The u. S. Mexico border tomorrow at 6 00 eastern on cspan. This weeks q a. She was so beautiful and smart and also so witty, she was just always irresistible to men. , her 80thd age birthday party, and richard is that this party. Is that thishen party. They were sitting together and she starts to stroke his beer. He said, heavens. I have never before met an 80yearold and i wanted to leap into bed with. She had a vampish quality all her life. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q and a. Debate, analysis of the in congress over Immigration Reform from today washington journal turco. Host crystal Williams Joins us now. After a busy week after dealing with the situation on the border in congress, i want to start with this plan that was passed last night by House Republicans and get your reaction. Guest yeah. Well, the house passed it and thats the beginning and end of it. The funding is, first of all, inadequate and second of all in the wrong place. Its basically military and Law Enforcement funding in response to a humanitarian situation and that just seems very misplaced. What it doesnt do is provide Adequate Funding to take care of the children while theyre waiting for their hearings. Nor does it provide Adequate Funding to provide the hearing. Congress has already starved the Immigration Court system of resources and with this additional strain on the court system, its going to starve its all the more. So its just wrong funding. And then on top of the wrong funding is wrong policy. There is a statute in place, the trafficking statute from 2008 that provides appropriate protections for children and last nights bill would essentially strip those protections from the children. And then on top of that, tells the president that he cant take care of and he cant attend to the immigration status of the people who are here and have been here for many, many years who came here as children many years ago. So its just a completely inappropriate piece of legislation. Its political theater and nothing more and nothing less. Host what is the right amount of funding needed here . Has your group supported any of the bills that have been discussed . Guest the fact is, we find all the bills to be wrong funded. Probably the president s bill is the closest to Adequate Funding but recognize that congress is probably not going to allocate that amount of money. The senate had another money that we think allocated a little bit wrong but that also went nowhere. Host so what does the Immigration Lawyers Association do . Guest were an organization of about 13,000 lawyers around the world who represent clients in the field of Immigration Law. So, for example, going to the border, a number of our members are actually volunteering at the border now trying to represent some of the children who are being put into removal proceedings right now. Otherwise, they represent families, individuals, companies who are trying to navigate our very, very complicated immigration system. Host a complicated system that some Immigration Lawyers have criticized for yearslong backups before decisions are made. But in the wake of some of these recent proposals, also criticisms of decisions that also come too quick. What is your comments on the process and proper screening . Guest it depends on the individual situation. In some cases, a quick move through is all it is because the person is removable. But in a number of cases, particularly with what were seeing right now, there needs to be time to develop the case, to get the evidence, to elicit the story. What we find, you interview, particularly children, the first questions you ask the child, theyre going to be telling you what they think you want to hear and also what they and often what they think you want to hear is not the fact of the case that would enable them to get protection in the United States. You have to build trust. Once you do that and once you get their story, their story alone is not enough. It wont get you far in court. In order to establish a case for, say, asylum in court, you need to get the evidence to back up the story of what they said. And usually when a gang has threatened your life, they dont leave a paper trail. So it takes some time to put that together. So usually its going to be several months to finally put together a case so the standard in some of the Immigration Courts around the country, five years, three years, thats ridiculously wrong and thats the evidence of the system starved for resources, but 21 days is not enough. And you said part of the process is ensuring that every child has a lawyer to represent them in the proceedings. How would that work and how much would that cost just to do that component . Guest it probably the president had asked for 15 million for representation. It probably would cost about double that. But in addition, its not just paying lawyers. Theres a lot of volunteer lawyers already working on this. There are nonprofit organizations that can leverage the skills of other lawyers. So its not just about paying lawyers thousands of dollars. Host were talking with crystal williams with the over recent weeks on this issue. Well start with catherine calling in from new york. Good morning. Good morning. You know, i want to go direct to whos funding, its going to be the taxpayers money to fund these lawyers and everything else. But the thing, you know, who is giving this money to these people to come over . Okay. Because i know that a lot of them tried to find out, a lot of the groups, they get to be involved in it and they get the money from the nations, from tv stations, radio stations, spanish channels, and they send them money over there to have these kids come over. So you should investigate that. Host anything that your group has lookd into . Guest what we do find is theres a whole network of smugglers. And a lot of what has happened in Central America is that the smugglers have been telling families that