Washington Journal revisits the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, where 500 disputed Florida votes halted a recount amid hanging chads and the butterfly ballot, with both candidates conceding despite partisan tensions. Josh Golan warns Meta’s algorithms expose 1.4M children daily to predators, self-harm content, and unregulated AI risks, while Congress stalls on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Callers link online dangers to nuclear threats, election fraud, and global AI crackdowns, but distrust in politicians—from Trump’s $2,000 tariff rebates to BLM fraud claims—dominates. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Johnson, a fired immigration judge, details a 3.4M-case backlog, politicized firings, and calls for judicial independence from executive control, exposing systemic failures in asylum and removal proceedings. [Automatically generated summary]
Court's decision settled the 2000 presidential race.
We'll have the Supreme Court oral argument in Bush v. Gore today at 1 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday, with our guest best-selling author, Arthur Brooks, who has written 13 books about finding purpose, connection, and cultivating lasting joy.
His books include Love Your Enemies, Build the Life You Want with co-author Oprah Winfrey and his latest The Happiness Files.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Back at our table this morning is John Fortier, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, here to talk about the 25th anniversary of the Bush versus Gore overtime election.
Well, we had an incredible election, which was extremely close.
And, you know, our presidential elections are not just about the popular vote.
They're also about the Electoral College.
So it was a close election, but one that came down to one state, Florida.
And that state was very closely divided.
Millions of votes have been cast, and it came down to a few hundred votes.
We ended up having a long and contested recount, really lasting five weeks until just about this time, 25 years ago, when the Supreme Court stepped in and for a variety of reasons said the counting we're doing is over and the very narrow margin that George Bush had in Florida was the final result, ultimately leading to Bush becoming the president.
Well, for those who remember, it varied a little bit.
It went up and down because we had some different counts, but the final vote tally was just 500 votes or so out of 6 million cast in Florida and over 100 million cast in the United States.
So it was very, very close.
And all sorts of questions we had about how we count and what was going on could have affected that margin.
Now, I want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation with any questions or comments you may have about that time.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
John, something that struck me in preparing for this conversation was kind of how after the Supreme Court decision came down, both candidates reacted to the decision.
I want you to take a listen to both how then Senator George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore talked about the results.
unidentified
I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside.
and may God bless his stewardship of this country.
Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road.
Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen.
Yet it came and now it has ended, resolved as it must be resolved through the honored institutions of our democracy.
Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, not under man, but under God and law.
That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties.
I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest, as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken.
Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it.
I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College.
And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
So there was Governor George W. Bush praising Al Gore, then Vice President, after that Supreme Court decision, after Al Gore's remarks.
I wonder if you can say, John, or whether you believe, just given the current state of politics, how divided and partisan politics is right now, whether that type of language, that type of concession speech could happen right now in these politics.
And I was on a cruise that day, and I went down to my cabin to get me a sip of cognac.
And when I heard, I had my TV on, it was on CNN, and I heard Bernie Shaw call that, call Florida for Al Gore.
Okay, that was about like 8:30, 9 o'clock or something.
And then later on that night, I would come back to the cabin, and they had called, they had called it for George Bush, I think, or he was leading, whatever.
Then that's when the hanging Chads and all that stuff come in.
But as far as today, I don't think, I think that Donald Trump would have claimed this election if it would have happened the same way.
I don't think that he would have let Joe Biden in this race at all.
I mean, I mean, it was just something, I mean, he wanted to hang his vice president for not certifying the election.
Well, the election result was close, and there were some calls for recounts in various counties.
And back then, we had different kinds of technology than we have today.
One of the good things we've done is to get rid of some of that technology.
We still have some issues with our current technology, but back then there was a system that you could use where you would actually have to take a pin and punch through a little piece of paper to get your choice.
Now, one of the problems with that was that sometimes people didn't punch all the way through, or the Chad was hanging there, or there was another term, a pregnant Chad, that Americans learned all about the very, you know, all the details of this election voting system.
And when we recounted and this close election where every vote counted, there were different standards perhaps in different counties.
How do we count this vote that wasn't completely cast?
And so much of the controversy had to do with, well, what is the actual count in some of these counties?
And ultimately, it's still a close win for President Bush.
But one of the things that we did after the fact was to get rid of that technology and try to move to better counting standards so that we don't have those problems today.
And the one thing that we got to remember is Bush was never behind.
Bush never trailed in that election.
Yeah, you're right.
The technology has come along, and that's great.
But you know what I don't understand is as Florida cleaned up its act, why do we got states that have problems with theirs, like Arizona and states like that?
So as far as we've come, we're still behind because there's still states that can't get the shit right, just can't get it right.
Well, it is true that George W. Bush was not behind.
Once the final vote came in, at least the initial final vote, he had a very small lead.
And that served him well.
He acted in some ways a little more like the president-elect than Vice President Gore.
But our counting, you know, our counting is better than it was.
There are a lot of things that have improved, but we still do have some issues.
I think we thought coming out of Bush v. Gore that the technology was every problem, and we fixed some things.
But technology is not all of the issue.
And there are issues with registration.
There are issues with how one casts ballots and how one ultimately when one returns them.
And we still have a lot of controversies.
But on the pure voting technology side, I think through the course of 25 years, it didn't happen all at once.
We've moved to a system which at least is a little clearer.
Most people have some paper ballots that are backups to how they vote.
And we can argue about exactly how we should use them and whether some of the scanners that count them are perfect.
But we are in a much better place, I think, than we were in the 2000 when we had really some antiquated types of technology, not only the punch cards, but also others like the lever machines, which we now do not have.
Pat from Decatur, Illinois, Republican, you're next.
unidentified
Good morning.
I guess I wanted to comment on the beginning where you showed the reactions of the candidates.
And I mean, clearly that was meant to contrast it to what we see today.
But I think that's a little misleading when the real difference was the transparency of the process.
The reason they reacted the way they did was because the process in Florida was pretty transparent.
We had tons of news media down there.
We had explanations of hanging Chads and all of the different little nuances of the counting.
In 2020, we saw in Georgia, we saw construction paper pasted over or taped over the windows so people couldn't see.
We saw Republicans shut out of the counting process in certain places.
We saw a complete lie about plumbing breaking and we were going to have to stop counting for eight or 10 hours.
You know, there was just so much nefarious misleading comments made that it's ridiculous to say that people should have reacted the same way that they did in 2000 with Gore and Bush.
So I think those types of things need to be talked about.
You talked about the advances in technology.
And while, yeah, technologically it may be an advancement in an objective sense, their transparency is completely gone and people can't relate to the kinds of issues that there are now in counting.
And so I really think it's a little bit of an open question, a little bit ambiguous if it is really a better process or not when it removes the possibility of the voters from really having confidence in the process.
