Jeff Flake and Luis Gutierrez

Good morning. I'm Audrey Singer, and I'm an Immigration Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution. And on behalf of the Brookings Institution and our cost sponsor, The Migration Policy Institute, it's my pleasure today to welcome you to our discussion of Immigration Policy Reform. We are at a time of great debate about the role of immigrants in our society and economy. Congress and the Bush Administration are in the process of working out the details of how to structure a new immigration system. This is a highly charged debate with no simple solutions. Immigration is not an issue that divides neatly along party or special interest lines. The current discussion around immigration reform comes at a time when the United States has more foreign-born residents that ever before. The nearly 36 million immigrants in the United States make up 12 percent of the U.S. population. Estimates show that roughly one-third of the immigrant population resides here with legal permanent residency, one-third are naturalized U.S. citizens, and one-third are estimated to be here without legal status. Other statistics relevant to this discussion include the fact that immigrants are one in seven workers, one in five low-wage workers. They represent half of all new entrants to the U.S. labor force, and one in five children living in the United States has at least one foreign-born parent. At the end of last month, House Representatives Luis Gutierrez and Jeff Flake introduced immigration reform legislation called the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act, or the STRIVE Act, which addresses the elements of comprehensive immigration reform. The bill includes provisions for border and interior enforcements, an employment verification system and new worker program, visa reforms, and an earned legalization program. This morning's discussion will focus on the current House proposal and how to change our immigration system to function better. We are very pleased to have both Representatives Flake and Gutierrez with us this morning. Following our keynote speakers, we have a distinguished panel of national experts who will discuss the various components of what a new law should look like and the implications for change. Migration is an important national and global public policy issue, and if you haven't had a chance to see some of the recent work by both Brookings and MPI, please stop by the resource tables outside and take a look in the lobby. Before we turn to our keynote speakers, I'd like to introduce Demetrios Papademetriou, President of the Migration Policy Institute. In addition to leading the Migration Policy Institute, Dr. Papademetriou has held a wide range of senior policy and research positions including Chair of the Migration Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the U.S. Department of Labor, and Chair of the Secretary of Labor's Immigration Policy Task Force, and Executive Editor of The International Migration Review. He's the cofounder of the International Forum for Research and Policy on Migration in Cities, the Metropolis Project. Dr. Papademetriou is involved in many other projects too numerous to list. Let me just say that Demetrios has a way of being in the middle of many migration issues, simultaneously, managing to persuasively and thoughtfully move decision-makers in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Europe and beyond, toward better management of their migration systems. Again, we're very grateful to have collaborated with MPI on this forum, and I'd also like to thank my colleagues at Brookings, who worked together to make this event happen, especially Neil Ruiz and his colleagues in the Brookings Global Economy Development Program. Please join me in welcoming Demetrios Papademetriou, who will introduce our keynote speakers. Thanks, Audrey. And I think Audrey just said that I must be very old, and I must not have been smart enough to move on from immigration because . and I'm afraid that our next two speakers, our keynote speakers, unless they manage to pass legislation this year . they might find themselves in the same position a few years from now. So a fair warning to everyone. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here. Audrey and I and others worked together a few years ago at the building next door, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Neil, of course, has worked with us at MPI. So it is a pleasure to see former colleagues and, I guess, ongoing friends and colleagues, and to be at a place that has a much larger conference room than Immigration Policy Institute's room. You know, it's springtime and there's always one thing that is certain in Washington which is there's going to be a hay fever season. Now, for the past several springs there's another thing that's pretty much guaranteed: that there's going to be immigration fever, and with regard immigration fever, it's spring, it's April, and there is already a bill. A horse race is about to begin with all sorts of interesting things about negotiations in the other chamber, and lots of hearings in the House. And we are hopeful, all of us who care about the issue, because ultimately this isn't about Republicans and Democrats, this isn't about good guys and bad guys, this isn't about immigrants whether you like them or not; it's about the country, our country, it's about who we are, who we are becoming. It's about whether we are going to simply sit back and have circumstances dictate who we're going to be, or as taking control over the issue and basically saying we're going to manage and shape and influence it and create something actively that will be better for all of us. And these two gentlemen have devoted far too much time perhaps; not enough yet, apparently, to trying to do