauthorized immigrant is apprehended they can be deported in two main ways. One basically means the person is put on a plane and sent home. The alternative is a formal removal. It has more significant longterm consequences. It means they become ineligible for a visa. It also means if they get apprehended for the u. S. In the future they can be subject to criminal charges as a result of that removal. 90 five percent of everybody apprehended in the u. S. Was supported through informal return, put on a bus and sent home. Last year that was earning three ercent. Thats a big change. There is a lot of confusion about whether this administration is setting new records for enforcement. We are talking about deportations on one hand and formal removal from the other hand. In terms of deportations the overall numbers are down. There are a lot fewer unauthorized immigrants coming to the United States. There are fewer people apprehended at the border and fewer deportations, but because such a higher share are getting removed they are setting alltime records. More than ever but not more deportations. The difference matters a lot. It is significant. Focusing on those removals, previously, almost all formal ,emovers involve a judge involves going before an immigration judge in having a chance to seek relief. Now most are handled exclusively by dhs. In 199597 of the people removed went to a judge and had a chance to seek relief. Last year 25 went before a judge. It went from three percent nonjudicial to 75 nonjudicial. Unauthorized immigrants are being charged with criminal offenses. Been a law on the that crossing52 the border without permission is a crime and being in the united istes following the order also a crime, but those were rarely prosecuted in the past. I think very rarely in 1997 about one percent of people apprehended at the border faced charges. Last year the number is 25 . Those criminal charges matter because when you are convicted of a crime you go to jail. You have a criminal record. You become for the rest of your life a convicted criminal, so thats a big change also. Recap quickly. We have gone from informal returns to mostly formal removal. We have gone from mostly judicial removal to mostly nonjudicial. We have gone from mostly not facing criminal charges to increasingly facing criminal charges. Longterm trends that go back to the mid90s. The Obama Administration inherited programs and funding that supported those, and he kept all those in place. All of those trends have continued. All three of them have accelerated under the Obama Administration. Thats a broad sense in which the administration has been very tough on Immigration Enforcement. The other thing the Obama Administration has done is create new, explicitly articulated enforcement forrities and guidelines prosecutorial discretion. What that has done is while keeping in place enforcement tools, this administration has focused on priority cases. Cutting to the bottom line, that enforcement. In in the interior, they are not getting these guidelines. Focus on Border Control. Administration tend to want to have it both ways. They want to gather and record measures of progress, but they want to claim constantly to be making progress. What do you do if the measures dont seem to show progress . That has been a real problem. Broad story is of progress. Fewer people trying to cross the border than any time except the early 1970s. Our Research Suggests the odds of being apprehended are much higher than in the recent past. If you go back to the 1980s and the 1990s, you have only had about a one in three chance of getting caught. You would get put on a bus and taken back to mexico. Today at least 50 , probably higher. Much of that is an economic story. A weaker u. S. Economy, fewer people trying to cross in the somewhat stronger mexican economy. There is little question that robust border enforcement is making a difference. It actually does better does matter that we have 21,000 compared to 10,000 a decade ago or that we have 700 miles of fencing, that we have aerial drones monitoring 24 hours a day. All that stuff does have a real mpact. Why do they claim the border is hopelessly porous . Some of it is there are places along the border were there are still high levels of crossings. If you go to the crossing at texas, and if you are a landowner you dont feel secure. Successive administrations have done a poor job of gathering administration. Obama came to office established effectiveness was operation and control. This was largely based on the patrol. Of border it measured capacity to respond effectively and to encourage them at different places along the border. It was a problematic measure for many reasons, partly because it relied on those subjective judgments. There are still very remote parts of the border where you see agents. They came out with a report that 44 , and that became a ightmare statistic. They decided to stop using operational control methods. I supported that decision. I thought it was a good idea. Their effort to find a replacement was badly missing. It was designed to throw together real estate values along with traditional come upent metrics and with an index. It never saw the light of day. The result was the administration didnt have measures to tell a story. What it fell back on was the apprehensions data. There is the number of arrests by the Border Patrol in any given year. There are individuals arrested multiple times. 1925. Ta goes back to Border Patrol has been taking fingerprints. We know there is recidivism. Is very goodion but hard to interpret. If they are making more arrests, is that a mea