tonight we have caesar, guatemala, garcia hernandez, who is the author of immigration

law, as well as migrating to and the gregory h. williams chair in civil rights and civil liberties at ohio state university moritz college of law and immigration and an immigration lawyer. he has appeared in the new york times, wall street journal, npr, the guardian the guardian and many other mediums welcome him. thank you. hey, thanks for. the introduction and to all folks here at books and books for this lovely welcome this evening. and thank all of you for for joining me it's it's always a pleasure to be back in south florida. i definitely don't get the opportunity to do so often so so i'm grateful for the chance to get to spend some time here with with you all this so welcome the the ratchet in in defense of the criminal alien. this is a book clearly focused

on migrants and and as we go through the year and we we begin to approach the november elections we're going to hearing a lot more migrants. we've already heard a good amount. we know that both president biden and president trump are planning visits to the us-mexican border and various of texas. just this week. and so we're going to be hearing a lot about migrants from politicians and for politicians on the right, we tend to hear that migrants migrants described as people who are coming, the united states hopeful to either take advantage our largesse or maybe just coming here to spread political mayhem or even criminal mayhem and and then on the left, we'll hear from from folks like president biden, i'm sure later week, as we hear

quite often from from liberals, from democrats, migrants described as people who are oftentimes just sort of victims victims, maybe of economic forces that are bigger than any of us that are out of the control of any of us. maybe it's victims of smugglers, maybe it's victims of criminals. and welcome wretched in contrast to those depictions is, a book about migrants as they actually exist and all of their contradictions then all of their complexities and this is why i put at the center of the book migrants who make mistakes my migrants who engage in criminal activity and so welcome the wretched is a book about

migrants just as much as it's a book about the law and the law that decides who it is. gets to make life in the united states, but it's not a book a book about the law and the way that lawyers and judges so often mythologize the law as if it's this neutral and that has power that's separate from the who dare to move across borders and instead welcome wretched is a book about the law as it actually plays out in the very lives of those people who it touches most directly and most concretely. and that's why fundamentally this book is about people like my dear friend patti, who i write in, in, in, in the book now patti is a brooklyn social

worker. she's spent most of the last two decades working with school students in the new york city public school and. and patti has clearly illustrated her commitment to public service. but she's also accomplished a lot academically. patti has has acquired a couple of of ivy league degrees. i met her when we were undergraduates brown university. and after she finished there she went off to columbia and she got a master's in social work, became a social worker, and then started this career helping kids in in the new york public school system. but decades before all of that, decades before i ever met patti was just a little girl in the part of the 1980s, when one evening, she walked out those

dusty hills east of tijuana and, standing alongside her mom and a group of other people. she waited. the darkness settled. once it patti patty's mom, her hand and hand and thrown. and the two started walking. they started walking in the direction of the united states. and eventually they crossed international boundary. at some point, they and shortly after doing that, someone the group and either patty and or her those two but someone in the group. yeah that dreaded word to migrants who are trying to cross into the united states clandestinely whether in the 1980s or these days. somebody used the word migra border patrol agents immigration agents were approaching and. so patty and her mom did what everyone else their group did.

they started running. and as soon as they started running, they lost track one another. they didn't know where the other one had gone. and when i asked patty's mom about this dona frances, when i asked her about this this evening, almost 40 years later, well, after daughter had established herself, created a stable life, a successful life in united states, i asked dona frances about that experience, and she could barely even tell me the basic facts of what happened. she could barely even recount for me the basic events of that evening, because it was still traumatic for her, because she had no idea where her little

girl was and so after tasking dona frances, i asked patty or, patty, what were you thinking in that moment when you got separated from your mom and you and all these other people just running, trying to escape the border patrol agents? and what patty told me was wasn't that she worried about the border patrol agents. it wasn't that she was worried about the fact that she her mom, had just violated immigration law, in fact, violated and committed a crime entering the united states without the government's permission. it's been a crime. 1929, patty wasn't, thinking about any of that instead what patty told me she was thinking about with her shoot. but she said she was worried about her shoe because the moment that she started running, she ran into some mud and mud pit. and the mud was thick that it

