Senate, theres only 100. They probably know each other. They might not like each other anymore but at least there oohs a chance of them being acquaintances if not good friends. Journalist david mark on the world of political terminology sunday night at 8 00 eastern. Jennifer epstein has been following todays immigration developments. She is White House Reporter with politico. Lets break this down, first of all. What specifically will the president announce . So the white house hasnt actually what the president will announce to the press. But theyve begun the process of briefing advocates and other people who work closely with the administration on immigration over the last couple of years that the big piece of it will be that he is shielding as many of 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Its kind of whats been out there recently. And it is indeed what the white house intends to do. That includes 4 million undocumented immigrations who have qualified for deferred deportations and another million who would get it through other means. And of course this is generating a lot of congressional reaction. Senator ted cruz saying the president would be acting like a monarch and the spokesperson for Speaker Boehner is calling him Emperor Obama. You know, thats the argument that the white house and people aligned with the white house have been making very strongly this week. We know from some of the talking points that have been leaked that its something that the white house wanted to make clear to its supporters is pointing to the executive actions that ronald reagan, george h. W. Bush, george w. Bush took on immigration, that the white house argues we dont know yet for sure, were sort of in line with what the president is doing this week, but are things that were done by republicans and now we have the republicans saying that president obama is reaching too far with what he intends to do. So thats kind of the argument thats coming from the white house on this. And at the same time, what were seeing from republicans on the hill is a very clear direction that theyre going in which is this overreach, which is this king obama, which is what the chairman of the Republican National committee called it this afternoon, Emperor Obama from boehner spokesman, michael steel. You know, and then ted cruz writing in politico that obama is acting as an monarch and then suggesting how the republicans should respond. One thing he would like to see is for mitch mcconnell, when he takes the helm as Senate Majority leader come january to announce that the senate will not be confirming any of the president s nominees except those needed to be in place for Critical National security functions until the president reverses course on these executive actions. And he also and ted cruz also suggests that congress, which will be fully in republican hands, choose to pass funding bills for the government, department by department and to, you know, attach writers that make it so that the administration cant enforce the orders that the president puts through. Its very much about trying to restrict the president financially and then to also try to take hurt him, you know, somewhere else with the various nominations. Jennifer epstein, this came up in todays Daily Briefing with White House Press secretary josh earnest, but is the white house worried that this executive action poison the well on any congressional action dealing with immigration moving ahead . You know, the white house has been very reluctant to agree with that poison the well argument. They point to the fact that there hasnt been any progress on immigration coming from House Republicans in the more than a year since the Senate Passed its comprehensive reform bill. So theyre much more in that kind of direction than they are in the direction of saying we are attempting to help in a different way. And what about the mechanics of the announcement . We had the facebook posting today by whitehouse. Gov. What can we expect today and tomorrow . The next piece of it is going to be the president speaking at 8 00 p. M. Its not going to be on the major tv networks. It will be on telemundo and univision. It will also be streaming online and very aggressively live tweeted by washington political journalists. You know, available through other means. Thats sort of the white houses argument just in general with its communications is that its more about the targeted outreach, so Spanish Language media and social media to get out the the president s strongest supporters. Jennifer epstein, White House Reporter for politico. Thanks very much for being with us. Thanks for having me. Tonight, president obama will announce executive action on immigration. Well bring you his remarks live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Homeland security secretary jeh johnson spoke on thursday at the obama administrations enforcement record. His remarks came one day before president obamas announcement of his executive action on immigration. Morning, everybody. Thanks for being here, earn. Im simon rosin burg from indiana, the new policy institute. Were excited today to welcome back the secretary of Homeland Security, not this particular one, but this is the second time that weve been able to host the secretary of Homeland Security for an important talk on our boarder and Immigration Enforcement success in recent years. Janet that pal tan no visited us in 2007. Were glad to have these people on the front lines come and address our Border Initiative over the last four years. Im here today in part representing this project that we began four years ago that was born out of a basic sense that the conversation