Congress be doing about immigration . As always, you can join in on the conversation to social media, send us a tweet at http twitter. Com cspanwj, send us an email, journal cspan. Org , or join us on facebook. We will focus on immigration this morning. Profiles in caution is a cover story on cq weekly. What does it mean into the future of any bipartisan deal this year in congress . Insight on the issue of immigration. There is this jane te last year, john boehner addressed the , talking about taking a piecemeal rather than comprehensive. [video clip] the American People are skeptical of comprehensive bills, frankly, they should be. The only way to make sure that these work this time is to address these complicated issues one step at a time. By doing so we give the American People confidence that we are dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way. Makeconfident that we can progress on this important issue. That was the speaker of the house, late last year. The president will be addressing immigration and a number of other domestic agenda items during his state of the Union Address. Story,ociated press which was found in a number of newspapers, including syracuse, new york, had this headline eyes on the prize in 2014, looming over everything is the congressional election. The president s last chance to stock capitol hill with democratic lawmakers. For republicans, this is an opportunity to seize control the senate, rendering the senate rendering the president a lame duck during his final years in the white house. That was the ap story this morning from the syracuse newspaper and in newspapers around the country as well. Jerry, joining us from columbus, ohio, independent line. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to mention that my maternal mother and grandfather came over from scandinavia in the 1890s. My maternal grandparents came in the 1850s. There is no reason, except people that are against a people, whether they are from mexico or wherever they are from, that they do not pass an immigration bill. Is just north of the kentucky line, former slave state, he is not going to do anything that is going to help because he is scared to death of getting the tea party after him. By the way, i wish you would get Franklin Schaeffer on the program. [spells name] he was a conservative republican, but he says there are not any now. Born in switzerland, he helped whats his name, john mccain, his campaign two years ago. The ways fed up with that the party is being run. Thanks a lot, have a wonderful day. Host thank you for the call. Gary, columbus ohio. The u. S. Congress of catholic bishops issued a statement to parishioners. Here is a portion of what is being distributed to churches around the nation. Congress should examine the root causes of migration, like underdevelopment and poverty in third world countries. The antidote is Sustainable Economic Development in those countries. Migration should be driven by choice, not by necessity. The next call is bill, for michigan, on the line for independents. Good morning. Caller code good morning. That is the key to the whole thing. Legal immigration. We do not need more bills, we need to enforce the laws that are on the books. Enough terrorists taking our jobs as it is in this country. Enforce the laws on the books. If they are illegal, we need to kick them out of here. Of illegaling immigration, that is the topic of the piece that we found late last year by janet hook. According to a study, there are 11. 7 million Illegal Immigrants in the u. S. The number of Illegal Immigrants may be on the rise again. The new estimates from the most recent status recent statistical data shows that the population did not climbed, despite record numbers of 400,000 deportations each year with steppedup border enforcement by the white house, as well as laws to crack down on illegal immigration in arizona and georgia. That story this morning is from the New York Times website. Rene, independent line, good morning. Caller i do live in los angeles and an africanamerican. So disgusted by congress, this governments lack of enforcing immigration laws. We are being overrun by Illegal Immigrants. I feel like i am in mexico. They are coming over here and getting free education, health care, welfare a lot of them. I am frankly sick of it. I feel that the president , if he does not get what he wants, will sign another executive order. If he does, i think he needs to be impeached. That is all i have to say. Republican line, pennsylvania, bob, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I think that all the members of congress, democrats, republicans, independents, should look up the word illegal in the dictionary, write it down, and send it to the president. Because he seems to have a misunderstanding of illegal and legal immigrants in this country. He should be made to enforce the laws that are on the books. Thank you. Peggy for the call. This piece comes from ira mehlman, townhall. Com. Republicans follow the money or their conscience in 2014 . Follow the money, that is the sure way to trace the roots of political disaster. Mass that hasry shaken the country over the last century, avoiding a political disaster if john boehner decides to force through a package of immigration bills that includes amnesty for illegal aliens and massive increases in illegal immigration. The primary reason that they might move, perhaps the only reason, is money. Lots and lots of it. Granting amnesty to millions of people who broke our laws and occupied millions of jobs within the economy, consuming billions in public resources, failing every test of good public policy, not to mention basic common sense. Katherine, democratic line, ohio, good morning. Caller first i want to say i am probably the biggest fan of c span. I watch everyday. My comment is clear. People who hire people who they know are here illegally, i do not want to call them illegal aliens, they are people who came here to do a job, but if you are an employer and you have chosen