exactly that. And we know that the legislation isn't perfect. We know that whatever legislation comes out of this will be terribly imperfect because that's the nature of the beast. It's a highly divisive issue, and even as we sit in the outside and don't hesitate to actually say when things are wrong that things are wrong, realize at some point that this is the nature of the beast: compromise. This isn't the bill that experts perhaps might write, but it is a bill that is certainly a terrific starting point for a conversation that has a chance to move forward and see itself to completion. Now, you have the bio sketches, I believe. If you do not, I will introduce both speakers at this time. This way we can save all of this getting up and standing down. And I'll start with Mr. Flake. He's a fourth term congressman from Arizona. He has been cosponsor of the legislation the last time, and he has been actually one . as you will see, you will find out . remarkably clear voice on these issues. And it is indeed a pleasure to be here and welcome him and introduce him. He has also been a member of the Immigration Policy Institute, plus the Manhattan Institute, plus the Wilson Center for International Scholars and Task Force on Immigration Reform, who published a report last year on this. And he is not only remarkably thoughtful about these things, but he had been easy to work with. He has terrific staff, and I know that . you know, the staff of the unsung heroes in anything that goes on in Washington . that I want to sing-in their praise, if you will. And he's engaged in an odd-couple relationship with Congressman Gutierrez, who has been . well, immigration is full of strange bedfellow stories. I mean, you know, think of Kennedy and Simpson, for example. You know, that was not any less remarkably annoying that remarkably a strange bedfellow situation that we have this time around. Mr. Gutierrez has been a congressman for, I guess, his eighth term from Illinois. He has been active on this issue for a long time. He is the Chair of the Democratic Caucus on Immigration Reform. He's the Chair of the Hispanic Caucus on Immigration Reform, and he is involved on most issues that have real social content, extremely active. It is a pleasure for me to welcome both congressmen. And they have to leave sharply, a couple of minutes after 9:00, I suspect, so I will introduce and I am going to ask Mr. Flake to first come to the podium. And then as soon as you finish, sir, Mr. Gutierrez will follow you. Luis and I are wondering who is the odd one. No, I appreciate the invitation here and I appreciate the good work that's been done by the Migration Policy Institute and the Brookings Institution. No, I used to run the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, and I used to put out fund-raising letters saying, you know, you got to give to the Goldwater Institute because of that liberal Brookings Institution out there. So I appreciate what the Brookings Institution has done for me over the years. And I appreciate being here, too. But anyway, let me just give you a little bit of background before I get into the bill itself. I grew up in Snowflake, Arizona. I'm a Flake from Snowflake. It's named after my great, great grandfather named Snow, who actually founded the town about 130 years ago. But I'm a fifth generation Arizonan and I grew up on a ranch and a farm. And I have 10 brothers and sisters, but it wasn't enough labor on the farm. We employed undocumented workers back prior to 1986 and as I was growing up. And try as I might, I could never get angry about somebody who was coming across the border to provide for their family. It seemed to me to be what I would do if I were a parent, what I would do if I wanted to have more for my kids and for my family. There was at that time a healthy circular pattern of migration. Workers would come and work. They would go home for birthdays, anniversaries, because they could. The border was not as dangerous or expensive to cross, but there was some interior enforcement. Periodically, they'd be picked up and taken back and come back. But the costs on Arizona weren't nearly as great, either, in terms of health care and education and other issues. What we have now is a very unhealthy situation. It has become a settled pattern of migration where people come across and don't go home and tend to bring families and stay, and the costs are greater. And it tends to get people in Arizona very upset and angry, and the taxpayers there are really in a bind and in an uproar. I can tell you, when I introduced this legislation, I made the mistake of calling my district office. I thought I'd play a little joke. I said, "What about this darn immigration reform and that darn Flake guy?" And my staff was not amused at the crank call, and they . and I said, "Well, how many calls have you gotten?" Well, a few hundred over the last couple of days. I said, "How many positive?" They said two. Both of those were my wife calling. But it rouses a lot of emotions, particularly in Arizona. But I can tell you the vast majority of the citizenry in Arizona recognizes that you can't solve this simply on the border, that it is simplistic to assume that we can solve this issue simply by building a wall or a fence. You've got to do more. Yes, we need more security at the border, and we've got to start with that, and that's what our legislation does. The first section, the first title is all border enforcement, and we have made moves in that regard. I was on the border the other day with the President. Undeniably, progress has been made in that regard, but we can't stop there. We've got to go further. Our legislation also talks about interior enforcement. Doris Meissner and Jim Zigler wrote a great piece in the New York Times I commend to you, if you haven't read