George stephanopoulos begins now. And we begin with the latest from ferguson. Protests heating up again this weekend but no decision yet from the grand jury on whether to charge officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. Well hear from president obama in a moment, first lets go to Abcs Steve Osunsami on the ground in missouri. Good morning, steve. Reporter were learning that the grand jury debating possible charges against Police OfficerDarren Wilson will be getting back to work tomorrow so it will be just a little bit. More time before we see a decision in this case. Police have already put barricades up around the courthouse here worried that demonstrators might storm the building. Police have been promised a 48hour notice once that decision is reached, already there have been plenty of street fights outside Ferguson Police headquarters which is ground zero for the protests here. Last night there were even more arrests. Were told that the family of Michael Brown is very concerned about this. The ferguson action network, another protest group, is promising demonstrations in at least 61 cities. Michael browns family and other religious leaders are calling for calm. George. Okay, thanks steve. Now to our abc news exclusive with president obama waiting just like the rest of us to hear from that grand jury bracing for possible violence. Thats where we begin. Your fbi has warned about possible violence in the wake of that decision. What is your message to the people of ferguson and others who are looking to protest . Well i think first and foremost protest peacefully. This is a country that allows everybody to express their views, but using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to rule of law and contrary to who we are. Part of what ive asked eric holder to do is not just engage with the folks in ferguson but to engage nationally in a conversation between Law Enforcement and communities of color that oftentimes feel as if they are not being treated fairly by Law Enforcement officials. Sometimes their concerns are justified. Sometimes theyre not justified. Law enforcement has a very tough job. Are you worried here . You know we saw during the summer the possibility of even overwhelmingly peaceful crowds being overrun by a few thugs. What ive done is called jay nixon, the governor of missouri to make sure that he has a plan to respond in a careful and appropriate way to any potential violence. To be able to sort out the vast majority of Peaceful Protesters from the handful who are not. You know, in the end what i have confidence in is that if we do a better job of training our Law Enforcement to be sensitive to the concerns of minority communities, then over time trust can be built in part because minority communities typically are subject to more crime. They need law enforcdaa more than anybody and there are a lot of communities in my hometown of chicago, for example, who actually want to see more police in but they want to make sure that the police are trained so they can distinguish between a gangbanger and a kid who just happens to be wearing a hoodie but otherwise is a good kid and not doing anything wrong. One of your heroes john lewis has said if theres no indictment it will be a miscarriage of just tiks and like selma. Do you agree . I love john. I didnt see the quote so i dont want to comment on what john specifically said but i will say this that the kinds of ongoing problems we have with police and communities of color around the country are not of the sort that we saw in selma. Were not talking about systemic segregation or discrimination. They are solvable problems if in fact Law Enforcement officials are open to the kind of training that and best practices that weve seen instituted in a lot of parts of country do you think it would make sense to go to ferguson after this decision. Im going to wait and see how the response comes about. But, you know, what does make sense is for not just me but my entire administration to work with willing partners at the state and local level to see how we can address some of these issues. What about the broader issues of race, i mean, i was struck by a pole i saw saying since 20099 number of africanamericans who think that racial relations are Getting Better has actually gone down. My own experience tells me that Race Relations continue to improve. If you think about, you know just in our lifetimes were about the same age, where weve traveled, theres no way to say somehow Race Relations are worse now than they were ten years ago, 20 years ago or 50 years ago. Part of what happens is is that they get a lot more attention today. You know occasionally problems that used to be pretty common 20, 30 years ago werent videotaped. Everybody knows now somebody has a camera and people see it and could be a good thing sometimes. Which is a good thing a good thing in the sense it lays bare and ive said it before as an africanamerican male there have been times where ive experience experienced it as a young plan been a while since it happened and, you know, i think that folks on the other side of it might not understand why there are concerns or mistrust so when people start seeing these instances then they start saying okay maybe we understand what theyre talking about but its important not to overreact or suggest somehow we havent made progress. One of the things that i think the presidency drives home is you know in a democracy progress is incremental and it goes in stutter steps and sometime sometimes theres some backsliding but overall trajectory i think is positive. And the president will be back on immigration later but more from Pierre Thomas in washington this morning and, pierre, in addition to the grand jury youve got these two parallel investigations done by the Justice Department on civil rights. Reporter yeah, george, the stakes are high and the drama