to hire someone who is undocumented and you do it because you can higher than cheap, then what should be done is they should be prosecuted, they should be fined 10,000 for each person that they hire, and they should be given one year in state penitentiary. The minimum wage should be 15 per hour, that way a person who purposely hires people who they know are undocumented, they know that if there is a cost that things will pay, change. John boehner is not far from where i live and i have absolutely no confidence that this congress will ever do obamacare. Her than thank you very much. Have a good day. Host thank you for the call. Next is john, from sebring, florida. Republican line. Caller the 14th amendment, these illegals that have these kids, they are not citizens of the United States. The 14th amendment was about slaves in africa and slaves coming over here from africa and having the rightofway in here. The rightofway to be citizens. They have interpreted this law all wrong. Second, if they want to make any laws, look at mexicos laws. They put them in jail, not in their country. There is an amendment in this country, like 40 million. If they want to write another law, put the book but the board room in there and protect , making sure that it is protected. For the callou from sebring, florida. Time magazine, looking at 2014, the kissing on janet yellen, expected to be confirmed this week as the next fed chairman. Ben bernanke officially steps down at the end of this month. The pieces is called the bank stops here. Also available online. Abc news and nightline, focusing on what happened to those who crossed tried to cross the order in did not make it. This is courtesy of abc news. [video clip] slab in the county morgue, where hundreds of unnamed immigrants and their desperate quest for an american life. It falls to this interpol a just, working among the dead, to tackle the huge task of identifying the remains of men and women who died crossing the Mexican Border over the past three years. It is important for us to think about the human cost of our border today. Keeps athe hall, she solemn locker room. People carry a lot of religious items with them, like rosaries. Many prayer cards. To me it indicates that you are planning for something where you need extra protection. She keeps a book filled with those hardluck cases. Cases where the family has called in and they have not found someone yet. They do not know what happened. Their son or their daughter calls, saying that their parents are crossing the border tomorrow and if they would call, but the call never comes. Host that was earlier this month on abc news, nightline. Looking at immigration and those who died trying to cross the border. The piece from the New York Times, pointing out that most Illegal Immigrants come from mexico. Good morning. Caller good morning. I will not get into the issue of illegal versus legal, but i want to say straight out that i think ,. Need to put immigrating in my opinion, i think that i came over in my immigrating period. I came overn because my mother got involved with an american g. I. To me, in my own observations of how things have been all along with immigration, america has not done a good job of integrating immigrants. From looking at all the ghettos that america has had. Thattoday you can see there is a lot of isolated pockets where every time immigrants are brought over here through like a war vietnam, for example. I went to vietnam. Right after that ended in 1971, 1972 thomas when i came back from over there, 1975, although the knees a vietnamese came over and were brought into california and now you have pockets of vietnamese it are still located in those areas. Same thing with koreans. Same thing with lots of other minority groups who came over here. I dont think we integrate these people very well. I dont think we welcome or make them a part of the country. Because of that, america is still this constant ambiguity of conflict between various races. I think that what we need to do is to stop immigration for a. Of time, let us settle down, let people eat them immigrated. Let us settle down to the point where we can feel that there is time again for immigration to occur again. Thank you very much for making your call from oregon. If you are just joining us are just tuning in on cspan radio, we are focusing on one of the agenda items that congress is whaty to debate, although it dubs remains to be seen. What do you think the house or congress should do on the issue of immigration . You can join in on the conversation by giving us a phone call. We have a line for those of you watching outside the United States. Tweet, also send us a http twitter. Com cspanwj, or an email, journal cspan. Org. You can also join us on facebook. Writing on the weekly standard, not only have republicans seen the recent poll opportunities, more than any bloc of voters in the country, they will not Pay Attention to republicans until Immigration Reform has moved forward with gop help. It is a door opener. The whole notion of republican decline is based on hispanics voting overwhelmingly democratic, but conservatives are opposing any change in the laws to legalize the status to enter this country illegally, even if brought here as children. Republicans do not need to champion the bill passed by the senate, but they would benefit from taking a step or two in that direction. That was fred barnes, with a look at the year ahead for republicans. Rhonda, joining us on the line for democrats this morning. Would first of all, i like to say good morning, america. I would like to say that we need to stop this. Number one, they come over here and they get on these federal Government Programs that are offered. Most of them, which i know for a in there being abused federal government and could be used in other ways. They also go to college and get education for free. They buy businesses. They cannot even speaking wish in our country. And that is just a few of the things i would like to say this morning. And that is all i am going to say, other than god bless america, the home of the land that used to be the home of the free. And that is all i want to say this morning. God bless america. God bless everybody here. Host thank you for the call. From louisiana. Onitical note, swearing and saturday, later this week, the governor elected to the commonwealth of virginia, the newislative in legislative session. This piece is called man in a hurry. Frantic pace ahead of the inauguration. Also, the passing in boston as tom and he know is stepping down as the mayor of boston. Letting go is hard, that is the story of the front page of the boston globe. Republican line, mount vernon, good morning. Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Go ahead, please. Caller they could solve the problem by putting the mayor to military on the border. Solving the problem real quick. , the entrepreneurs, shouldlthy entrepreneurs go to mexico in teach people business savvy. And get caughtco as an immigrant, they will throw me into jail for two years. Years. D it again, 10 but the government will not do this. All they want is the program. They have more programs than we have. Thank you for the call. Rebels and al qaeda forces from beirut, lebanon, battling al qaeda affiliate fighters across the Northern Syria zone in an attempt to stem the sudden rise and influence of extremists, who have staged attacks from baghdad to beirut, putting down an tribes, revolt by sunni some of whom have linked up with militants to force significant , battles onent days both sides of the border signaling the increasing ,roblems in iraq and syria emerging as one of the regions. Ost powerful players yesterday Iraqi Government troops fired shells into falluja , overrunning fighters. Massachusetts, independent line, good morning. On the issue of immigration, what does Congress Need to do . I wish that the people in the United States would open their eyes to the problem in front of us. Corporate america is taking all of our good jobs overseas for cheaper labor and they are bringing cheaper labor into the thatry to do all the jobs apparently americans wont want to do. They keep the wages depressed. People are not realizing that they are taking over every aspect of business. It has to do with Corporate America, and they own the government. Should take the immigration issue out of the governments hands and put it act in the states hands. People would not decide to give away all their jobs. As for the Companies Taking businesses overseas, you know what . All of these companies, they should be there should be a fine on these companies, there should be some way to take these countries they should have to live in the country where they bring their businesses. Host let me go back to the numbers that we referred to from the New York Times. 1. 73 million immigrants, 400,000 deportations, those are the most recent figures, though the number has declined in recent months. I mention that because there is a related story from the Orange County register website, talking about the trust act and the new year bringing the trust act into focus, the trust act insuring that people with mostly lowlevel nonviolent offenses are not held for deportation purposes, including minimum standards to allow for penalty convictions and those accused under certain circumstances. Allowing for holds for people with highlevel misdemeanor invictions within five years federal court. Looking at it Illegal Immigrants and the issue of convictions and charges against those in this country from the Orange County register. Republican line, good morning, welcome to the program. Caller i am a democrat. Theme Say Something to American People. I dont think they understand history. Texas, california, new mexico, at one time they were part of mexico. There is also the question of economic imperialism that we practiced for decades on south america and mexico. We have historically practiced discrimination against the people of mexico and south america. Justice,d any sense of than you understand that we need to step up and correct what we have historically done to these people. Thank you. One of our tweets from a viewer host again, this statement from the conference of u. S. Catholic bishops issued over the weekend. Is sandra,ext call joining us from napa, good morning. Good morning. Host you are on the air. Go ahead. Caller i wanted to say without sounding cruel that in one of the heavily house areas in california is here, we have thousands of hispanic illegals who work in our protected byare the wineries. They give them hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have a church that gives them sanctuary. And of course, our hospitals cannot turn them loose. Our neighborhoods we have for that even the law calls barrios. They should be not trample on here. The call. K you for vivian has this point on our twitter page host a close observer of congress, david hakeem, his pieces out this week Worst Congress ever . Not yet, says thomas mann, but so far there is very little competition. Let me just share with you what hakeemawkings rights writes. When the modern recordkeeping regime was instituted way ofgain, as a comparison, president obama signed 72 measures in the first year of this congress. Good morning, welcome to washington journal. Caller good morning, steve. Good morning to all the cspan listeners. What is going on here in atlanta, we have these employers, these labor brokers who bring the workers in, pacified through contractors. There is legislation in the where theyeorgia just refuse to let it out of the subcommittee. Are beingle misclassified and exploited by employers. It hurts legitimate businesses here in the states. They keep the beat. Until legislation comes into the Congress Passes it and the president signs it, we will continue to see this problem. You for the call. Viewers on the tweet host again, you can send us a tweet, [video clip] send us a tweet, http twitter. Com cspanwj. Agenda itemse being outlined later this month, the president re