Well, I actually do think that we are actually doing better on transparency maybe than we were.
And 2020 was a special case which had the problems of the pandemic.
And I think in some cases we did make it a little more difficult to see what was going on, partly some COVID restrictions, partly we do have observers from both parties.
That's something that generally is true across the country.
When one opens absentee ballots, when one counts ballots, even in the process leading up to the election, both parties have some representation and get to see this.
I do see election officials now generally building centers with more windows, with more cameras that you can see.
You're right that the problem is not, we don't see everything.
And I'm for more transparency.
But I think 2020 was a special case, and we can argue about some of the details about that.
But generally speaking, I think across the country, we have more transparency and more ability to see what's going on than we did in 2000.
Well, that's a very good question and one we argued about and some people still argue about today.
We have a lot of institutions that are potentially involved in a recount, especially a presidential election.
Of course, some of the debate went on because there were some initial recounts and Florida state courts stepped in to clarify the process or some would say to extend or get rid of the deadlines and that was a controversy.
Republicans didn't think that the Florida state court should be getting involved in the way that they thought and they took it to federal court.
So some people see it as a Supreme Court in the U.S. reigning in state courts that were out of control.
So we had many institutions back and forth trying to figure out, you know, when do we have to stop the counting?
Why are we counting?
How are we counting?
And ultimately, the Supreme Court stepped in partly because we were really running up against the deadline of when the Electoral College was going to meet.
One thing about a presidential election is we have a lot less time to resolve it than a congressional election or another election because in December, those presidential electors, the ones we're really voting for, not technically for president, they have to meet.
And so the court stepped in at the time.
It was seen as a conservative leading court.
The decision is kind of a complicated decision.
In some ways, it was seven to two with some of the Democratically appointed judges seeing some of the problems with the Florida recount.
Five of them, justices, seeing that we really needed to stop the counting to prepare for the Electoral College.
And afterwards, I do think that many Democrats lost a little bit of confidence at the court.
The poll numbers for the court on the Democratic side went down.
But it was a battle of many institutions, and we really were up against a deadline, which somebody needed to step in and say when this thing would end, and the court stepped in 25 years ago.
In modern history, I mean, obviously, I know the Supreme Court has a pretty storied history in this country.
But in modern history, was the 2000 election and the decision from the Supreme Court, was that really one of the first inflection moments for people, at least one side of the country, to really start to distrust the Supreme Court, kind of echoing the numbers that we see right now?
You saw the Warren Court in the 60s and 70s have a reaction of conservatives who said this is too activist a court, and you saw the numbers of people on the right, their confidence in the court go down.
I do think it was an inflection point in 2000 where there has been a little less confidence on the Democratic side, and that's built a bit more in recent years.
So we've had various inflection points, but that was certainly one for the Democrats.
Well, it was very close, and Florida was in some ways more transparent than many other states in that all the ballots were able to be looked at after the fact.
And there were some media consortiums who looked at all the ballots afterwards.
And certainly they did find in most of the scenarios, George Bush would have been the winner.
And certainly in the scenario of just the types of recounts that had been requested in the early stages, there was one scenario at some point too, that says under certain circumstances, counting statewide, maybe the ballots would have tipped slightly in Gore's favor.
I mean, I think it shows really how close it was.
If you make slightly different assumptions about what types of ballots to count and where to count them, you might move things just the needle one way.
But most of the scenarios did show that George W. Bush was a very, very narrow winner in this key state.
And if they hadn't stepped in, I think we were going to have the Electoral College.
So at some point, there had to be some answer where those electors were appointed.
But the Electoral College votes were going to be counted by Congress.
And while we had some controversy in 2020, certainly people know about, we also actually had a little bit of controversy in 2000 itself or 2001, just after this election, where there were a few people objecting to votes in the counting of the electoral votes.
It's actually very difficult, though, to really, really unravel those votes or to object to them and to have them thrown out.
And it wasn't possible in 2000 and really takes super majorities.
And I guess I would say also that we've done a little bit of reform to change the way in which we count those ballots.
We have a slightly better law in terms of counting electoral votes.
So as much as people might have tried to make a little trouble, I think still the mechanism for counting those electoral votes at the end of the day in January would likely lead to the outcome that we had.
So people might have tried to make a little more trouble, but I think we would have been in the same situation.
First of all, the Supreme Court stepped in because the Electoral College was leaning towards gore.
They stepped in and cut that off.
The second thing is that this was about absentee ballots, mail-in ballots.
Now this is going to stop mail-in ballots because the Democrats have figured out how to use it.
The third thing is that I'm a retired military officer.
I've been a voting officer overseas.
Every ballot that's voted overseas comes into the Atlantic Fleet port or the Pacific Fleet port, and they are stamped.
They're postmarked.
Part of the battle was that they had a bunch of ballots that were not postmarked, and they wanted to count them because they came from service people, which was a good idea.
But my theory is that if you look at the Secretary, the then Secretary of State at that time, if you look at her travel, you will find that she visited each of the counties that had those ballots.
Well, look, we weren't able to get into all of the many controversies.
There were dozens and dozens of lawsuits, some of them successful and some of them not.
And one of the issues, the caller was correct, was about overseas military ballots.
Again, with such a small margin, everybody was criticizing or scrutinizing each type of balloting.
And yes, there are some issues with the way those ballots come in.
Are there postmarks?
At the end of the day, I think that issue did not end up being the most important.
Vice President Gore didn't really challenge those ballots as some thought he maybe should have, partly wanting to make sure that overseas voters, especially military voters, were not being disenfranchised.
So it is one of the issues.
And people pointed to the hanging chads, the way we counted, the famous butterfly ballot, which some people thought made some voters confused as to how they vote.
All those things, though, we did litigate.
We went through a process.
And at the end of the day, you can argue how our voting system should have been.
But the way it was in place at the time, the way we litigated it, it ended up being just a very narrow margin for George W. Bush, which was enough to make him the president.
Yes, but also I lived at ground zero in 2000 and actually was an elected official from Palm Beach County.
The whole issue in Florida came down to Palm Beach County.
There's no two ways about it.
Buchanan got more votes in Palm Beach County than he did in almost the rest of the state combined because the people who were voting didn't understand the ballot and they messed it up.
But also remember, Al Gore wins his home state.
Florida's not an issue.
Our home state being Tennessee.
And he couldn't carry Tennessee.
So it was interesting, but the final title results, when the newspapers, everybody got together to recount every vote in Florida, it still ended up with an unbelievably narrow majority of 530 in favor of Bush.
So it is what it is, and it didn't change anything at all, really.
But it was easy to comprehend because if you knew what happened in Palm Beach County, you could see a real problem because the way, and the head of elections in Palm Beach County at the time was Teresa Lapur, a good friend of mine.