held to her shoe as she kept moving forward, that hugo pulled off by the mud. and the first thing she thought was, my mom is going to be mad at him. she was a little worried that her mom was going to be -- because somehow she had managed to lose the shoe, even though it was tied to her foot. and so patty gets caught by the border patrol agents a little while later and she doesn't know it. but her mom has also been caught and neither of the two know it. but they're down to a nearby border patrol station. and eventually patty brought into this holding cell inside border patrol station in california and she sees in the corner her mom shaking uncontrolled loudly and crying loudly. and she says to me, that's when i realized i wasn't in trouble because patty wasn't, concerned

about the law. patty wasn't concerned about the law enforcement officers. patty wasn't concerned about the border that they had just walked across. patty was concerned. the most important relationship, the person who loved her with her mom. and so they got deported that night, they end up back tijuana a few days later locked back the dusty hills. is that the one place and the way for the darkness to settle? when it does, they again start walking north and eventually they reach the central valley of california, which is where patty's life begins. for the second time, united states. this is where their life, they don't have fences dreamed for her child for her daughter begins and eventually the two become u.s. citizens. and there is a patty.

then goes on excel's academic play. and after that devotes her life to helping teenagers in new york city navigate this crazy world that we all live in. and all of that begins in moment in which elinor francis decides that they will get to the united states by whatever means necessary. if that means committing a crime. after they got deported. patty's mom actually committed another crime because entering the united without the government's permission, that's a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in prison. but doing that after having already been deported, that's a federal felony punishable by two years of imprisonment, patty would have had help out all of this, but not so much her mother. in fact, these days we would probably hear politicians, patty's mom, as a smuggler just

in the last few few days, in the last week, week or two, we see that attorney general of the state of texas has been a nonprofit organization in texas of smuggling migrants into the united states simply because since the 1970s they have been providing them with food, with shelter with clothing. so those folks can be accused smuggling and certainly so can doing offense. and so welcome wretched is a book about people in all of their complexities. people like my dear friend patty and her mom. but it's also a book about people like a in lewes, loftus, colgate, the man was born in the dutch west indies and came to the united states in the early part of the 20th century. man, a man who lived in a time when the law was more forgiving than it is now, even the people who lived then were no less mean

of being poor, given i want to share with a bit about why it is i write about this stuff differently because. mostly, he was just a fairly unremarked human being. he worked to raise a family and he was raising a family in manhattan while working at a at a nearby hospital as an elevator operator and and despite his unremarkable ness, one day in october of 1939, he does something so remarkable that i decided that his his life, his story would be fit. the beginning pages of a chapter that i titled illegal isn't illegal. so let me read to you from that chapter i give you a sense of how this lasted for 40 years. life. one afternoon in october 1939 in the sliver new york city where manhattan stretches alongside

the bronx louis loftus papoulias that motion and his son's bed the 13 year old boy's face was still by a rag with a neighbor climb through a window into the ruling family's apartment, his body limp and, warm, was scratched on the bed. earlier that day, lewis had called in sick to his job as an elevator operator at nearby columbia presbyterian center. he waited until. his wife and daughter had gone shopping, then said that since the couple's other two children, too, moving only the only oldest child, raymond, was left frail. raymond became his father's target. louis, a rag with chloroform the new york times reported and, applied it several times to the boy's face. we don't know whether the father hesitated or the son struggled, but by the time the police arrived was no question what had happened. louis had killed his son when