intenses Justice Department officials wait for that grand jury decision. As you say they have two investigations under way. First theyre looking at whether the Ferguson Police department discriminates against minorities, justice officials have already indicated they believe theres evidence of bias especially in traffic stops and also investigating officer wilson. There they have a high threshold to reach before bringing any charges. They have to determine whether officer wilsons decision to shoot brown was unream under the circumstances. And they must find evidence officer wilson intentionally violated browns civil rights because of race. Its a vigorous investigation but theres no guarantee as to how it will turn out, george. Pierre, but if the grand jury doesnt find that they dont believe theres enough evidence to charge officer wilson with a crime, realistically can the Justice Department go forward with their targeting of officer wilson . Reporter in theory the state grand jury investigation should not impact the Justice Department, but, george, i can tell you theres a lot of pressure. The attorney general went to ferguson and if that grand jury decides not to indict in essence the Justice Department decision becomes the final word in terms of a criminal case. Here in washington, they know that this is one of the most important civil rights cases in recent memory. Race and policing a volatile mix. Pierre thomas, thanks very much. Lets talk now to Michael Browns family and Benjamin Crump and dan abrams. Youve been told youll get some kind of notification about any grand jury announcement. Nothing yet. Nothing yet. How much advance notice do you expect you would have . Well, we think about six hours is our hope but we will have to see the Prosecutors Office has told us they will inform the family before they inform the public for sure. Okay. And, dan abrams, lets walk through what the grand jury is doing right now. There will have to be nine votes on a 12person grand jury in order to indict officer wilson with a crime. Keep in mind totally different process than a regular jury. 9 out of 12. Youre not deciding innocence versus guilt just a question of probable cause, is there enough evidence to send it to trial. Inside that grand jury room much more casual than a trial. Theyre having a conversation in there. Grand jurors asking questions but, remember it is the grand jury that is in charge of this. Theyre the ones who now can decide do we want to continue do we need more evidence, et cetera, so theyre considering everything from the possibility of no indictment Involuntary Manslaughter all the way up to murder. This is different from your usual grand jury. Usually you have have a prosecutor saying i have a case sign off on it thats not whats happening. Usually you have one or two detectives show up and say this is the charge we want and you move forward. Here the prosecutor is giving the grand jury all of the evidence, he says allowing them to make all the decisions, having the target testify which is unusual, calling in it seems one of the defense experts to even testify in front of the grand jury which is unusual. It does seem that the prosecutor is to some degree trying to punt but with that said the prosecutor still has a lot of control over what evidence is presented in front that have grand jury. I saw you shaking your head. I just think this is process is unlike anything ive ever seen. We dont think its fair. Why not. When you think about it if this prosecutor is saying we just going to be fair, were not going to recommend any charges, thats different from anything hes done in his past 28 years with grand juries so now are we going to say, he was unfair to all those people and extra fair why cant it be equal justice why cant we have the same pro jest why you change the rules and come in recommend charges right now based on the probable cause. You said it a minute ago. Its just probable cause. Seven people said his hands was up. Let me ask you a question. If the prosecutor himself, whether hes wrong or not, lets assume he may be wrong or right but assume hes uncertain as to whether charges should be filed. Hen is he doing the right thing. Lets ask if facts will change. Would he be uncertain because as the correspondent said race and policing thats the difference. When the race isnt the matter the prosecutors change it. Its a symbiotic relationship with the prosecutor and the police and if we keep doing the same thing, george were going to get the same results and thats why the people are like they are in ferguson. I know both Michael Browns parents have called for calm. They dont want violent protests but after the grand jury sieves through this and determine there was a struggle and that officer wilson did have reason to feel threatened and in danger do you accept that finding . Well we have to accept the law, but think about it. They are trying to snow everybody, george. The struggle at the car, hes running away. You have people saying he shot while he was running away and but what if the evidence shows he was running toward him. You got witnesses out there that say differently. You got the police version. If you got that tipping scale, dan, if you got that tipping scale probable cause it should go to a jury where its transparent and have a trial by jury. Why do we accept that when the police kill our children were going to have had grand jury proceeding and different from anything else. Lets talk about the process of law. There are a lot of highprofile cases and seen them where prosecutors say, you know what im going to hand this one to the grand jury. I want the political cover on this one. I want to let them decide so im not the one who takes the heat on however the decision goes so its not out of left field in a highprofile case a prosecutor hands it off to a grand jury. You would agree its a problem with our system when you have the local prosecutor who has this symbiotic relationship with the local Police Department and the local Police Officers has no relationship with the young prejudge what the grand jury is going to say. Youve already decided the process is unfair. No, the process is completely unfair. 