happening in the elite media and in policy circles in d. C. About what was happening on the border to not really preflect the true reality of what was happening there. Im lucky enough to be married to a wonderful woman who grow up in new mexico. Ive spent a lot of time in the south western part of the United States. As somebody who has been part of the immigration debate from the very beginning in 2005, i really felt that there was a need to try to bring more data, fact and truth to an important part of this conversation about how we were going to fix a broken immigration system. And im proud that just over this period of time weve released many reports and conducted many events here in town. Weve brought dozens and dozens of leaders on both the u. S. Side and the mexico side to washington for dialogues with policymakers here. Weve been directly involved in some of the more important advances weve seen in the u. S. mexico relationship over the last few years, including the Important Administration decision about tourism that was done back in 2011 or 2012. We were instrumental in creating the dialogue. We helped start the border caucus in the house in 2014 which is providing a far more amp fiezed voice for those who represent the border region in the current debate. We also led the effort to strip the order search out of the senate bill when it moved over to the house, which is something i thought was an enlightened moment of the House Democrats who have improved what was a very good bill that came out of the senate last year. We were also involved in efforts to increase at the end of 2013 we saw an increase in funding for customs agents. It was something we fought for. It was the first time we had had an increase in customs agents on the border without an increase in Border Patrol in recent years. That was another sign of how important the trade aspect of this relationship is. Part of what i just want to those of you who know me and have heard me talk about this before, i just want to, as teeing up our guest today, just reflect on the five things that we often talk the most about. What i have to say as someone who, when i got into this, i didnt really understand, i think, the enormity of the challenge of keeping our borders safe and our immigration system given the size of the undocumented population and just given the mobility of our country with so many people moving around, in and out of it every day. This is an extraordinary undertaking. If you look at the border today, 2,000 miles long, over a Million People cross it every day, over a billion dollars of trade every day. I often say in english we call it the border. In spanish its called frontera. Its not the enl of our relationship with mexico. Its the center of it now. And certainly the 2,000milelong border that we may have be single most valuable piece of infrastructure that the United States has today. And i hope it can be seen that way in the years to come. What were going to discuss is a few highlights and i want to reflect upon why i think we will, in future years well look back in the era, in the obama era, one of the policy successes in their amount has been the border itself and Immigration Enforcement. Lets go through it. Crime is down all along the u. S. Side of the u. S. mexico border. Today the two largest cities on the border are the two safest large cities in all of the United States. Second is net flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States where the flow itself is way down. Net my grags into the u. S. Is zero today. Under bill clinton it was 600,000 a year, under george bush it was 400,000 a year. The undocumented increased in the early 90s. During the entire Obama Presidency theres been in increase in the undocumented population in the u. S. It stands at 11. 2 million today. I was 11. 3 when he came into office. Something that will be a major point of the debate if the president takes executive action is starting in 2011 with the morton strategy, this administration began to prioritize in a smart way its resources in the immigration system which has led to a far more humane system where long settled families no longer have the same degree of threat of deportation as they had before, while also freeing up resources. Its been a contributor to keeping the net flow low. While all of the security gains have been made, weve also sin seen an extraordinary increase in trade. Weve almost seen a doubling of trade with mexico despite a slow economy here in the u. S. It has been a huge economic story. And today mexico stands as our Third Largest trading partner in the world and the second largest export market for american goods. Mexico buys twice as much from the United States as china does with 1 15th of the population. So the economic relationship has flourished even at a time of enormous security gains. And finally i think well become to know, when ear going to hear about this from the secretary, that the management of the Central American migrant crisis this year, while it was tough and its been a difficult ka policy challenge for the United States, i think we will see this as a success of this approach and not something other than that. And the secretary will be getting into that. But certainly crises happen, things happen. Its houb you deal with them. As a speaker went through the details and how the government responds, i think well mark down as one of the signs of our ability to manage this complex things called the border and work cooperatively with our neighbor to the south. The basic premises of the work that weve been doing, weve made tremendous progress here. This is a tough issue. 