word of his arrest louis, his coworkers. the hospital collected money to pay court ordered bail, talking to jurors just before them to convict the father. the prosecutor acknowledged a soft spot for the man charged with killing the child. i find it quite difficult to approach the in this case when our minds practically engulfed in the mountain tide of sympathy, prosecutors said he meant sympathy for louis seward. a jury would convicted of manslaughter. but along with their conviction, the jury asked the judge to show utmost clemency despite, having killed his own son before they commanded so much sympathy because his son was ill. that's what the health problem of raymond had. news reports. you've stated language, neurological problems, but also prevented him from moving around. he was just like dead. all the time, ripley told detectives. whatever was going on with raymond's and mind his father's

decision treated as a form of loving mercy from his friends to the prosecutor, everyone seemed to that it was better or least understandable to the boy than allow him to continue suffering. raymond's aside, louis was a devoted parent. the at lewis's criminal trial said, even as he announced that lewis's sentence there no irony. it was possible. kill one child, be a loving parent to the others. for less than seven years after that dreadful fall, afternoon, lewis would become the newest citizen of the united states. a white born in the dutch west in. these lewis had arrived in his adopted country in 1917, eventually a court would unravel lewis's claim citizenship, but not because he killed, but the pitiable events now long past will not prevent from reporting it from taking his place.

us as a citizen explained it. billings hand one of the most influential judges in the history of the united states. instead, the court overturned lewis's naturalization for the most technical reason he hadn't waited long enough to apply. then federal law required five years of good moral before applying for citizenship, a conviction and lewis had waited four years, 11 months and one week. how do you just waited and how you just held off applying for another three weeks? he would have been admitted without. question just learn and grow. had he just been a bit more patient, all three judges would have left his citizenship untouched. instead, the appellate judges revoked his citizenship, but they suggested that he start over. that's exactly what the west

did. in the meantime, he kept living in the united states, going to work at the hospital and continuing to raise other children like the devoted parents that the judge said he was on april 18, 1949, lewis, a us citizen for the second and final time. what today a century later, almost a century later, far less deviance leads to far more punishment. there's a common refrain in political conversations about immigration that republicans and democrats can't agree on anything or welcome wretched in defense of the criminal alien shows over and over again that that common refrain is wrong. they can actually agree that one run in with the criminal legal system is one run in too many. in the 1980s, legislators in congress began in congress and in the white house began to

radically reshape immigration law, leaving the high times the world of in which lewis officer pulling leaving behind the world in which citizenship could follow death for these impressive people. people of that era. the was willing to welcome them into citizenship despite their illegal alien. the generations that have followed lewis loftis fully these days. the boston been able to live their lives as u.s. citizens and, not so much anymore. across about ten years, beginning in middle of the 1980s and stretching to through the middle of the 1980s, congress made it easier to fall into the immigration, prison and deportation pipeline. and they made it a lot harder to get out of it. so instead of seeing migrants as

the whole complicated people, they in the way that judges saw. lewis loftus earlier today immigration laws tie migrant to their worst moments. and thing is, we are far worse moments. and for some of us, those moments are done in public way where they lead to policing and prosecutions and convictions and i want to read to you about the worst moment that one woman had. a woman, wendy goodwin, and struggles with the fact immigration law tried to tie her to that worst moment despite the fact that it was now decades ago for willie goodwin. the worst moment came on may 29, 1993, passing a restaurant in orange county, california.

she and a group of friends stopped. they saw some of their kids. they didn't. things quickly worsened. shouting started. a gun came out. shots were fired. two girls ended up in the hospital. i unlawfully attempted to kill you. lou and nathan robuchon, with malice aforethought. when he wrote on the guilty plea that she signed and submitted to the court the say that when he was in gang on the plea form, she agreed. but looking back it when he says that's overblown, it was just a bunch of teenagers that had no positive influence, she told me. as children, we came together to be part of something because i didn't fit in any where. there's nothing unusual about winnie's teenage years. gangs weren't new in southern california in the late 1980s and the early 1980s, but they were more common, more important than what was happening. the streets of orange county was what was happening in washington

