 Good morning. My name is Mark Schlauwe. I am the host of this program, Law Across the Sea. And today we're going to talk about current events. We're going to talk about immigration law. And the title of this program is True or False, Immigration Issues in the 2016 Election. And today my guest is Claire Hannes. Welcome Claire. Thank you. It's nice to be here. Good to see you. Claire practices immigration law at Damon Key, Leon Kupchuk and Hastard and has been very active in various aspects of immigration law here in Hawaii. And I'd like to just briefly tell me how you got involved in immigration law because it's kind of a, it is a specialty. It is a specialty. And I actually went to law school because I specifically wanted to practice immigration law. Prior to coming to Hawaii 20-plus years ago, I lived in Arizona and I worked for a nonprofit that assisted Central American refugees. And I did a lot of volunteer work with those refugees and was really, really moved and impressed with the immigration attorneys I met who were doing mostly pro bono and some nonprofit work assisting people. And I love immigration law because it combines direct services with international issues, with domestic policy, and with helping people. And so that was it. It was the one area of law that really nicely wrapped up all of my interests. Yeah, it's nice that attorneys can help people. Yeah, yeah. It feels good when you can get someone to that next level. Do something positive. It feels good. Now, today we're going to talk about something that's been in the news, although with the recent disharmony in the various discussions, it has not been a strong focus last night for the town hall meeting of the presidential candidates. But they did talk about it, okay? And I think it will come more into focus again because I see lots of news reports from people saying things that I've heard that I don't know if they're true or false. What are some of the issues? I mean, it is a big issue right now in the election, right? The immigration controversy. There's various things that have come up. What are some of those issues? Yeah, well, I think immigration issues have really reached a kind of boiling over point largely because of Congress's inability to deal with them up until this point. We have an issue where we have 11-plus million undocumented immigrants. The last time there was a big comprehensive immigration reform package, it's been 20-plus years. There's a lot of pressure from different forces to put forward a plan to address the immigration issues that our country has. And Congress, because of just the deadlock and the inability of Republicans and Democrats to reach any kind of consensus on the issue. And I think a lot of it is very political, not wanting to come up with any kind of solution under the Obama administration has really led to a crisis. And I think it's also an issue in that she can really look at historically that in times, and not just in the United States, but many other countries, when the economy is really faltering, as our economy has been, people want an easy group of people to blame that on. And immigrants, and especially undocumented immigrants, are a really, really easy target. And so they've been used as political pawns by both parties, but I would argue more by the Republicans. Right, right. Well, I've heard that. I've heard that immigrants take jobs away from Americans. And maybe that's what you're saying, is that because of the economy right now, where things are not strong. And I mean, I see that every day, practicing law, the conflicts that arise, a lot of them are due to money and not having it. Some people don't have it and some people do. But I mean, it says, you know, I've seen that one of the issues is that immigrants, not just illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants, I'm not sure what the difference is, but I take jobs away from Americans. Is that a true or false statement, or is it somewhere in between? Well, I think we need to really break down the terms. A lot of immigrants are Americans, right? I mean, in Hawaii, about 20% or so of U.S. citizens in Hawaii are foreign born. So we really need to kind of break down the groups of people that we're talking about. And basically, you know, U.S. citizens are people who were either born in the United States. Anyone born in the United States is automatically a U.S. citizen. Or people who have gone through the naturalization process. And you can't just skip to that point. You have to go through permanent residency first. And normally it's either three years or five years of permanent residency. And then you have to take a test that involves questions about U.S. civics, which a lot of U.S. citizens, a lot of native born would probably fail, as well as English. And then you have to go through a very rigorous criminal background check and all kinds of other vetting, make sure that you've paid your taxes, etc. So those are the groups of people who become citizens. And then we have people who are lawful permanent residents in immigrant classification. And those are people who have the right to live and work in the United States indefinitely. But they also need to follow a pretty strict set of rules. And for example, if there are crimes that are committed by permanent residents, sometimes can get you put into deportation proceedings and actually get you removed from the United States. So permanent residents have to be a little careful. And then there's a group of people who are living here and have lived here for a long time, but have no legal status. And those we call undocumented immigrants. And there's really two classes of these people. One is people who've come lawfully into the United States on visas or through what's called visa waiver program, which is available to citizens of 38 countries, people who come and they overstay. And probably in our daily life we are often encountering people who've come and they've overstayed and we just don't know it. Our kids might be going to school with kids