200,000 miles long, hundreds of thousands of people are involved on the borders every day in managing this, enabling trade flows and keeping the levels of security that both countries require. The politics have been as brutal as they come in washington. And despite all of this weve seen tremendous progress. Certainly helping tell that story in the coming months if were about to have a big debate around immigration and the border system, its going to be a critical part and a role were going to play to be sure that this is being told right and that the administration gets far more credit for what they have done. And so to reflect on all of this, we have a very special guest today. Jeh johnson doesnt really need a major introduction. You know hes made his mark as a forceful and thaurthful and very able secretary of the department of Homeland Security. But i think the one thing that i always my wife goes to work at the department of Homeland Security every day. Enjoys her work so much and fills so fulfilled in what he says. The one thing people dont understand in this town, this may be, other than the president , the hardest job in washington, the skam of what they deal with every day, the counter terrorism, cyber security, emergency response, its an incredible portfolio of really tough issues that are super important for the country. And we are lucky that the president was able to persuade jeh johnson to take this on. Please wejoin me in welcoming t secretary of Homeland Security, jeh johnson. Thank you very much, simon. Thank you for the nice introduction. The number of people in this town willing to say nice things about me is getting smaller and smaller. Thank you also for katelyns service as assistanis assist. Im going to speak very briefly and then ill be able to take a couple of questions. Let me offer a couple of thoughts. First, people often refer to the incredible portfolio that we have in the department of Homeland Security, diverse range of missions from counterterrorism to hurricanes and aviation security, some people even ask, well was it a mistake to create such a Large Department of government like this. Is it too big to manage. My answer to that is, you have to look at where all of these missions and components were before 9 11, spread across literally dozens of agencies and a number of cabinet level departments ranging from the department of agriculture and the department of energy, treasury, justice, no one cabinet level official responsible for Homeland Security, Border Security, treasury and so forth. Just within the last 11 months that ive been in office ive seen dealing, for example, with the situation that we had this summer in the rio grand valley, the virtue of having at one conference table the officials of our government responsible for aviation security, Border Security, maritime security, to deal with a comprehensive way various situations that arise like the situation that occurred in the Rio Grande Valley sector. There is one cabinet level official responsible for the land sea border air protection. We are moving toward, in general, a risk based strategy to Homeland Security. Perhaps the most notable example of that is tsa. Tsa has tsa precheck. A lot of people here are a member of tsa precheck, im sure. Submit some information on background, you get to the airport, theres a shorter line. Less aviation security, less screening when you get there. It enables us to free up resources to divert toward the class of individuals we know less about at the airports. So tsa, under the leadership of john pistol, has actually become kind of popular with the American Public. Its the agency of government that the public deals with the most. People are actually saying nice things about tsa. At the same time weve developed and grown tsa precheck theres an amazing fact i like to repeat to audiences. Just in the first ten months of calendar year 2014, while we have tsa precheck, tsa has also seizeds from the carry john luggage of aviation packages, people getting ready to get on the airplane that you fly, 1,855 firearms in carey john luggage, 1,571 of which were loaded. Over 3,000 various weapons seized by tsa in the first ten months of 2014 alone. I salute the work of this organization. There is a lot of misunderstanding, misapprehensions about the state of our Border Security right now, particularly the southern border. One of the things that im devoted to is more transparency when it comes to the numbers of people apprehended, people removed in the course of any fiscal year. I think theres a fair amount of misunderstanding and mystery surrounding the numbers. So im committed to more transparency and were developing better ways to make that happen. It is in fact the case that under president obama in particular, and over the last three president s, president s clinton, bush and obama, weve devoted an unprecedented amount of resources, personnel, technology to Border Security, particularly the southern border. I gave a speech at csis about a month ago where i talked in detail about our Border Security efforts, the number of different Border Patrol agents which has gone from 8,600 in the year 2005 to over 18,000 now. The day president Obama Took Office there were approximately 15,700 Border Patrol agents. There are now over 18,000 mount a defense of various types on the southern border has gone from 267 in 2009 to over 700 now on the southern border. Weve gone from 56 to 107 aircraft in the last 15 years. We now have unmanned ariel vehicl aerial vehicles. All sorts of surveillance technology, mobile surveillance technology. Night vision technology. And this investment by our president s, the congress, with the support of the American Public has shown results. A lot