when these teenage years coincide with a period when republicans and democrat were going after each other as being weak on crime. the year that when he arrived in california in 1988 president ronald reagan announced crime victims. we declaring the responsibility for crime lies with those who commit. that law allies of reagan's vice president, george h.w., attacked the democratic nominee for president. massachusetts governor michael dukakis for position on releasing prisoners, describing the stabbing and rape of a white couple by convicted black man willie horton, who had received temporary from massachusetts prison. republicans orchestrated. a brutal ad campaign branding the caucuses position as dangerous, launched by lee atwater, a political operative. the tv spot added an unspoken and racial element to the democrat's dangerous --. black men were, a threat to

white people credited with carrying bush to the presidency. the willie horton ad is a lesson in the power of the media. fan of crime over and over again. the tv news broadcasts menacing images of. a mug shot an image of him looming over cops. scary closeup often pairing them with photos of the white people who had attacked democrats learned a lesson four years after the willie horton ad pushed bush into the white house, the incumbent president's democratic opponent arkansas governor bill clinton, was ready to take the offensive on crime. on the campaign trail, blasted bush as weak on crime. he's talked a lot about drugs, but he hasn't helped on the front line to wage the war on drugs and crime. i will. clinton promised as he accepted his party's nomination for president after clinton's his allies in congress were ready to make good on that promise.

delaware senator joe biden's on the floor of the u.s. senate in 1993 to bemoan young people without any conscience development. speaking the year that when he was arrested, biden added, we have predators on streets. biden have been talking about when you go with gang or not, winnie and her friends up to no good that night and decades later. she doesn't deny that she was there in the middle of argument with shots were fired and two people were hit. fortunately, neither died, but convicted of two counts of attempted murder. plus, the sentencing boost for gang involvement. when you got 12 years in the state prison system by then, when you had lived in the united states for all but the first month of your life and the government knew it, in fact, she'd entered as refugee. she was born vietnam just before her parents fled of the war. and those chaotic last days of the conflict.

she didn't so much leave vietnam as she was taken out. she was a newborn, carried on to her family's fishing boat in her parents arms. the first place she saw in united states. she was too young to remember the support chief. arkansas the reason that winnie is still the united states has nothing to with immigration law. she was ordered deported. but back then, after she finished serving her prison sentence in the united states could not actually send her to vietnam because vietnam refused to take people who had been born in that country, there was no repatriation agreements between the united states and vietnam. and so left with no place to send there. the united states sent their home in orange county to and back in orange county. she did what most people do. she grew up. she grew out of those moments.

and her where she had been up to no. she got herself a bachelor's degree, got herself a master's degree. and these days she runs h.r. that h.r. department of of a company that that itself employs about 3000 people. as winnie's example, points, we often hear politicians talk about how migrants are bringing crime to the united states, but winning all their life, minus one month living in the united states, her life just the crime is born in the united states as much. it's born anywhere else. this is not a unique phenomenon to the u.s., not unique to any other country. that's true. gang involvement, especially because we often hear these days, whether it's president obama or president trump or even the biden administration, talk about migrants, gangs, sending

their members to the united states to spread the violence. that is wracking regions like central countries like honduras and salvador. the thing is, they are often. they often point to one gang in particular or a gang called mara salvatrucha, tracing ms. 13 as being the most notorious version of this problem. but mr. teen, it's like when you goodwins life illustrates ms. 13 is home. and this 13 is actually born in california. we share a little bit about. about ms. 13 and give you a little bit of context into repeated claim that we hear that we ought to toughen our immigration laws so that we can keep out gangs of very gangs that were born in california in the late 1980s and 1990s, around the time when you goodwin moved

to california young people fleeing wartime and then suddenly organizing themselves into small groups in l.a. clique. they're called in spanish and there's a comfort and security. some eventually formed ms. 13 and got involved with the booming drug led by the reagan administration and deportation became policymakers chosen remedy for migrants up in this deadly mix. a shortsighted embrace of policing planted the seeds of instability and another round of migration. decades. the gangs rise is a misfire by u.s. officials that stop the deportation could their problems. they thought that they were spitting out the really they were spitting into the air them. pair of journalist was dead in 2010 by the phenix wrote deported to its of while it was still struggling to rebuild after years of fighting.