whose parents have overstayed. There's lots of these people among us. There's also people who've entered the United States illegally. So those are the people who are, the numbers are heart maybe around 11 million. And that's the group of people that gets the most, kind of the most group. There's three or there's four groups really. The ones that have come in, they become U.S. citizens. The ones that are not U.S. citizens but they're here. Lawful permanent residents, right? And then there's some that are out of status, which I guess, and you're saying those make up the 11 million. So there's really basically three categories. And they're out of status. They either never had legal status in the first place or they had it and then they lost it because they overstayed. And then there's a whole, there are all these other groups among us in the United States who are here on different kinds of visas, employment-based visas or student visas. Right. And so it's a really complicated alphabet soup of categories. But the group that's getting the most attention are the undocumented people among us. And, you know, as far as, there's been a lot of research that shows that they actually, this group of people actually contributes far more to the economy than they take from the economy. Even in Hawaii, I think this figure was the... So the American Immigration Council has a fact sheet just on new Americans in Hawaii that shows that undocumented immigrants pay 31.2 million dollars in state and local taxes. Okay. And there are other taxes that these people pay into. Many of them do file income taxes but they're never able to take advantage of social security. And they don't qualify for most state and federal benefits. So the idea that they're taking benefits, they don't qualify. So they're actually not. But it's easy to say that they are without looking beyond that. Some jobs, there's probably disruption in some sectors. A lot of undocumented immigrants take jobs that, frankly, US citizens and permanent residents don't want. Thinking of, you know, farm workers working in really, you know, poultry processing plants. Not so much here but on the continental US. People working as maids, as domestics. You know, not high paying jobs. Not jobs that a lot of US citizens or permanent residents, frankly, have any interest in. So you have to look really at either industry or industry or, you know, kind of job by job to see if there's disruption or not. So they may take some jobs but those jobs may not be, people may not be competing too hard. Exactly, exactly. And they may be doing work in that respect that US citizens wouldn't want to do. But how did we get 11 million people here? How did we, you know, you mentioned 11 million. When I've heard that number in the speeches of the presidents when they are in the people that are running for president, how did that happen? Well, it's over a period of a long time, first of all. So some, I mean, I have clients who are undocumented and they've been here 20 or 30 years. And they've, they're working, they're paying taxes. They have children and grandchildren who are US citizens. And, you know, people come for different reasons but generally the reason is to make a better life. They were living in a place where they saw no future. They couldn't support their families and so they made a very difficult decision to leave all of that and come to a new place. So that's probably the majority of people who make up these undocumented numbers. But then you also have the overstays, right? And actually most overstays in the United States are people who've come from the largest single region or Europe. People who come as European tourists and they don't leave. And we don't really think about them so much because they're white, a lot of them, and they kind of blend in. And we don't, you know, we like to paint all these people as the brown-skinned Mexicans who can't speak English. But a lot of these people are actually, a lot of the undocumented immigrants are actually European, Canadian, you know, from other parts of the world that we see as more desirable, I guess. Well, you know, going back to that, one of the issues that I've also seen raised in the presidential debates is that Muslims are, well, first of all, they're pouring into the United States. And they pose a threat of terrorism and they have to be vetted some way or not allowed to come in. And what are the facts about that? First of all, there's no group of people that are pouring into the United States. Even people who are entering the United States illegally, it's really hard to do, to try to get across a very fortified border between the United States and Mexico. Probably easier if you're trying to go through Canada. The idea that Trump presented early on in his campaign about a total ban he talked about on Muslims coming into the United States got a lot of attention. Probably not a whole lot of attention here because the Muslim community in Hawaii is very small. But it's been fascinating to watch the discourse on this. First of all, in addition to it being, I think we can all argue or agree that it's highly discriminatory and probably unconstitutional. I would have to go through the courts if that happens. It's also, I think it would be an impossible proposal because really, again, kind of break down what he's saying. There are, how do you determine someone's religion if they don't self-identify? The 10 countries with the largest Muslim populations, only one of them, Pakistan, lists the religion on a passport. Only two other countries keep track of what religion. The United States isn't keep track of what religion. And it's fluid, right? It changes and what is it Muslim? So in addition to just the, they would almost have to be like a Muslim determination. And I don't even know how you would do that. You'd have to interview every person who was interested in coming into the United States. Every immigrant. Every immigrant. Or what are you talking about? Anyone coming into the United States who's not a