And she decided she put down one row on one side of the page and another on the other side of the page.
And you had to poke in between.
And Buchanan got more votes in Palm Beach County than they got in the whole rest of the state because they didn't know how to find the holes.
So that's what happened.
It's tragic, but when they recounted everything, it still ended up with a small vision for small Bush victory.
It was really one of the key counties we were looking at.
And I think the callers especially referred to something people referred to at the time as the butterfly ballot.
To oversimplify, some people believe the way the ballot was designed made some voters confused.
And instead of perhaps voting for Vice President Gore, they might have actually cast a vote for third-party candidate Pat Buchanan.
There were some issues with ballot design.
It can cost people votes.
I think we do a better job of that today.
But there also isn't really much of a remedy for it.
To the extent that we could speculate whether it was true or not, there's no way after the fact to say, well, of course, this voter really meant to vote for Al Gore instead of voting for Pat Buchanan because the ballot was confusing.
So we had a number of issues, some of which may have been valid things to think about in the future, but there was no real remedy and no way of going back and remedying that.
So people raised the butterfly ballot, but it wasn't really an issue that both sides took on legally because there wasn't really much of a remedy, nothing to do about it after the fact.
And C-SPAN will be re-airing key moments from the Bush v. Gore overtime election, including speeches and the full Supreme Court hearing on the case later today at 1 p.m. here on C-SPAN.
You can also find more information by going on our website, c-span.org forward slash Bush-Gore.
Later on this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll take a deep dive into the immigration court system with Judge Jeremiah Johnson, Vice President of the National Association of Immigration Judges.
But first, after the break, Josh Golan from the group Fair Play talks about renewed efforts in Congress to improve child online safety.
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You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Joining us now to talk about the efforts in Congress to bolster child online safety is Josh Golan, executive director of the group Fairplay.
Josh, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
I wonder if we could just start off.
Can you tell our viewers what exactly is FairPlay?
What's your mission?
And how are you funded?
unidentified
Sure.
Fair Play's mission is to eliminate the harmful business practices of big tech and marketers.
We advocate for policies that would make the internet less addictive and less harmful for children and it would help them get the offline time that they need to thrive.
And we are funded entirely by private donations and private foundations.
We have a strict policy about not taking any money from big tech or any other corporation.
Now, John, before we continue, I want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation.
We're talking about child online safety.
These, your numbers, your call-in numbers are sorted by regional areas this time.
So 202-748-8000.
That's your Eastern and Central regions.
202-748-8001.
That's your Mountain and Pacific regions.
And for parents and caregivers, your expertise line is 202-748-8002.
So go ahead and start calling in.
We want to hear from you on this important topic.
John, C-SPAN covered a Senate judiciary hearing this week examining online safety for kids.
I want to take a listen to it because it's pretty much talking about the current state of these conversations happening on the Hill right now.
Take a listen.
unidentified
Every time I speak of him, I smile because I am grateful God let me borrow his angel for 17 and a half years.
But every day I am angry.
A woman online befriended James on Instagram.
She created what every predator knows how to build, a safe space.
She made him feel comfortable, seen, liked.
She groomed him.
Then she asked if he wanted to see her unclothed and exposed herself.
She asked him to do the same.
And like any innocent 17-year-old boy who liked a girl and saw no danger, he did.
That moment she created became their weapon.
The attackers came, not one person, but what we believe at least four.
For nearly 20 hours, they attacked, threatened, terrorized, and dismantled my child.
Every time he tried to fight back and asked, why are you doing this to me?
Please leave me alone.
They escalated, sending his image to friends and family, telling him he would be labeled a pedophile, telling him his future was over, telling him you should just kill yourself.
And in those last moments, my son, who had everything to live for, felt like he had no other choice.
A day that started with laughter, college friends, and joy ended with my husband finding our child unalive in our home in the middle of the day.
Now, that was a testimony from Tamia Woods from Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Hearing where she spoke about her 17-year-old son, James, who committed suicide after falling victim to online harassment and extortion.
It's just one of the many instances and experiences that we've heard about recently.
I wonder what's your reaction to this, and how would you describe evolving threats that children are facing while surfing online?
unidentified
Yeah.
I mean, first of all, that is so heartbreaking.
And there are far, far too many children who have died by suicide after being sextorted, including several that we work with in Fair Play and have become passionate advocates for online safety.
I think one thing that is really important for viewers to understand is that this is directly related to the way that these platforms are designed.
So these platforms want us to connect with and want our children to connect with as many people as possible because that creates more activity and more time on the platform, which then allows them to sell more advertising.
So internal documents from Meta have found that every day 1.4 million inappropriate adults are recommended to children to follow.
So the recommendation algorithms are actually connecting these predators, these sextortionists, directly to children.
And Meta is very aware of this, and the other platforms are very aware of this.
So I think it's really important to understand that it's these design choices that are there to make more money off of our children, to addict them to these platforms, are the very things that are putting them at danger.
And it's not just sextortion, it's connecting kids to drug dealers.
It is sending kids pro-eating disorder and pro-suicide content, sending them down rabbit holes of really the most dangerous and concerning content there is.
And it's driving a mental health crisis when it comes to young people.
And all of this goes back to this business model of addict kids by any means possible.
But Josh, these are long-standing problems, something that lawmakers in Congress have long said that they would crack down on.
I wonder if you can just give us a brief overview of what the status of these efforts are on Congress in the Hill now.
unidentified
Yeah, great question.
I think the first thing we need to understand is that this problem is as much Congress's fault as it is these platforms that are exploiting our children.
Congress has not passed a new law to protect children online since 1999.
That's 26 years before the smartphone or social media even existed.
And that law only protects kids up to their 13th birthday.
So teens have no protections at all.
Thanks in part to an understanding of a mental health crisis that is being driven by social media and by whistleblower documents and by lawsuits which have given us access to so many internal documents on this company from these companies.
Congress is finally waking up and there are a number of proposals in Congress to keep kids safer.
The one that has the most support is the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate last year by a 91 to 3 incredible bipartisan vote, but then was unable to get a floor vote in the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson blocked it.
And this year has 72 sponsors in the Senate and was just introduced in the House, but the House's version is much, much weaker than what we have in the Senate and will not be sufficient to protect kids.
So we're really focused on strengthening that House version and moving it across the finish line this year.
But there's no doubt that big tech, that Meta and these other companies are doing everything they can to stop Congress from passing any strong laws.
I think it's really, and the caller raises a really important point.
It's not just social media where our kids are being infected.
And in fact, video games are increasingly more and more like social media, where part of the allure for the kids is the ability to chat with and interact with other players, strangers.