these youths said little to fall on each other and little to do tell stories of california again. there was mauricio solano the ozone hole in honor of heavy celebrity ozzy osborne, who joined the clique near la's famous macarthur park after his deportation in 1991, he became one of mr. team's first leaders. jose biran was a member of the us back national police and the son of a lawyer who fled the war in which he was. he joined ms. 13 in california, the san fernando valley, after his deportation, he started the hollywood local clique. and there's the island of the little devil who was born in san salvador as borromeo and reconsiders and betrays los angeles. there he joined a hollywood locals clique, also deported in the 1980s. he, through the gangs, means becoming such a key figure that in 2013, the us treasury, his assets rooted in california and exported salvador.

the transnational violence they experienced as young people in war weary central america. then in gang war in california helped launch a transnational menace. despite those clear ties between the social fault lines of california just a few decades ago and the violence that constantly rattles central america today, politicians in united states insist on more of the same central american gangs, such as myself and the 18th street gang, largely serve as cross-border couriers, smuggling and people into the united states. biden, secretary of homeland security mike litterst told congress in his trademark viciousness. trump described gang members as animals. obama took a softer tone, but he also emphasized their crimes while ignoring their humanity. a bites. these are powerful tactics as policy continuing to deport gang members. this is what we've done in the past means that the future immigration policy is likely to look a like the present and that

president and tangle of immigration law and its heavy reliance on criminal law that really gets people like winning is what i talk to any wishy washy complains you for you found to be unfair most unfair about her experience isn't the fact that was arrested and prosecuted for pretty serious crimes. it's not the fact that she spent years in the california prison system that what really to many, even even today is the fact that after serving that sentence sentence, immigration officers to deport. they tried to send to a country that she has no memory of. they tried to take her from her family and the country she had ever known, the united states and having failed to do that. now she is raising family in

california and helping to care for elderly parents. but it's that unfairness in the legal there also that bothers people that we need the most but also i think cheapen the credibility of the legal process by claiming that this is just the outcome of people onto the face of the earth that it's not actually part of the punishment. but for people like winning the greatest part of the punishment is the possibility of being separated from everything that you know of that makes life worth living. the supreme court justice wrote about a century ago, and that's why in the last few chapters of welcome the wretched, i propose sort of inspired by that radical of immigration law, a radical restructuring of immigration law that happened in the 1980s and nineties. i welcome the red by proposing a radical reimagining of citizenship as a version of

citizenship law that leaves behind mind the history of citizenship law in the united states. it has always identified some people as unfit for participation in our political community for one reason or another. and most of us are familiar with the fact that for the first century or so of the nation's history were obviously racial restrictions on who was considered a citizen. but after the civil war and after the 14th amendment, actually racial continued well into the 20th century wasn't until the middle of the 20th century. the last of those racial restrictions on, naturalization applied to some asians was removed from federal law. the last well known is the fact that until the very into the early parts of the 20th century, women could not fully possess their own citizenship independent of their fathers and independent of their husbands.

so at every moment, the history of the united states, we have always chosen some way of identifying who is not fit for citizenship, who is an undesirable and undesirable member of this political community. and now, looking back from where we stand in 2024, i like to think that most of us find those hallmarks of our nation's past to be repugnant we should not classify a whole whole groups of people as unfit for citizenship because of their race or because of their gender. i propose that we leave behind the present day law of citizenship is itself anchored in the past. that's anchored in that moment in which we each first saw the light of day and anchored in that location. our mothers happened to be when we were born. and instead, this is why and welcome the wretched. i propose that we embrace a vision of citizenry, of the

citizenry that reflects or i propose that we embrace a version of citizenship rather that in britain that reflects the citizenry as it is and always has been, not a sanitized that romanticized this our past not a sanitized version closes our to the blemishes in our lives in the lives of those who made us who we are. but a version of the that reflects the people who we are and the people whom we see them. and this is why i close. welcome to the wretched. and i'll close my remarks tonight. i talking about robert e lee. that robert e the one whose claim to fame to have led the military insurrection objective.