it, that talks about how really a verifiable worker identification is the linchpin of all of this. Most of us who've studied this issue recognize that nearly half of those who are here didn't sneak across any border, they came legally; about half of those who are here, illegally. They came here on a legal visa and have simply overstayed. And so all the border enforcement that you can do isn't going to solve the problem. You've got to do more, and that really comes down to the workplace. And so you've got to have secure identification. And I'm sure Luis will talk more about this, but that is really the linchpin of this whole effort, and I think it's a big contribution made in our bill because we have very good provisions in that regard. Next, you've got to have a mechanism to deal with those who are here illegally. Estimates go anywhere from 12 to 20 million who are here in an undocumented framework. You've got to have a mechanism to deal with them humanely and effectively, and bring them out of the shadows. That cannot be done by simply saying we're going to deport everybody who's here, or we're going to charge a massive fine that can't be paid, an unreasonable fine, or require or assume that people will go home and register in their home country to come back for the same jobs they're already working in. It was already pointed out that the illegal population here represents about five percent of the U.S. work force. So the notion that we're simply . we could do well by simply reporting everyone who is here working is simply wrong. It's bad economic policy, it's not a humane situation, and it simply can't go on. And so I think that our legislation contributes in that regard by providing a mechanism that is both reasonable and humane and will bring people out of the shadows. Next, you've got to have a temporary worker program moving forward. Everybody talks about 1986 and talks about the big failing of 1986 was the amnesty that was provided. That, in my view, was a mistake to say if you're here, illegally, you've got a shortcut to a green card. I don't believe we should have done that. Having said that, that was only one mistake that was made in 1986. The other big mistake was a failure to recognize or the lack of political courage at that time to recognize. that we needed more workers going forward. It was assumed: Let's take care of everybody who is here illegally right now and we will be fine, and that represents the work force that we need. Well, it didn't, and that law was outdated the day it was signed into law. And so if we wonder why it wasn't enforced, we need not wonder: It couldn't be enforced, it was unreasonable to enforce because our labor market needed more workers than the law provided for. So I think that any kind of comprehensive reform has to have the border security, interior enforcement mechanism to deal with those who are here illegally, and a robust guest worker plan or temporary worker plan moving forward. And our legislation does that. The White House, I have to say, or whatever you think of the President in other areas, the President on immigration reform has been consistent and consistently right. He has said from Day One, when he ran the first time till today, that you've got to have comprehensive reform; that family values don't stop at the Rio Grande. I think his rhetoric has been good on it, and he has been right. I wish that our party would have listened more to him. I think as a Republican that we did exactly the wrong thing and drew the wrong conclusions in races that were run last year before the big race in November, and we have paid dearly for that. here are some in the party who think that we ought to just keep this issue alive, that we'll do well by going into the next election using this issue against the Democrats. I don't think so. I think that when people are . when you're in charge of the Congress, you're expected to do something. I believe that Democrats recognize that perhaps better than we did. And so the Democrats realize that we should push legislation, and I think we should do what's good for America, not try to play the election game every time. In this sense good policy, I think, makes for good politics, and if we can get a solution to this problem, we will all benefit. Let me just tell you how great it has been to work with Luis on this. We don't consider it an odd couple. We've been working at this for awhile, and it's been a great relationship. And I can tell you Luis is committed to this and recognizes as well that you get the best legislation, best policy that pass. And we have all made compromises in this regard and will continue to as we go through the process, but Luis, I think, deserves a lot of recognition and accommodation for his work on this over a lot of year and a long time. But again, I appreciate the invitation, and I appreciate the work that's been done by all of you. It has helped immensely to have the think tank community, those outside of government, to provide a rational voice here because it's tough in the political environment. It really is. The well has been poisoned, you know, many times in this regard. About 70 to 90 percent of all Republican ad budgets last year in the election were spent on immigration ads trying to disparage the other side, and it really poisons the atmosphere. That's why it's even more important for groups like these to actually provide a rational voice from the outside, so those of us in the arena really thank you for that. Again, thanks for having me here, and I apologize for having to leave. Luis and I are both testifying at a hearing this morning, and I've got one event before that, so thank you so much. Well, let me start by thanking all the talented men and women at the Brookings Institution for putting together this timely and very important