And we are seeing on these platforms, we're seeing a tremendous amount of grooming going on on games like Roblox and Fortnite, as well as just horrific cyberbullying takes place while these games are being played.
So I think this is one reason why something like the Kids Online Safety Act is so important.
It would cover, at least the Senate version, would cover video games as well as social media.
And it would say that these platforms have a duty to design their video games in a way that is safer for children.
So that would mean ensuring that adults are not connecting to children over these games and grooming them.
It would mean putting in measures to decrease cyberbullying so that we wouldn't see all of these ganging up on children that occurs.
And really a lot of bullying that occurs around whether kids are able to buy the extras for their characters or not.
So creating enormous financial pressures on kids to buy what are essentially worthless products that have no value in the real world in order not to be bullied.
So all of this goes back to the way that these platforms are designed for addiction and to extract our children's time, attention, and money.
And as long as they are unregulated, these problems will continue.
That's why we need things like the Kids Online Safety Act.
Do you have good visibility about other cultures that may or may not be similar in demographics or to America?
It seems like America, whether the issue is drugs, too much food, bad behavior on the internet, we just take it to the next level.
So are like kids in England, France, Palestine.
Are they like, you know, spending too much time online and taking it out on each other?
Or is this peculiar to America?
It's not peculiar to America, the behavior of young people.
And that's because the same techniques are used by these social media companies like Meta and TikTok all over the world.
What is different is that much of the rest of the world has responded quicker and more forcefully.
So as many of your viewers probably saw, Australia this week banned children under 16 from accessing social media.
Many other countries in Europe and in the UK have put in restrictions on how you can collect data from children and use that data to target them and have put in measures that require these platforms to be safer for young people.
So this is a global problem and because of this business model that these companies have.
But frankly, America is lagging behind right now because we have seen legislation pass in many countries in Europe.
And as I said, the really dramatic measure that Australia took this week.
Incredible that we have a political system in other places around the world too, where there's ads and stuff and you don't know where they're from, that they're fake.
We need to have controls on that.
You're talking about safety.
That's the most important thing.
So, yeah, these bills are in Europe.
We need to have those here.
But AI, generally, we need like Isaac Asimov's three law of robotics.
And then he has another thing that starts with the K, a law, where AI cannot cause harm to people directly or can't cause others, humans, to cause harm to people.
So, you know, we haven't done anything about that.
You know, AI can trigger a nuclear war accidentally, you know, just like humans can't.
So, I mean, that's an additional risk for nuclear conflicts.
So, anyway, we need to get our act together in the U.S. and globally about controlling AI.
And politically, we can't have these companies or individuals manipulating us, and we have no idea who it is.
Tosh?
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with the caller.
You know, we are on the verge of making the same exact mistakes that we made with social media, with AI, where we allow these companies to develop and target children with no restrictions, with no guardrails, and you let the horse out of the barn, and so many kids get harmed before we even start thinking about regulation.
With AI, we have already had a number of cases where AI chatbots have encouraged children to die by suicide, have encouraged children to harm themselves, have encouraged children to starve themselves, have encouraged children to harm others.
And meanwhile, we have these AI companies spending over $100 million to influence elections and target politicians so they won't be regulated.
And in fact, the president yesterday issued an executive order that would attempt to limit the ability of states to regulate AI.
So think about that for a moment.
The federal government isn't doing anything to protect children from AI, and they're trying to stop states from who are stepping up in order to offer children some protections.
So this is really serious right now.
This is a critical moment.
These companies are unleashing the most powerful persuasive technologies we've ever seen on children with absolutely no guardrails.
It's a race to the bottom for our children's attention.
And if we don't regulate it, we are going to see mental health problems and suicide and things like that on a scale that we've never seen before.
Josh, tell me, is AI and AI chatbots, is that a part of the Kids Online Safety Act?
And I know that you said that the House version compared to the Senate version is much weaker.
Can you explain exactly how and whether or not removing the duty care is a part of that?
unidentified
Yeah, so on the question of covering chatbots, it's a little complicated.
And based on the definitions that are in the bill, it would cover chatbots if they were on a social media platform.
So for instance, Instagram and Snap and TikTok all have chatbots that you can interact with on their platforms and those would be covered.
There's a little gray area about whether it would cover things like chat GPT and we may need additional laws to address things like that.
In terms of the differences between the Senate and House version, I think there are a couple of really critical differences that I want to focus on.
In the Senate, it requires platforms to have, it creates what's called the duty of care for platforms to ensure that the way that they are designed is not contributing to things like eating disorders, suicide, anxiety and depression, social media addiction, cyberbullying.
In the House, I mean, it only requires platforms to have policies and procedures to address certain harms.
And all of those harms are criminal acts.
So it doesn't do anything about all the mental health harms or the addiction that kids face online.
And, you know, having policies and procedures is not nearly as strong as having a duty of care.
All those platforms already have policies and procedures.
We're not sure how this would actually change their behavior.
So that's the number one difference is not having that duty of care.
The second difference is that the Senate bill would allow states to continue to pass their own laws and enforce the laws that they have on the books.
The House version would preempt all state legislation and future regulation of these companies.
And that's really concerning because we have some great laws on the books in some of the states.
You know, states like Maryland and New York and California and Nebraska have all passed bills in the past couple of years to protect children online.
And those would no longer be valid if the House version of the Kids Online Safety Act passed.
So we want the strongest version to pass and we want to preserve states' rights to do even more to protect their children if that's what they want to do.
We have a question on X that says, I think this is another tragic example of why we need term or age limits.
Technology moves fast and it's difficult for quote older people to keep up with.
I feel younger minds who understand current technology would help immensely.
Your thoughts, Kristen from Portland, Maine.
unidentified
I think, you know, we absolutely need young people involved in these conversations.
And in fact, my organization advocates side by side with a couple of great youth-led organizations, Design It for Us and the Young People's Alliance.
And I think one of the things that's so heartening from the last couple of years is that we're seeing young people, even those who are, you know, so much enmeshed in social media saying this is not what we want.
You know, more than half of young people say they wish social media had never existed.
If you ask young people, do they want the younger brother or sister to go on these platforms?
It's almost always a resounding no.
And so, what we're starting to see is those young people's voices saying, We deserve better.
We don't stop designing for addiction.
Stop creating these, you know, sending us down these rabbit holes and making us vulnerable to predators.
And so, I think the young people have an enormously important role to play.
And it's those young people advocating side by side with parents that are creating the pressure in Washington to finally do something.
For several years, I have been telling my friends that AI is my greatest fear, not from aggressors from abroad, not from anyone within the United States.
unidentified
But my greatest fear is AI because it is smarter than we are, and it does not seem to be friendly toward humans.
I mean, I share the call, I share Bernice's concerns, and I think one of the things that is so concerning right now is that our society is being remade by AI.