it was to literally destroy the united states of america. the robert e lee, whose military genius was immense and yet was not able succeed at that most important of his military goals, and yet he failed. but he didn't. he failed only after having taken the lives of quarters of a million people in the civil. and as robert robert lee, like many other high members of the confederate states of america, he disowned his citizenship in the united when he sided with the confederacy. and then after lee surrenders to ulysses grant the battlefield in appomattox virginia, the country which he had pledged his allegiance was no longer exists,

leaving stateless. and lee is a prominent example. but there were others in the confederacy who had sided with the confederacy, who also can no longer claim u.s. can, no longer claim citizenship in that country. then the country that they wished still existed. and so andrew johnson, president after abraham lincoln's assassination, begins a series of pardons, starts the pardon people who were involved the with the with the confederate sc this is as grand part the foot soldiers and then johnson begins to pardon some of them are high ranking individuals despite multiple amnesties that eventually included almost everyone who sided with the south. there was one major exception

lingering confederate general robert de lee indicted for treason. he was fortunate to avoid prosecution and for any wartime crimes. after famously surrendering to grant in 1865, this offer, given this june, about two months after laying down arms, sent president johnson a written pardon request, and a few months later signed an amnesty pledging allegiance to the country. he tried destroy and to constitution. he so violently ignored that johnson did not sign off. it appears he may never have even received lee's plea in. 1970, a state archivist found, lee's amnesty request and some old files. 105 years after lee's death in 1870, president gerald ford raised the last legal disability

on the secessionists leaders on the house court. as members of congress discussing this this, this bill to restore lee's citizenship, u.s. citizenship on the house floor of virginia, congressman caldwell butler asked if robert e lee is not worthy to be a u.s. citizen, then who is up when he goodwin is my dear friend paddy is lewis loved us lawfully. is and so are all of those more ordinary migrants, those migrants failures are far less prominent whose failures don't go to the heart of the very existence of the nation, whose failure don't lead to the deaths of three quarters of a million

people. so rather than think about caldwell butler's quest in robert lee is not fit u.s. citizenship that is i like to think poverty he is fit u.s. citizenship that who's not that's why i propose a version of citizenship law that takes into account fact that migrants like u.s. citizens fail will fail in most the time we'll be trying to do right by the people around them. but inevitably they will fail, just like we all will. it will. and that has nothing to do with our citizenship. it has everything to do with our humanity. and this is why i ask for a version of citizens ship law that takes into account the fallibility, the imperfection of all of us, and centers.

those people who politicians like to decry as criminal alien aliens instead simply them as the people they are. when you go to win the young woman is up to no good when night allows, the mother of three children. h.r., our manager and loving guide my friend patty, whose life in the united begins through a criminal act illegal entry into the united states followed by another act, illegal reentry into the united states, but without that moment's, she would never have entered my life. she would never have entered the lives of almost two decades where the new york city high school students and so not do i embrace people like in all of

their and even in all their contradicts since i celebrate them, i celebrate those criminals. and that's why i, i wrote this. welcome to the wretched in defense of the criminal alien. thank you. i'm happy. take any questions. if anyone has something. yes. you mentioned in your book have even though inside of other it's one of the symbolic is small country compared to the united states. what do you think the united can learn from president? okay. what are the positive outcome and impacts that he has done to americans, by the way? yeah like i think i think the the legacy bukele is policies are something we're going to have to see as they evolve over the next few years, over the

second term. i certainly certainly there's much to be said about how reducing the level of criminality. that has dealt with that is play communities across a lot for decades i the only possible of doing that is not through essentially mass incarceration, through through locking up people. who is tied to criminal activities and ties to gang activity or reduce access. and certainly some of book. ellis it's anti-democratic tendencies i think are concerning. there but of course they're not unheard by any means. so i think, you know, i think, i think it's a, it's a complicated legacy that he's crafting in central. but one one which i think the