event and for the invitation to say a few words this morning about comprehensive immigration reform. I'd like to say it's good to see you again, Audrey, back from Chicago a few years ago . just a few. And Demetrios, thank you for the very wonderful and very generous introduction. I'm going to leave my remarks, not that some . I submit them for the record anywhere here . I won't do that either. But I think, however, I would just like to say that I'd like to thank Jeff Blake. He might not be here, but I think it's important to understand that because the well is so polluted, because there's been so much division, it's been so much . it's very, very difficult for people to work together on this issue. But when the attempt for a bipartisan proposal failed in the Senate, I went to Congressman Flake and we worked as a team with McCain and Kennedy. I and Flake, and there is certainly a great degree of comfort when you have someone of the stature of Kennedy and McCain in the Senate, and when we kind of . well, we kind of split up for awhile so that we can get back together at the end. It was difficult, but I went to him and he said, "No, we're going to do this. Let's continue to do this regardless of what happens in the Senate." And so I want to thank him. I'd like to talk a little bit about the border for just a moment, maybe use the border between Mexico and the United States as a point to describe what we attempt to do in the bill. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, there are three principal reasons that people cross that border: They cross that border looking for jobs in the United States, economic opportunity. They cross because there is a husband seeking to be reunited with his wife, children seeking to be reunited with their parents, grandparents seeking to be reunited with their nuclear family. So, in other words, it's family reunification is another key. The third one is that we have a criminal element. We read about it every day. I always thought that among Latinos that Puerto Ricans were the most nationalistic; that is, that we were the ones that rooted and, you know, the loudest and the proudest for boxers, especially when they were boxing Mexican boxers. Or for our baseball, you know, our baseball teams and, you know, and that our flag . you know, everybody knows about the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York. Nobody could outdo us with the Puerto Rican flags. But then I came to realize that, yes, Mexicans are probably a little more nationalistic than even we are. And so it gets difficult as you explain this issue because when you talk about crime on the border and the need to secure, you have a knee-jerk response: You're blaming me again. You're blaming my people again. But the fact and the reality is that if we do not secure the border against those . so 90 percent of those who come from the other side of the border come here to get a job, come here to be reunited with their family . but we have 10 percent of folks that are coming to do harm, that do not have good intentions. So I'd like to just say that not every foreigner is an immigrant. Immigrants, in my estimation, come here to work hard, to sweat, to toil, to contribute, to better this nation, to better themselves as they better the nation. Some foreigners come here to do harm, and so our border security measures are there to stop those that come here to do harm. And I'd like to respond that those that have come here to work, if you're really going to stop, you need to provide the 400,000 visas . we didn't just pick that number of 400,000 visas, that is what the U.S. Department of Labor says we create in terms of low-wage, low-skill jobs every year in this country. And they also tell us that our work force is becoming better educated, more sophisticated, better trained, and are looking for other kinds of economic opportunities. So we have only 5,000 visas. That's all our government issues a year for low-skill, low-wage workers, but we have this huge demand which increasingly our work force is not ill-equipped but just too-equipped. It's almost we're too trained, we're too educated. It's like the job where you have too much qualification for that. So who do we respond to that? We need to crate those opportunities in a legal, rational way so the people can come to fill those jobs. That's the way you stop coyotes from exploiting people on the border, giving people a real meaningful way to come here to get those jobs in a legal manner and in a safe and humane manner to come here. Secondly, we increased . the other reason I suggested was family reunification. Look, there are three and a half . there are approximately three-and-a half million people in line. That is American citizens and/or permanent residents most of whom will become Americans. We see the rise in those that are petitioning to become American citizens, or will become American citizens. Those are the people that our government said they can petition: their moms, their dads, their brothers, their sisters, their spouses, their children, the three-and-a-half million. Well, let's end that reason for the illegality, the undocumentedness of these people, by saying we're going to increase the number of family . of visas for the explicit purpose of family reunification. So there is no reason to come here, you're going to get here anyway, and we've done it in the past and we should do it today. So we stop the second reason. Now the border patrol can deal with the reason that we all want them to deal with. There won't be a lot of press conferences from people crying about just how it is, we're enforcing our border against those who come here to do harm, foreigners that come here to do harm I don't care where they come from. And as my friend, Jeff Flake, we understand and we approach it in a