You know, more than one-third of children are confining in AI chatbots.
AI is moving into the classrooms.
AI is, you know, they're building these enormous data centers that are using tremendous amounts of energy and water.
It is displacing workers.
And none of this is being done as part of a democratic conversation.
It is being rammed down our throats with practically, you know, zero discussion, and it's making a lot of money for a few people.
And the rest of us are really getting the short end of the stick, and children are potentially going to get the worst of it.
So I think this is a moment where we need people to rise up and to make their voices heard.
That, you know, we want to preserve humanity, that we want to preserve human relationships, that we don't want AI therapists and doctors and coworkers and teachers.
And, you know, so this is, you know, I think the next couple of years are really going to determine the course of where we're going.
And if we don't regulate AI, if we don't put some safeguards in place, if we don't limit AI interactions with our children, I really fear for how this next generation is going to develop.
Obviously, this is an issue that impacts real people, real families, but we are entering midterm season as we go into 2026.
I wonder how you believe or if you feel that this issue with COSA, obviously that Childs Online Safety Act legislation, or just the idea of should children have their phones in schools and other similar related issues percolating in the national conversation.
Do you think that this will have an impact on midterms come November?
unidentified
I do think this will have an impact.
I mean, I am in DC all the time with parents who have lost their children to things that have happened on social media.
And these parents have been sounding the alarm for years and are the reason why COSA has so much support.
But I'll tell you this.
We have done polling.
Other organizations have done polling that show this is an issue that has like 90% support among parents.
It is one of the most important issues to parents.
And it is just sitting there waiting for one of the parties to step up and be a strong leader in this.
And they will have so much support from parents.
But right now, both parties take too much money from big tech, and they're not showing the leadership.
And really, this is just an issue that is waiting for one of the parties to say, you know what?
We're not going to keep taking all this big tech money.
We are going to stand up for families.
And I guarantee whichever party does that first will have a significant advantage in the next election.
Now, later on this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll take a deep dive into the immigration court system with Judge Jeremiah Johnson, Vice President of the National Association of Immigration Judges.
But first, it's open forum.
Your chance to call in on any political or public policy topic on your mind this morning, start calling in now.
Most of the names are familiar to those who follow politics and government.
Hunter Biden, Rudolph Giuliani, Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort, and many others.
Kenneth Vogel has written a book about these figures.
It's called Devil's Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests.
In the publisher Morrow's liner notes on the book, they write: The foreign influence business comprised of shadowy operators who quietly shape U.S. foreign policy while producing massive paydays for themselves, has existed for decades, often unnoticed by Americans.
Ken Vogel is a reporter for the New York Times, previously was with Politico.
unidentified
Author Kenneth Vogel with his book, Devil's Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the payroll of corrupt foreign interests.
On this episode of BookNotes Plus, with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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It's Open Forum, your chance to call in on any public policy or politics issue that you want to talk about this Saturday morning.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
You can also text us at 202-748-8003.
Includes your first name, your city, and your state.
While we wait for your calls this morning, I want to get back into the latest headlines.
First up, we have from Politico a headline says, Kamala Harris delivers reality check to bullish Democrats.
This is an article about her speech last night at the DNC in Los Angeles.
It says Kamala Harris warned fellow Democrats on Friday that the American dream is dying and that her party shares the blame, a bracing reality check for the party following a string of Democratic victories.
I want you to take a listen to some of the comments from the former vice president last night.
People are done with the status quo and they're ready to break things to force change.
And so real talk, right?
So in comes Donald Trump, casting himself as the change agent, but with empty promises to the American people.
Under his leadership, we all know prices are up, inflation is up, unemployment is up, health care costs for millions of Americans are about to double.
We all know that in the midst of all this, the truth and reality of the moment that just a few days ago, he said the economy was, I had to count the pluses.
They're five.
A plus, That's what he said when asked, rate the economy.
A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.
There is nothing A plus about any of this, but real talk.
We must be candid and clear.
Donald Trump is not the only source of our problems.
He and the rise of the MAGA movement, I believe, are a symptom of a failed system that is the result of years of outsourcing and offshoring,
financial deregulation, growing income inequality, a broken campaign finance system, and endless partisan gridlock, all contributing to how we got here today.
So as we plan for what comes after this administration, we cannot afford to be nostalgic for what was in fact a flawed status quo and a system that failed so many.
Obviously, we just heard from John Fortier talking about the Bush v. Gore race, and he said, an expert on this issue, that there had been a lot of improvements on the technology of voting, and that included mail-in ballots.
unidentified
Yes, but it doesn't prove that the voter did the voting or that they even are alive.
Somebody else could have done the voting for them.
And it's broken the chain of custody.
The ballots need to be kept within the precinct and put into the tabulator at the precinct and then locked there.
Obviously, the president has talked in recent days and weeks about delivering a paycheck directly to the American people, potentially because of all the money he says that is coming in from tariffs.
But there has, well, I'll ask my producers for an update on that.
Pat from North Dakota, an independent.
You're next.
unidentified
Hello.
I just want to say that I think there's on the bureaucracy, it seems to me that the liberals have a monopoly on the bureaucracy because Laura Ingram said most of the people that work for the government are liberal.
And it seems to me there should be a 50-50 process of when they hire government workers.
Half of them should be conservative.
Because I don't think it's fair that our money goes out the door just because just on the liberals say so.
And there should be a taxpayers union checking the money before it goes out the door.
We always hear about all this fraud when it's already spent.
So I'm reading a CNN article from November 19th that says, four reasons you probably won't get a $2,000 check from Trump soon.
And one scary reason you might.
It says that President Trump has promised to deliver $2,000 tariff rebate checks next year, raising the hopes of a lifeline for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet.
Although Trump has suggested these checks are essentially a done deal, the reality is there are major, perhaps insurmountable obstacles standing in the way.
Experts tell CNN it's improbable that federal government will send out $2,000 checks next year unless it looks like the economy needs to be rescued from an imminent recession.
So that was to the voter or to the caller's earlier question about whether or not there could be a stimulus check in the future.
Yeah, I just wanted to thank you for the forum that you provide for ordinary working common Americans.
And the vast majority of us fall into that category.
I think a lot of the callers are really talking about the same issue, which is the wealth inequality in the country, the concentration of wealth in the top, not just 1%, but the fraction of 1%.
And people are really struggling.
I think 60% of Americans don't have $1,000 in the bank for any kind of emergency.
People aren't eating best food because they can't afford it.
They don't have access to it.
They're getting sicker.
We're number 42 in terms of the life expectancy in the world.
We have the most chronic illnesses of any of the industrialized nations.
And that's all because of the economy that we have.