united. can potentially learn a lot from because some of the anti-democratic tendencies that he's evidenced are oh yeah, the united states is not immune to. and that's that's i think one of the most concerning parts of his presidency. and other questions of this sort of. one thing you didn't mention and, it goes with the theme of criminalization of immigration and society, the media. i'm a defense immigration lawyer and they're constantly referring to all immigrants as entering illegally, when in reality our laws and treaties like asylum after people are more that are entering, not entering illegally. so there's part of the biggest problem right there. yeah. so i mention that in my remarks.

you're correct. do write about that. us law is absolutely clear has been at least since the refugee act 1982 that anyone is physically present in the united states and was afraid for their lives. can apply for asylum and that the law is, as is explicit. that does not matter how you got here and. it does not matter whether you have the federal government's permission to be here. what matters is if you're physically present in the united states, those people probably have people that are fleeing these gangs that we created in l.a. and backfill. so that's lot of the people seeing that is going back 20 1314 when when there's a bombing tracing, i'm starting to see a lot of central american families coming to the united states. only five specifically about families that's coming from central america that's that is certainly temperature of you said it was against the law to enter the united states you're gay until 1990. yeah exactly. so i imagine i again that's one

of the speeches of u.s. recent history that i write about. but don't mention, you know, but that's another example that i would i would i would put that in the same category as. the race and the gender discrimination provisions. right. this is another example of of of of of of a basis keeping people out of the united states, barring them from the country, barring them from citizenship. if that was the law of the land for decades, but that today, where i'm standing in 2024, if i look back them and think that was shameful, i that's something that we shouldn't repeat. and this is this is why, you know, looking looking toward the future, you know, i think that the that we will always hold tightly to the outcomes of criminal proceedings as being the gold standard by which we decide who gets to live in the states and doesn't also be one of those moments that are one of

those features of immigration and prison that we eventually leave in the past because the outcomes of criminal legal processes have at least as much to do with what you do is who you are and where you and i've been on college campuses most of my my life, my adult life. and and so i'm well aware that there is criminal a plan on absolutely every college campus. i've ever been associated with in the united states. and some of it's the stuff that we can laugh about like the low level drug, drug possession, the middle. i live in colorado this. in colorado, ten years. basically the entire. time that mine was illegal. so under neon lights in the corner life and i was advertised as part of the court. states are not on the economy. so if identity and culture keep right exactly i think but there are also forms of crime college

campuses that are not like sexual abuse sexual women. there's endemic and on college campuses in the united states and yet i have never once seen stand on the college spot and say there goes criminal undergraduate and. the reason for that is is it because the college students in the united states are more morally upright? it's not because they feel the people around them often. it's not because they're kind it is less hurtful to. other people, it's just because their worst moments come are performed in these places that are protected from police and prosecutors and criminal proceedings. and as a result they are encouraged and supported and to move on. that's exactly i want to see of immigration law treated immigration law treats migrants

not to ignore their not to pretend that their failures don't exist but simply say acknowledge the fact that migrants will fail. not of where they were born and what country they hold. citizenship of, but simply because they are people and. as people, they are empowered fact and they are fallible. and sometimes those imperfections come out as as crimes that hurt people. we shouldn't ignore those, but we also sit that define a person's humanity or their fitness for life in this country simply because they're like the rest of, you know. yeah, yeah, i know the questions. yes my question kind of twofold, but it covers the same the first is like, what can we in our own?

