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Joining us this morning is Benjamin Johnson.
He's the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, here to talk about President -elect Donald Trump's immigration plans.
Let's begin with your association.
Who do you represent?
We represent about 17 ,000 immigration lawyers all across the country doing...
Well, it's hard to know what to make of that.
I think Donald Trump is famous for, as he calls it, the weave.
Like, what he says and what ends up happening could be very different things.
If he's true to his word and he's talking about truly a mass deportation, then I think it is deeply troubling.
I think it's going to have enormous ramifications both financially, economically and socially.
There's a lot of people in this country who have been here for a very long time and ripping them out of the workplace, ripping them out of the communities where they live is a reality that I think it's going to settle in pretty quickly and I think people's view of that will.
Which agency right now is in charge of finding and deporting immigrants who are here illegally and who are committing crimes?
Also known as ICE?
Sure.
There's no question that the law, somebody who's here without authorization is subject to deportation.
I think what's driving most of the way that we enforce immigration law Is a reality check.
It is the fact that, because in large part, Congress has not done anything to align our immigration policy with economic reality, we have a lot of people here who have been here for a very long time out of immigration status and randomly, and enforcing the law against all of those would be incredibly disruptive and incredibly difficult.
So I mean it's sad that we've gotten to that point, allowing that to happen, but the answer is not To be naive
about the reality that we're in now.
Of those undocumented immigrants, illegal immigrants who are committing crimes, do they have a right to a lawyer before they're deported?
You have a right to a lawyer.
Getting it's but it's different than in a criminal context it's the proceedings can continue whether they've got a lawyer or not so the ability to find a lawyer particularly when you're been put in really remote locations really remote detention centers is incredibly difficult so many many of the folks that are going through the system
What is the percentage?
85, 90 % of the folks that are here in the United States have been here for a very long time, majority more than 15 years, and they don't have no criminal record.
Of the ones, that other like 10, 5%, they have a criminal record that's...
Almost all traffic violations.
It is a tiny fraction of the immigrant population here, the undocumented population, that has committed a serious crime.
So there is an opportunity then to focus on those folks because that is a very small number.
I know that folks have been playing fast and loose with what that number is in the current environment, but it is a very small number.
If they wanted to go after serious criminals, that's something that's doable, and I think that's something that across the board people would support.
It doesn't help that...
Under immigration law, we have a very broad definition of what's a serious criminal.
I mean, the definition of an aggravated felony can include shoplifting and murder.
So that doesn't help with the ability to really decide what do we mean by criminal alien.
Murderers?
Sure.
Shoplifters?
I'm not sure we should make that a priority.
How quickly are those folks deported?
It can happen very quickly, particularly if it's a very serious offense.
You'll go through something called the expedited removal process.
So you could effectuate removals in that context in days.
Weeks, if not hours, depending on the circumstances.
I do believe, as a lawyer, I do believe that the system can move very quickly without losing our core values as Americans, which is everybody needs an opportunity to be heard.
You can lose your case, but you've got to be able to make a case of what happened and assert your rights.
So I would be really concerned about America in response to this environment giving up the things that we believe to be...
True and sacred, which is a judicial system that is fair can be fast, but it should be fair first.
Here's a headline in the national section of the New York Times.
Trump will need help to fulfill his promise of mass deportations.
Local level cooperation would be indispensable to make a policy work.
You're probably going to need either a massive increase in capacity for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or some cooperation with some...
I think?
Let's listen to President -elect Donald Trump.
He appeared on NBC's Meet the press last Sunday and criticize the leniency migrants face when they go through the immigration process in the United States.
Somebody walks onto our land and we have to now say welcome to the United States.
They could be a criminal or not a criminal.
We release them into our country.
It's called catch and release.
We release them into our country.
Wait just one second.
And now they get them lawyers.
And the lawyers are good lawyers.
And everybody has a lawyer.
And do you know how many judges we have?
Thousands.
Thousands.
Now, here's what other countries do.
They come into the land and they say, I'm sorry, you have to go.
And they take them out.
Okay?
With us, once they touch our land, we're into litigation that lasts for years, costs us...
Hundreds of billions of dollars.
We have judges, and I'm sure they're all honest, but I don't know that for a fact.
You can imagine what's going on with the judges.
But just so you, because I have a lot of judges, I tell you what, I know more about judges than any human being in history.
Look, we have judges.
Every time somebody puts two feet or even one foot on a piece of our land, it's welcome to long -term litigation.
Other countries...
Every other country.
When somebody walks on and they see that they're here illegally, they walk them off, they take them back to where they came from.
We have to get rid of this system.
It's killing our country.
Benjamin Johnson, your reaction?
I mean, if what Donald Trump is saying is that by getting rid of the system that we get rid of judges and lawyers, then that's a complete remaking of who we are as a country.
It's what distinguishes us from many of the authoritarian...
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
How do you address the asylum laws?
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
People that are being persecuted in China for being Christians.
It protects women who are in oppressive regimes where the Taliban is treating them like animals.
So the idea that we can and are a place where people can receive asylum where they're being persecuted is something we should be proud of and we should invest in a system that can figure out who deserves that protection and who doesn't.
Throwing that away because it's a challenge is a mistake.
Let's go to Alexis, who's in Detroit, an independent.
Welcome to the conversation.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you.
My question is, and I know the guest won't have an answer, but I'm posing the question, I guess, maybe more to C -SPAN, Greta, and if you guys could do a segment on this, on immigration with this angle.
How many housing units are going to be opened up once the mass deportations start?
Mr. Johnson?
Well, I think that the last...
The comment obviously was wrong and bleeding heart.
Traders were folks who believe in the American system of justice and work to ensure that the decisions that are made by the system have integrity.
And I think that the integrity of those decisions is improved by there being a real process and an opportunity to be heard.
That can happen in an expeditious way, but I think it's an important part of who we are as a country.
In terms of the housing units, the thing you have to remember is Sure, if you removed all of those folks, would those houses be available?
But what about the jobs that they are working in?
What about them as consumers of goods in those communities?
So you have to remember, there are places like Topeka, Kansas.
Topeka, Kansas is literally paying people to move to Topeka, Kansas.
You move to Topeka, Kansas and get a job, the city will give you $5 ,000.
That's because they are...
That doesn't mean all of the folks that are coming will fit into that equation.
But it means we are missing an opportunity to say how about if those folks came legally to places and communities that needed them.
Then that problem becomes an opportunity.
But that's going to require Congress to look past the politically expedient solution, the rhetoric of mass deportations, and think about how do we create a system that will work, that will put immigrants where we want them and need them,
and create a legal system to do that.
If we did that, Then again, I think we could absolutely solve this problem.
We'll go to Easton, Pennsylvania.
John, Democratic caller.
Hi, Mr. Johnson.
I was wondering if you can explain to me why immigration is a problem when the very people who wrote our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights were immigrants.
Our whole First Continental Congress were immigrants.
And why is the border a wall on the border?
Thanks, John.
Mr. Johnson.
Yeah, to be clear, I don't think immigration or immigrants are a problem.
It is true that we are facing problems in the way that we manage immigration.
It's not properly funded.
There's too much political infighting and partisanship in figuring out how do we build a system that will work.
So our immigration system is the problem.
I think immigrants are caught up in that.
Look, here's the basic reality.
When you pit the world's largest economy against an immigration system, the economy is going to win every time.
There is a demand for workers.
There is a demand for the unification of families, of people that are living and working in the United States.