So I just encourage people to follow the money and look at how many billionaires are living very well and how many Americans aren't.
Senator Grassley, in Trump's first term, received, asked and received almost a half a million dollars in farmer bailout money for his little soybean farm in Kansas.
unidentified
You can look that up.
Half a million dollars.
So here is a multi-millionaire.
He's been in politics for 50 years.
How does he get a half a million dollars of my taxpayer money?
And my son can't even get help with his health insurance.
So to Eileen's point about the announcement that President Trump made, I'm looking at a notice article that says Trump announces $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by tariffs.
Officials said the administration will allocate $11 billion first.
And the article goes on by Tyler Spence to say that Trump said at a roundtable meeting with administration officials and farmers that aid would help farmers lower food prices and fight inflation, blaming Democrats for those problems.
Still, the aid is an acknowledgement that Trump's trade battles are hurting U.S. farmers.
The administration is expected to draw from the Department of Agriculture's emergency fund out emergency fund to pay out the aid with farmers expected to receive payments by February 28th.
Trump said the money would be pulled from tariff revenue.
Adam from Florida, an independent, you're up next.
unidentified
Hi there.
Good morning.
And thank you for taking my call.
I'm just calling because I wanted to make a comment on the clip that you showed about Kamila Harris.
I want to start saying that I voted actually for Kamala Harris.
However, I do believe that the inflation started from the Biden administration.
And I think that Camilla Harris, at that time, people had high hopes when she was running for the presidency that she might make a difference.
But unfortunately, I don't think nothing was done.
And I do believe that's what costed her the presidency.
But I do believe that she had the ability at that time to make a difference, and it did not happen.
Yes, I'm an 83-year-old Vietnam veteran, and I would like in my lifetime, which I don't think I got, I got as many tomorrows as I had yesterday, but I'd like to see why don't the women get together?
They're the biggest voting block.
Why don't they get together and get rid of them old white men?
I'm a contractor, and I'm also an employee of NOTIS.
I work for both, and I don't see it as a conflict of interest.
But your first question on the BLM fraud, I will have our producers go and look for an article on that because I'm not exactly familiar with what you are discussing.
Well, I will point you to a New York Times article from October.
The headline is, Most voters think America's divisions cannot be overcome.
Poll says a News Times and Siena survey shows a significant shift among voters as their concerns about health care of the political system overtake other issues.
That, again, was from October 2025.
Edward from Pennsylvania, a Democrat, your mind is open.
unidentified
Yes, thank you for taking my call.
I read some time ago that after World War II in the South Pacific, Japan, the country of Japan, was given free medical care.
And as a result, Japan, after they got free medical care, Japan was listed as the healthiest nation in the world.
Now, I can't see if we are concerned about our health care.
Up next, we'll take a deep dive into the immigration system with Judge Jeremiah Johnson, Vice President of the National Association of Immigration Dental.
Not just the coverage that we get of both chambers on one and two, but programs like Washington Journal that allow policymakers, lawmakers, personalities to come on and have this question time during Washington Journal.
unidentified
So it's a huge benefit.
I hope that all these streaming services carry C-SPAN as well because it's an important service to the American people.
I'm actually thrilled that this time in Washington Journal, I'm getting a lot of really substantive questions from across the political aisle.
Our country would be a better place if every American just watched one hour a week.
They could pick one, two, or three.
Just one hour a week, and we'd all be a much better country.
So thank you for your service.
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c-span democracy unfiltered most of the names are familiar to those who follow politics and government hunter biden rudolph giuliani tony podesta paul manafort and many others Kenneth Vogel has written a book about these figures.
It's called Devil's Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests.
In the publisher Morrow's liner notes on the book, they write: The foreign influence business comprised of shadowy operators who quietly shape U.S. foreign policy while producing massive paydays for themselves has existed for decades, often unnoticed by Americans.
Ken Vogel is a reporter for the New York Times, previously was with Politico.
unidentified
Author Kenneth Vogel with his book, Devil's Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the payroll of corrupt foreign interests.
on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday with our guest best-selling author, Arthur Brooks, who has written 13 books about finding purpose, connection, and cultivating lasting joy.
His books include Love Your Enemies, Build the Life You Want with co-author Oprah Winfrey and his latest The Happiness Files.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Joining us from San Francisco to talk about how the immigration court system works is Judge Jeremiah Johnson, Vice President of the National Association of Immigration Judges.
Judge Johnson, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
If you could just remind our viewers what the role of an immigration is and how is it different than other judges.
unidentified
And thank you, Jasmine, for having me.
We'd also just like to clarify I'm a former immigration judge.
I was fired two weeks ago on November 21st.
Immigration judges preside over removal proceedings, which are the lawful manner in which a person is removed from the United States.
To do that, the law requires them to be placed in front of an immigration judge.
We wear robes, we hear evidence, we just make decisions based on the law and based only on the evidence presented before us.
The parties before us are the respondent or the immigrant who's being subject to removal as well as Department of Homeland Security attorneys.
So we preside over the lawful manner in which people are removed from the United States.
But first, can you talk about what type of cases an immigration judge might hear?
Is that asylum?
Is that removals?
What exactly does the work entail?
unidentified
Yes.
Well, the work entails removal proceedings and then for relief from removal.
Basically, people can apply for asylum.
They can apply for cancellation of removal, say they've been in the United States for a long period of time and that their family members would suffer a certain level of hardship.
They can apply for adjustment of status for green cards.
So judges have a broad and wide authority to grant many types of forms of relief from people to remain in the United States, including asylum, which the majority of the cases are.
But also then they have the authority to remove the person, to order the person removed.
And I want to continue this conversation, but I would like to invite our viewers in to join in.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
And you can also text us at 202-748-8003.
Jeremiah, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University basically compiles statistics about immigration.
Here is what they put together on the state of immigration, on the state of the immigration court just this year.
If you look at this full screen, it talks about how the total backlog of immigration cases is 3.4 million.
Of those, 2.2 million immigrants have filed for asylum and are awaiting hearings and decisions.
Immigration judges have issued overall involuntary departures in 55% of completed cases, totaling about 470,000 deportation orders, total of 506,000 new court cases in the fiscal year 2025.
That's, of course, according to TRAC, which is a data gathering and data research and distribution organization of Syracuse University.
Can you talk about how we got to this point where you have such an immense backlog of these immigration cases?
unidentified
Right, we've got to this point through years of neglect by the administrations and previous administrations, this one as well, as far as investment in the immigration court system, the lack of independence for immigration judges to handle their own docket.
So you have docket shuffling, you have interference from the administration.
And then recently you have firings of immigration judges, unlawful firings, which doesn't seem to be consistent with the addressing the backlog.
If you have such a heavy backlog and your goal is to remove people from the United States, it doesn't make sense to then unlawfully fire people to hear those cases.