and i guess specifically the second part is what can we look for in politicians? you know, we when it does come time for us to vote, like what should we be looking for to help us solve this problem? besides, of course, coming to events like this and educating like, well, what will we do with now? we do. yeah, look, i think i think one of the things that we see, we repeatedly in political conversation and especially especially the dc focus national level conversations but you know, we're in florida, we see this or right now you're in i'm guessing a lot more often than i am. you know, you see this as well. and i'm originally from texas and you follow texas politics pretty, pretty closely. and there are similarities, obviously, florida in texas. but one of the things that tires me is the fact that that politicians, both republicans and democrats, they just seem wedded to the idea that if we just do more of what we've already done, things will change. i if we look at this, this bill that was introduced in congress

a few a few weeks ago, early february four, you it had more money for more patrol agents, more money for, more immigration and customs enforcement, more money for immigration, prison beds money, more money for more digital terrorist surveillance technology and and then it had. this a separate provision that was just shut down for access to asylum. so the way that we saw in the trump administration and president trump's title 42 policy. and the thing is, you know, if we could buy our way out of people want to come to the united states to make new life here we would have done that a long time ago. but politicians to seem to fantasize this idea, that if we just do more of the same, we're going to get a different

outcome. and this is this is that's never been true. so how do you see on what basis we so for politicians who insist that it will be true in the future that if what we want is to to avoid having people like him walking clandestinely into the through the through the desert then all we have to do is make possible for people to get into united states to build their lives. the only you they are going to be building right. and to do so in a way that's more orderly or regulated, cheaper and the whole lot safer, because the thing that we do with more border patrol agents and more digital surveillance technology. is and more break this this stealing laws is buy a more expensive migration process we buy and send to to unscrew

powerless individuals whether they're with cartels or not to involved in the migration process. and we buy more injuries to the migrants who are getting into coming to the united states. but sometimes we find more deaths but what we don't buy is we don't buy our way out of people wanting to make a new life in the states. so when you're listening politicians you know ask yourself are we more of the same? and then demanding that they don't do that anymore, they don't have good ideas, then they might not be the person for for for the position. and if the best ideas are just a rehashed, revamped of the old thing. only on steroids. then, then that's that's the sign of a politician who doesn't know a whole lot about the way migration works and is wedded into a fantasy version of

migration or somebody who is whose imagination is too poor to want them leading a city or. all right. or, god forbid, a country. well, if the governor are really serious, how many corporate actions pay fines are going to jail for hiring undocumented people? right. almost there. a employer sanctions have been part of immigration laws in 1986 and reagan was president. they signed the immigration reform and control act. but yeah, so your point, those are rarely enforced right and there are jobs here. there are jobs in every community. what needs to be there's a labor shortage need all over the united states. migrants are willing are not only willing to do the work. you know, migrants understand they will be working. right. and, you know, if the some of them are going to be working with work authorization and, you know, getting at least the minimum wage and able to work

under the labor standards that apply but lots aren't if they're not eligible for work authorization and if we're concerned about the exploitation and the labor market of people who are working for poor under under the under the table, the way you fix that by just letting them work legally is probably that probably the largest part of the people that are without are ones who came in on visas. but the government no way of tracking out where they it's about how to get here. it's about of them. they're called overstayers the like and actually this is the way the western europeans and canadians violate immigration law. write about this, because we often think of law violations as being a problem south of the border in latin america, caribbean, asian to africa, people from map of various countries in africa. the reality is the western

canadians, tens of thousands of them, are violating immigration every single year. department of the federal government publishes a about this every year and they they estimate how many canadians and brits in italians and are violating germans are violating immigration law and we could feel the nation's immigration prison that's what those but we don't right and the reason isn't because they're not violating immigration law they are and it's not because the punishment that's on the table legally is any different punishment, the possibility or imprisonment followed by deportation. it's just that we don't want to have look one way. yeah, because they're white and mostly wealthy and we don't want to fill our immigration prisons with bunch of, you know, relatively well off germans but we could and that's that's a feature of the race racist and class and portion of the way law is enforced today.

and has nothing to do with the way that people actually comply or don't comply with immigration law. any of what they think it's okay so thank all very much for joining me this evening and a pleasure thank