holistic manner because we know that between 40 to 50 percent of those that are undocumented in this country came here through an airport with a visa, tourist visa. They came here with a student visa. They came here with an H1B visa. They came here with all kind of visas and simply decided that this is the greatest nation in the world with the greatest opportunity for them to thrive, and they stayed. So I try to describe the border to say what it is we do . to end at the border . the best, the coyotes, the exploitation of workers to come here and at the same time to say why it is that we need to secure that border, because we need to engage the rest of America in this debate. If it were simply Luis Gutierrez drafting the bill, then like-minded people . it would be a very different bill, and I'm not quite sure it would be a better bill or a holistic approach, and it might have its flaws. But working with Congressman Flake and others, I think we're doing that. Look, we've learned everybody feels pretty secure about a twenty-dollar bill. Are there counterfeit twenty-dollar bills? Yes, there are, obviously. But for the most part people feel when you go to a store and you hand them a $20, it's a good twenty-dollar bill, and people have learned and everybody has their way of putting it up in the light. I'm not quite sure the . but . and there are different scanning devices. My point is, shouldn't the Social Security card be as secure as a twenty- dollar bill, given the importance of that Social Security card in terms of knowing and having the reliability of knowing that that person is qualified to work by the government and saying to the rest of America. "We're going to do that?" So we really need to look at some kind . and our bill proposes a biometric system so that that Social Security . and maybe we'll say, well, and I say to the immigrant community . someone asked me as I was going . I went to San Jose this past weekend . someone asked me, "Aw, (Spanish)." How do you respond to that kind of a terrible thing? I say that I want that woman, that man getting caught up in these ugly, ruthless, destructive raids at workplaces to be able to say to an ICE agent, "I have my I.D., and you know this is a good I.D. because you issued this I.D." And it's a secure I.D. I want to give that kind of security to a population that has been under attack for decades here in this country. I want that person to be able to say, "Leave my children alone, leave my family alone. We're legally here in this country, and I have a document that you know I can prove it with." So it goes both ways from my point of view in terms of its good for America to know which workers are here and who can legally . and we're going to enforce it against. I'd like to say that remittances, $60 million . $60 billion goes to Latin America. In Mexico remittances have become the second pillar of the Mexican economy. Think about that a moment. And who is sending that money?According to studies done, one third of all the remittances are sent by people who our federal government say live in poverty; that is, a family of four earning less than $18,000 a year. Think about that. That's an incredible . I want people who live, who our government says are poor, who don't have enough to provide for themselves and their own family, I want that person as my neighbor that then sends billions of dollars to their family members so that they can do well, And another point, you know, I mean within the context, we send more money . 10 times more money . in remittances from this working community, this loving community, this immigrant community, than our federal government sends in terms of foreign assistance. So, you know, how is it that we . we must think of that. Look, we do not have the political will, nor will we commit the requisite resources. Sensenbrenner proved that. They passed Sensenbrenner. Fine. They had their chance. Are there fewer undocumented workers in America? No. They may have to hide more, they may have to suffer more, they may be in a more exploitative condition, but there are not fewer of them. So if we don't have the political will, and we will not commit the requisite resources even from those who wish to have only the kinds of proposals that Sensenbrenner, which are very punitive and only enforcement only, then I say we have a responsibility as Americans to not reap the fruits of their work as they pick our fruit and pick our vegetables, and pluck our chickens, and clean our room, and in many cases raise our children. That woman that leaves early in the morning to go and care for and bathe and heal the children, our children of American citizens, should at the end of the day have a guarantee that she can go back and tend to her own children and care for them and not be caught. So yesterday when we spoke to the President, the Spanish Congressional Caucus, three of us, Habiet Basara, I and Ed Pastor asked the President, "Stop. Stop. These enforcements that you're doing at workplaces and these deportations and division, if the system is broken," . and the President has said, and we agree with him that it's a broken system . "if you wish them to come out of the shadows of darkness," as the President has said, "if you wish to give them an avenue, and you know that that's our debate, then we should stop this. Just stop for a moment." And it seems very, very clear to us that as we stop that we're being honest. We're being honest with ourselves, and we're being fair. So I'd like to say that, can you imagine if we were to actually deport the 12 million people and this $60 billion were to evaporate what our border would look like? What the chaos would look like in our hemisphere? I like to look at this issue as, as I was growing up we always said, "Who are the Americans? Quienes son the Americanos," right, and