So there needs to be more investment in immigration judges, additional hiring, but also there can be structural reforms from Congress to set up a strong and independent immigration court system outside of the Department of Justice or the executive branch of government.
Speaking of firings, you were, as you said, fired two weeks ago by the Trump administration.
Can you walk us through what happened?
What reason were you given?
unidentified
I was given no reason.
It was got an email with a letter attached indicating that pursuant to Article 2 of the Constitution, the Attorney General has decided to terminate my position, my role as an immigration judge.
Over 100 judges, 100 judges have received such termination letters throughout the country.
And that termination is unlawful.
No cause was given.
And it doesn't, and that's, I think, should be the questions that are asked.
The executive, the Attorney General, and Congress, and the American people should be asking those questions as well.
How does the status of an immigration judge potentially, you know, I know you said that these were illegal, but is the status of an immigration judge, does that give some credence to the administration's ability to fire you guys basically at will with no notification and through an email?
unidentified
No, we are employees of the Department of Justice, so firing someone without cause or without any stated cause is just not right.
And firing an employee of the Department of Justice without a cause would be unlawful.
We should, the law requires us to exercise our independent decision-making authority.
And so that is what immigration judges are doing every day.
And to have a firing without any stated reason is wrong.
And so that way we are proposing to remove the immigration courts from the executive branch and that political interference that you have just by the fact of being in the Department of Justice.
Before we turn to our callers, I want to point you to an ex-post by the Department of Justice just a few days ago.
They say, quote, the last administration left us with an immigration crisis.
Help President Trump solve it, become a deportation judge today.
I wonder what your reaction is to seeing this, particularly after your last two weeks.
unidentified
I mean, that's just false advertisement.
We're not deportation judges.
We take our job very seriously.
We are immigration judges.
That's what the law states.
And also, I think it's kind of interesting to have such an advertisement and offer signing bonuses to particular cities when they're firing people from those cities, the experienced and experts in immigration law.
At the same time, they're watering down the standards for temporary immigration judges.
So that's another concern that sitting judges and the American people should have about this immigration crisis that we find ourselves in.
But Department of Homeland Security, my Orcas, fired a whole bunch of immigration judges and put in people from, I think it's USIC, gave them a five-week training, and they were told that they were supposed to let every illegal immigrant into the country not to pay attention to any of the asylum rules.
Yeah, I to that point that I don't know about the other additional firings, but I do know that there have been more firings under this administration than the past.
So, and certainly that would be shows that the it's unlawful to immigration judges should exercise their independent discretion.
So, right now there's a five-week or you indicated a five-week training.
I had much more training than that.
I was appointed under the Trump administration.
Current temporary immigration judges and immigration judges are receiving less training than that right now.
No judge should be told to ignore the immigration law or asylum law.
So, I think that's a valid point that no immigration judge should be told that we should be able to exercise our independent authority to hear these cases.
And if people are to be removed from the United States, the law provides a process to do so, and that's through removal proceedings and presided over by immigration judges that should be exercising their independent decision-making authority based on the evidence solely provided in those proceedings.
Steve from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, an independent, you're next.
unidentified
Yeah, my comment would just be that I'd like to see a 10-year freeze on all immigration and then have the system repaired and then clean up whatever the mess has currently been left over from the Biden administration.
But I'd also like to see all the special interests and lobbyists who want to prepare for the new immigration law have no say in it and just the people of the United States.
So immigration judges do not affect immigration policy as far as a pause of people entering the United States or not.
We follow the law as written.
So even a 10-year pause on immigration would still require immigration courts to work as far as handling cases, people applying for asylum or people in the United States without authorization.
They have to go through that removal process to have their case either heard or not heard.
So leaving people in a legal limbo would not necessarily be good for the immigration courts or the immigration people.
And I do agree that Congress needs to be fixing this through the law and not necessarily other interests.
Yeah, so immigration judges do not hear cases about unlawful working in the United States.
That's a different enforcement mechanism.
So that's something that should be followed.
And a person is placed in removal proceedings and they're entitled to due process.
So simply putting a person in removal proceedings, then the judge hears that case.
They're entitled to certain protections and rights, but they also do have responsibilities.
So the judge should hear that case as expeditiously as possible.
But each person has a right to present a claim for relief.
And the Department of Homeland Security has that right to present evidence to remove the person.
It's a process to make sure that judges get it right and to add speed over speed over emphasizing speed over getting it right just simply is going to be more costly and less secure for the American people.
Just as an immigration judge, our process is to follow the law and to hear cases, each case individually.
So that's the bedrock of what the American Foundation is based on the rule of law.
And so I think that's what's the important thing is to remember is that every person that comes before an immigration judge in those immigration proceedings are entitled to respect, entitled to present their case, and entitled to a professional jurist to hear their claim.
Tony from Buffalo, New York, a Republican, you're next.
unidentified
Yes.
This is for Judge Johnson.
You know, I've spoken to Republicans, politicians, and Democratic politicians.
And what are your thoughts on having a show-me law?
In other words, show me, okay, say, for example, Joe Smith has been here for three years.
What have you done since the three years you've been here?
And you look up and you look over their employee, employer, and they say, okay, I've worked for this factory for the last three years, okay?
And I've never missed, and you talk to the employer.
He's been a contributing member of society.
He's paid taxes, and he stayed out of trouble, kept his nose clean.
So now we give him a five-year probation.
And at the end of the five years, we actually died a citizenship.
Because, you know, the president wants, you know, he's talking about these golden, this golden generation and golden years and bringing all these factories back to the United States and all these, you know, plants back to the United States.
Well, we're going to need people to work these plants.
And if we get rid of all the working, you know, all these immigrants, we are all immigrants.
And I think we should do a show-me law.
Show me what you've done.
Now, if you've been here for three years and you've done nothing, and you know what?
They're the ones we removed because they're not going to be contributing members of society and they haven't paid taxes like the U.S. citizens have for the last three years.
Jeremiah, I wonder if you have a response to that.
unidentified
I do.
I want to thank.
I think that shows the importance of having an immigration judge to hear that.
We don't, we interpret the law.
So, if that were to be a law, I think you would want to see that you have a judge to actually hear that case, to hear what the caller is proposing.
And that's something that we do, not that there is that law, but we are responsible for giving the time to have someone come before us to hear the evidence that they present, to hear the Department of Homeland Security, the other side to argument about why a person may be removed.
Sometimes there's an agreement that the person should remain in the United States, sometimes there's not.
But I think what you want is that independent adjudicator, that independent judge, free from political interference, to make that decision and also to give the person the time to do so.
You don't just bring them before a judge and say, you know, show me what you've proposed.
Give them time to find the evidence to present their case in a meaningful way.