if you go now, if you get to the United States by the end of june, that you can get a permiso to stay in the United States. So if you pay me 5,000, i can get your child to the United States and hell be allowed to stay. And so there is a whole criminal network in the countries that the children are coming from that are exploiting the fear thats going on there by telling them, oh, pay me and ill come. Where the money comes from, thats the annual income for a lot of the families that have sent people here and theyre saving the money, getting the money from their own families. Some of those family members are here in the United States and theyre wiring the money home. Theyve been working hard here in the United States or they have been working hard in their home countries or other countries, but they are scraping the money together because they are viewing this as their childrens future, mistakenly in a lot of cases. Host this is from twitter, what about funding from the countries to deal with the problems that the kids are running from. Guest that was actually a big part of the president s budget, supplemental request, and that is extremely important because what is going on in all three countries that are the main sending countries is extreme violence and the governments inability to control the violence. And that, first and foremost, is the best cure for this. Interestingly enough, nicaragua, were not seeing children and families coming here from nicaragua, yet, nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America. In fact, theyre going many are going to nicaragua. And the reason is that nicaragua does not have the crime and violence that honduras, el salvador, and ecuador are seeing. So there needs to be some level of care and attention given to controlling the crime in the three countries that theyre seeing this from. Host good morning, burt. Guest okay. My question was i wanted to know who was funding all these illegal aliens be they children or grownups coming across the board. I would like to know why dont you think the money is sufficient to lawyer up all these people because, you know, when youre illegal and youve already broken the laws and youve already come into the country. Why dont they call them illegal aliens as they always have until lately, until the democrats got ahold of the problems. Now they want to call them undocumented immigrants. Host can i ask you, when you ask whether the money is sufficient, are you talking about the house bill from last night. House bill from last night. The democrats and the liberals always want more money but when you talked with the guest in the last hour in the hole already. Host ms. Williams. Guest well, the fact is, we cant just pretend this isnt happening. We cant just say here are a bunch of children and were not going to do anything with them. Weve got to address them. Its not a simple matter. We have treaty obligations. We have obligations as human beings to take care of children who we find within our border. And the interesting part of all of this is most of these children and families who have been coming in, theyre not sneaking in. They are coming to the border and saying here i am. They are presenting themselves. Theyre turning themselves in. In fact, they are trying to follow the law as they understand it. And they think that by coming across the border and turning themselves in, that is what the system is. And the fact is theyre here. We cant just say, oh, go back across the border. Theyre children, theyre fairly helpless, and theyre running away from compelling situations. This is our moment as americans. This is our m. S. St. Louis when in 1939 america turned away a ship of jewish refugees. A quarter of those people died on that ship back to europe. So shameful in americas history. We cant send children back and watch them die and call them a good christian nation. This is our motion and we have to step up to it. Host one place where i understand you wouldnt support a lot of funding is new detention efforts. You have a piece in the hill newspaper saying help not detention is needed in the border where you say that children and families should not be detained except in rare circumstances. Can you explain in guest detention from a fiscal point of view is a bad use of resources. It costs much more money to detain somebody than to release somebody. 92 percent of people who have attorneys turn up for hearings. So if you release someone who has an attorney, thats a better way to get them to their hearing. Host what about those who do not have lawyers and are detained . Guest we dont know yet because thats still in the works. Obviously those who are deta detained, obviously theyre there. In new mexico, there are 700 people detain there had in basically a make shift situation. The officers there are doing the best they can with very little but the fact is its not sustainable. People there are getting sick. Its, like, a school but imagine living there. And once one child is sick, 700 children are sick. Host so where do you put these people if not detain them . Guest the fact is most have been released to family and to foster care or to shelters which are not Detention Centers but are shelters that often are run by churches. There are other places that they can go. And, in fact, many of the children have been sent to exactly those places. Host cathy is up next from montgomery texas on our line for republicans. Good morning good morning. A responsible government keeps order in their country. This is why people issue passports. People like you and barack obama are allowing this invasion and you know the 2008 law is being abused. And let me tell you something else, why dont you tell all you liberals who love all of these illegals who are taking all of us sick by the way coming in here illegally, set up some tents inside of the white house, you and barack and everybody else go feed them and educate them. We dont want to do that