99 of the time Police Officers arent charged when they kill young people of color. So when you look at the face of those overwhelming statistics and you think that we are upset because is there let me ask the question what if there was a struggle. What if there was a struggle for the gun and the evidence shows that. You know what in america we have a constitution, you have a right to trial by jury. And i have no doubt if they were to indict the Police Officer, he would be guaranteed his full Constitutional Rights of innocent until proven guilty. He would get every benefit of the doubt. I dont worry about the due process for officer wilson. I worry about due process for the little black boy on the ground. Well have to leave it there all waiting for the grand jury. Thank you both very much. Coming up our exclusive interview with president obama and takes on questions about his prgs process and how will his relationship with hillary play out through 2016. His most revealing answers yet. Back in two minutes. Announcer this week with George Stephanopoulos brought to you by charles schwab. Something years now. Thinking about what you want to do with your money . Daughter looking at options. What do you guys pay in fees . Dad i dont know exactly. Daughter if youre not happy do they have to pay you back . Dad it doesnt really work that way. Daughter you sure . Vo are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed . Wealth management at charles schwab. Theyre still after me. Get to the terminal across town. Are all the green lights you . No. Its called grid iq. The 4 51 is leaving at 4 51. They cut the power. Itll fix itself. Powers back on. Quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. Thrillingly predictable. In this weeks closer look more from president obama and his explosive order giving legal status to 5 million undocumented immigrants. I will never give up. He spoke moments president got a rousing welcome in las vegas and a stern rebuke from the speaker of the house. The president had said before hes not kidding and hes not an emperor but hes sure acting like one. Your response. My response is pass a bill. The truth is that the senate did a good job in crafting a bipartisan bill that would have greatly improved our immigration system and my preference is for a legislative solution to this problem. But that didnt happen. It didnt happen because the speaker would not call the bill for a vote in the house and he still has several weeks to call that bill in the house or he can work with me and democrats to craft a new bill. He says thats not going to happen now. And the point is that ultimately congress has a responsibility to deal with these issues. And there are some things that i cant do on my own. Youseveral times over the last couple of years you were asked can you do more and you said im out of administrative flexibility. Thats not true. If you look george i was often asked can you halt deportations . And i said no i cant do that. You were asked specifically what can you do to prevent families from being broken apart and you said im not an emperor. Im not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed. Weve kind of stretched our administrative flexibility as much as we can. George what is absolutely true is that we couldnt solve the entire problem and still cant solve the entire problem but what we can do is to prioritize felons criminals, recent arrivals folks who are coming right at the border and acknowledge that if somebody has been here for over five years, they may have an american child or a legal permanent resident child, it doesnt make sense for us to prioritize them when we know we need more resources. Can you make that decision on your own. Absolutely. If you look, every president , democrat and republican over decades has done the same thing. George h. W. Bush about 40 of the undocumented persons at the time were provided a similar kind of relief as a consequence of you know both reagan in that case there were bipartisan bills passed acting after the bills were passed not because congress did not act. George, im not sure that argues in favor. If congress acted specifically and left something out and then the president goes ahead right afterwards and does more than congress agreed to its actually not different. Its similar. The fact is is that we exercise prosecutorial discretion all the time. The primary responsive to Speaker Boehner and others is go ahead and pass legislation. In the meantime, what weve got to make sure of is number one, that our borders are secure and, number two, its going to allow us to focus on the people we really want out, number three, what it allows us to do is a to folks who have been here for awhile register were going to submit youre going to submit to a criminal background check and youre going to pay tacks if how do you respond, a future president comes in wants lower taxes, doesnt happen. Im not going to prosecute those who dont pay Capital Gains tax. The truth of the matter george, is that the reason that we have to do prosecutorial discretion in immigration is that we know that we are not even close to being able to deal with the folks who have been here a long time. The vast majority of folks understand they need to pay taxes and when we conduct an audit, for example, we are selecting those folks who are most likely to be cheating. Were not going after millions and millions of people who Everybody Knows are here and were taking advantage of low wages as theyre mowing lawns or cleaning out bedpans and looking the other way, but then you got politicians s