So I think that's the importance of having an independent, a strong and independent immigration court system.
Tom from North Carolina and Independent, you're next.
unidentified
Yes, thank you.
You reported that there's a 3 million plus backlog of cases waiting to be heard, but we understand that there's probably up to 20 million people that have come into the country in the past many years.
What about the extra 17 million?
What's the status for them?
Are they ready for immediate deportation because they did not get their court date going?
Before you answer, Jeremiah, I just want to point to this Pew Research from last year, July 22, 2024, what we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.
And it says that the unauthorized immigration population in the United States grew to 11 million in 2022, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on the 2022 American Community Survey, the most recent year available.
The increase from 10.5 in 2021 reversed a long-term downward trend from 2007 to 2019.
This is the first sustained increase in the unauthorized immigration population since the period of 2005 and 2007.
But I wonder what your thoughts are on the caller's question.
unidentified
Well, the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for initiating removal proceedings.
So those persons who are in the United States without permission, unauthorized, if they were, they would not be subject to immediate removal.
They would be subject to the department initiating these removal proceedings and appearing before an immigration court to determine whether they may remain.
They may have eligibility for relief, like I indicated, cancellation of removal, which allows if a person's been in the United States for 10 years and has a requisite level of hardship and other requirements to meet that standard as well as discretion.
But so those people, you know, it would be the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security to bring them before the courts and then having a strong court to hear their claim to see whether they may remain or whether they should be removed from the United States.
So we do not attack our guests by the way that they sound, the way that they look on this program.
But I wonder if you can answer the first part of that question.
unidentified
Yes, it is illegal to cross the southern border unlawfully without inspection or missions.
There's many technicalities about way that a person can enter and not enter, and that's the role of the judge to determine based on the evidence presented in each case.
There's also criminal acts of entering the United States illegally or re-entering the United States illegally.
So there are many areas of the law that make it illegal to re-enter the United States.
Authorization is a separate factor that I use or talk about whether or not a person has status.
And those are very technical issues.
And so that was a way to just describe it in a way that I thought would be understandable.
Just like to say, I'm from an area up north where most of the people, their grandparents, came from different European countries here, late 1880s, early 1900s.
And they came here, wanted an opportunity, didn't speak language, didn't have any money, and they were welcome.
They took jobs that other people didn't want to do and worked hard, raised their families.
Most of their children fought in our world wars, and, you know, they raised families.
I look a lot like the fellow that's on TV right now.
So nobody's going to pick me up off the street.
I'm 71 years old, and I just don't understand because I've known I don't know how many conservative businessmen in the course of my life that actually have employed people that have been here now for 40, 50 years that can be rounded up and thrown out and their families thrown out.
And that's just not the country I grew up in.
And I hope somehow they can fix this immigration policy.
It just doesn't make any sense that the people that were here for so long and raised their families just like my grandparents did and my parents did from Europe are not welcomed with and you know, but anyway, I'm going to go.
I mean, I think I just want to return to that a person in the United States is entitled to due process before the immigration courts.
I think that we should treat all people with respect and civility.
And that I do think if anyone were to find themselves facing removal from the United States, that they would want a fair and impartial, independent judge to hear their case.
David from Albuquerque, New Mexico, a Democrat, you're next.
unidentified
Yes, I'm just curious how everybody says these immigrants would need them for work.
I'm sure they do a lot of work, but what I hear about the Democrats, and I am a true Democrat, is they say they're doing work that the Americans won't do, construction work and stuff.
Well, then why are we putting up with these people, Americans, that won't work, and we give them housing assistance, welfare and all, because they won't do anything that's hard, you know, construction work and out in the sun.
If we're not going to deport the Mexicans and other immigrants that come in here illegally, and it is illegal.
Well, then get rid of Americans.
Say, hey, this person will do the work you want.
You're out of here.
Send them back to the country that the one that's working here.
But illegal is illegal.
And the Democrats know that, and they could care less about me, my family being American.
I wonder if you have a response to that, Jeremiah.
unidentified
Well, just also circling back, maybe perhaps about the illegal part of it.
Yes, it is illegal to enter the United States, the manner in which through the southern border without inspection.
But also there are people in the United States who entered on a ballot tourist visa or other type of visa ballot.
There's lawful permanent residents, people with green cards who are in the United States who have committed crimes.
They find themselves before an immigration judge to conduct removal proceedings.
There are people who present themselves at the border at a point of entry seeking to come into the United States that then may find themselves in front of an immigration judge.
So that's why that term illegal doesn't necessarily represent all manners of which a person may enter the United States, but their status then in the United States would be different.
So that just shows the technical complexities of immigration law.
And that's why I think you'd want to have experts in immigration law to preside over those proceedings.
And also immigration courts do not have jurisdiction over U.S. citizens.
Naomi from Silver Spring, Maryland, a Democrat, you're next.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
It sounds like you may have touched on my question in your previous response, but I wanted to speak or ask you to talk a little bit more about the legal process of seeking asylum on the border.
There was a previous caller who had mentioned that the only way to cross the border into the United States legally is as a citizen.
Of course, as I understand it, that's not true.
There are legal ways to seek asylum on the border.
Yeah, there are legal ways to present yourself at the border.
You go to a port of entry.
I understand that that process has been suspended and there are also backlogs.
And there was previous ways of metering.
So there's different ways to lawfully present yourself to seek asylum in the United States that have not, but with the influx of persons.
But that's the policy portion of the law.
That's not necessarily to determine by an immigration judge.
But the law does state that any person who is inside the United States has the ability to apply for asylum in the United States.
So that's something that an immigration judge would have to consider, whether the person entered the United States without what we call it without inspection or having been admitted or whether or not they did present themselves at a port of entry to then seek asylum in the United States.
So that's where it is something that is a factual issue and a legal issue that has to be determined by an independent immigration judge.
And that's why you have these cases in removal proceedings.
So the judges do not let people come into the country.
It's the Department of Homeland Security that then would place a person in removal proceedings by filing an initial document called a notice to appear.
So the judges don't have any authority to allow a person to just come into the country.
What the judge is deciding is whether or not the person may remain, whether they are to be removed from the United States or they have a claim to the United States.
And that would be based on any evidence that's presented by either the respondent who's the person who's being subject to removal or the Department of Homeland Security.
They have an opportunity to present evidence as well that the person would be a danger to the community or perhaps should be removed from the United States despite any equities that they may present or any other applications for relief.
So that's why you want that independent judge to sort out this mess as the caller had indicated.
So I think that's where you want to have a strong and independent court system to make a fair decision.
Jeremiah Johnson, former immigration judge and vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, thank you so much for your time this morning.
And another Washington Journal comes your way tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock Eastern.
unidentified
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
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