anymore. Guest obviously the caller feels very strongly. First of all, the children are not making us sick. Theyre children. Yes, theyre going to get some childhood illnesses, but your child that you send to summer camp is going to get the same illnesses from summer camp. Again, we have an obligation as human beings to take care of the people who seek help. And call me liberal for wanting to care for children. Ill wear the badge proudly. And i do not understand the hatred that is pouring out for people who are just trying to escape a bad life, who are trying to escape violence and are trying to find something better. Host crystal williams is the executive director of the american Immigration Lawyers Association here to talk to us about the situation at the border and recent legislation that has been moved. You can check them out i dont know line at aila. Org. On the line, we have joyce from florida. Good morning. Good morning. First id like to say good morning, ms. Williams. I think that you are doing a terrific job in caring about these children. And for someone who get on the phone and holler about their country, this world belongs to god and were supposed to look out for everyone and if the problem is the children coming over here, then maybe the United States needs to go over there and see whats going on in their country to make things better for them there where they wont have to come over here. Maybe we need to actually look at some other opportunities for these children because they are kids and they need help. We call ourselves the greatest country that ever is, then why do we have so many problems helping these kids. This world dont owe to anyone. It belongs to god and were supposed to show mercy and compassion to all mankind. Guest thank you. I couldnt agree more. Most of the people that our members are working with are home sick already. They dont want to leave their homes. Its just that they feel forced to leave their homes. And what we can do for them in their homes would be so much better than trying to deal with it after the fact. Really, that region needs to be stabilized. Those governments need to be stabilized, and crime needs to be gotten under control in whats calmed the northern triangle, the three countries were seeing the influx from. Host peg has a question specifically about arizona. Why did arizona turn away attorneys who volunteered for the help with the process . Guest im not familiar with that situation. Host okay. Heres a question from twitter. Can the guest comment on how many of the migrants do not want to be citizens and what should the u. S. Do with them . Guest i dont think anyone is even talking about citizenship at this point. Theyre just trying to find re refuge. For them to become citizens, they have to get a lawful status in the United States first and keep that status for five years. And our laws are very restrictive as to who has that status and who can get it. What congress should have passed last night is Immigration Reform so the system works better so people who want to contribute and can contribute and have ties to the United States are able to get legal status and eventually become citizens. This is really no way to run an immigration system, what we have right now. Host jim is up next from florida. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. My question is, its an honor to speak to this beacon of compassion. If she could just hear me out and maybe answer when im done. First of all, why am i wrong . I feel like this is just a work project for you attorneys. Its in your interest to take long. What percentage of these children are actually children under 14 . How much did you make last year . How much did you personally make last year off of this . And why cant i just look at you as opposed to an ambulance chaser, youre just an immigrant chaser. Guest first of all, i want to point you to a group of lawyers in new mexico right now who paid their own way down there, are putting up in hotels that theyre paying for themselves and have spent the last week working 12 hours a day for free representing all of the trying to represent all of the detain knees in that detention center. I want to point you to a big law firm, jones day, took 20 of their lawyers away from their corporate clients and donated them to representing children in texas. I want to show you attorneys who work for close to nothing in order to represent families and children seeking a better life. Immigration lawyers are among the lowest paid lawyers in the United States. But they work and do the work they do out of passion and compassion in many, many cases. Never has there been a situation as critical as this where Immigration Lawyers have stood up. Weve had over 600 volunteers to give their time for free to pay their own way to these Detention Centers in order to represent the people there. So dont tell me that Immigration Lawyers are making a lot of money out of this. It is quite the opposite. Host american Immigration Lawyers Association is online at aila. Org. Well go to mississippi with mary. Good morning. Hello. I would just like to find out, i think its the whole scenario is very strange. First of all, where do these people who come from the socalled poorest countries in the world get 5,000 . Okay. Another thing. What kind of decent parents would put their very small, Young Children on a train, unprotected, and send them over . And you see these poor kids in the Detention Centers crying. I think theyre crying for their parents. Another thing is i believe that somebody else, some other system, some other entity paid, if the money was there, legitimately paid for those kids to come over here. Their timing is very odd. Host several questions in there. Guest yes. Go to a Western UnionOffice Anywhere where theres a high level of immigrant population and you will see people who are here working who are wiring money every penny they can gather back to their families. A