we would all, "the Americanos son de las Estados Unidos." No. You know, the Americanos . everyone that live in the Americas is like, can you imagine that the English were the only Europeans? Or the Chinese were the only Asians? We're not the only Americans, and we need to understand that we live in a hemisphere, and that much of our future . and, you know, NAPA, I voted against NAPA because it said that they were going to be the second richest person in the world behind Bill Gates is a Mexican. And he became because of NAPA and because of deregulation, the second. How is it that we engage in these kinds of economic . and don't allow for people to prosper and for there to be some kind of distribution of the wealth, and that people . that's why people are crossing the border. They're crossing the border because even as you look at growing wealth . you know, they said in NAPA there would be winners and losers . well, there have been a lot of losers and many of those losers have attempted to come across that border as we continue to sell products and goods. Stakeholders. I'm going to say this: Look at the end. Congressman Flake and I, we'll have to go to stakeholders. We have to go to labor unions that represent immigrant workers and workers in general in this country. We need to go to our religious community. We need to go to our civil rights organization, an advocacy organization such as National Council of La Raza and Lu Lac and others in the Polish and . and we have to understand that in the end whatever Congress does, if the stakeholders think it's bad, it's not going to be a success. And it isn't going to be something that the Congress of the United . so we can negotiate, but we have to understand the framework in which we negotiate because at the end of the day, as I have suggested to people, and the Spanish Congressional Caucus can play a key and pivotal role. And one of the reasons is our districts are very different. My district is a district that's 75 percent Latino, but we're almost half of those are foreign born with a huge sensitivity to this issue, an historic sensitivity to this issue. It's harder for me. It's harder for Evrobanio Nejosa. It's harder for Anelia Velasquez in this immigration debate, but at the same time I'm going to continue to go out, because you think the right is extreme on this issue? You should hear from the left on this issue. Anybody would think I was the son of Sensenbrenner as I go out there to explain this proposal. They see the cup always as half full, as half empty. And I show them, and I said, "Look, there's enough water in here. There's enough for every undocumented worker to gain a pathway to permanent residency and to citizenship and security." That's how much water there is to quench the thirst of those who wish that. There's enough here to reunite every family in six years, to "enco yotis" and to deaths on our border by providing 400.000 visas year to bring in those new workers as we look. Look, there's a lot. We include the Dream Act in our proposal. A million agricultural workers can gain their permanent residency not in six years but in three years by working 150 days in three consecutive years. Permanent residency to those in pesticide-ridden fields that are so crucial to our economy and to what we shop every day at the grocery store. So I just want to say, lastly, look, this is going to end one way or another. I want to end it now. I have made a commitment to getting this done. It was a lot easier for me and those of my . like me when, you know, we had to beat up Doris Meissner, right? Yow, she's terrible. She's not doing her job. You know, she's being unfair. I want to thank . I say that I want to thank Doris Meissner. She's been so incredibly valuable in this debate for using what she learned in the federal government to add to this debate. So I want to thank her for that, because I know I give her a bad time a lot of times. But I want to end with this: Look, there is the community of people that we represent, the stakeholders that we wish to represent. And we have to say to them it's not going to be perfect. You're not going to have an open border. We're not going to renegotiate the relationship between the United States and how it is California and Arizona and New Mexico became part of the United States. We're not going to do that. That's impossible in this debate. And you laugh? I get those questions when I go. We're not going to be able to sanction those that have been involved in criminal enterprise, in criminal activity. We have always said we want hard-working, we want people of good moral character to be integrated, and we have to stick to that. And there are going to be some immigrant losers which I call "foreigners," who didn't come here, who didn't follow the rules that it's not going to be a perfect situation that everybody . oh, we're going to do the damndest job possible. And I want to say with people like Congressman Flake, we can achieve it because he and others like him in the end are grounded in the value that we're all human beings and that there's a value to being a human being, that there's something sacrosanct about being a human being, regardless of where you come from; that there's something very, very valuable in that and something very important and unquestionably uncompromising in that aspect. So that's what we're going to do. So I thank you for your debate, for your discussion, for lending your voice because I think we could do it. If not, hey, there's 80 billion . 80 million baby boomers, the youngest 43, the oldest is 61 right now. They're aging. There's 144 million people in our work force today, 80 million of them, I just told you, are between 40 and 60. Wait till 20 years; we're going to be begging people to come here to this country. Thank you so much.