U.S. citizen. And I suppose he would want to go back and probably relook at the permanent residents who've already been determined that they're admissible to come into the United States. And just the logistical backlog that this would cause would be the people who were the former head of Immigration Customs Enforcement with Department of Homeland Security have also, it's completely unworkable and impossible. And so I think it's really, look, we've had, there have been some Muslim immigrants in the United States a handful who've done some very bad things. But if someone wants to get into a place and do some very bad things, they will find a way to do that. We can't fortify, countries can't completely fortify themselves. If a terrorist is intent upon doing some secret mission, they will maybe fail a thousand times, but one person will maybe pull off the terrorist. And then what I found really sad in all of this is the focus on Syrian refugees as this huge potential group of terrorists who are waiting to come into the United States and do bad things. Thanks, Bully. There have been some communities across the United States who've said that they will welcome Syrian families with open arms. And I want to talk about those a little bit more after our break. Okay. Okay, so we're going to take a brief break and then come back. And I want to ask you, because that did come up in the presidential debate or talk, I don't know what it was last night. Thank you very much. We'll be right back. Hello, this is Martin de Spang. I want to get you excited about my new show, which is Humane Architecture for Hawaii and Beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays, 5 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Chang, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m., where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in, and aloha, and thanks for watching. Hi, I'm Kili Ikeena, president of the Grassroot Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. for Ehara Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government, and society. See you Mondays on Ehara Kako at 2 o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Kili Ikeena. Aloha. We are back with Law Across the Sea, and we are talking about the immigration issues with Claire Hannes. The immigration issues in the election year, and Claire, you know, I hear that if somebody is intent on doing bad things and coming into the United States, they will find a way to do it. I hear that. If they're coming in through our borders, it sounds like they just can't walk in. They have to take some examination before they come in. They have to be examined in some way before they come in. They're not just freely passed. But last night on the Presidential Town Hall, there was some talk that we don't have any borders and that Syrians are coming into our country in tens of thousands and not being vetted as they come in and should be extreme vetted. I guess my question is, are Syrians coming into our country in tens of thousands? I mean, there is a war going on in Syria, and apparently a lot of Syrians would like to get out of Syria, and they've gone to Europe mostly, as I understand it. But are they coming into the United States? I mean, there's a huge, and anyone who watches the news knows, there's a huge heartbreaking humanitarian crisis coming out of Syria because of the war, and many European countries have taken in Syrian refugees. And the United States, there are international treaties and obligations that we've signed on to that obligate the United States and other countries to take refugees. People who are fleeing persecution. You know, the definition of a refugee or an asylum seeker is someone who's fearing facing persecution, past persecution or future persecution. And, of course, the United States has no border with Syria, but still has an obligation to take refugees from Syria. So the process, the Obama administration has set a target for 10,000 Syrian refugees for 2016. I think now the talk is maybe raising that to 65,000, which is still a tiny percentage that European allies have agreed to take in. And a lot of these are women and children who have no place else to go. There are some communities in the United States who have been very welcoming. There's a plan for families now to be able to kind of sponsor refugees and help people on there, which is great. But the process of someone going from fleeing Syria to being determined to be a refugee to then actually be admitted to the United States can take a year or two. And it's an extremely rigorous process. And first of all, someone who is really intent on doing harm to the United States, I don't think it's going to go through the process of trying to come in as a refugee. It's easier to try to find another way. And if anyone wants to read more about kind of the really detailed lengthy process that someone has to go through, the screening process for coming into the United States, the White House has an infographic screening process that goes on for page and page and page that talks about, first of all, the person has to be identified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a refugee. So that's the first step. And then there are many, many different background checks, security checks, medical checks that have to be done before the person is then allowed to enter the United States. Could someone game the system? Sure. But highly unlikely. And again, if someone is intent on doing harm, this wouldn't be, I think, the best. It takes too long. Yeah, it's not the best way to do it. The way to get immediate results. Right. And we've seen also in communities where there have been large groups of immigrants come that oftentimes these immigrants, because they're so hardworking, they want, they realize that the opportunity to resettle in the United States is a really, you know, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. And they work so hard to make better lives for themselves, for their community, and for their children. And I was thinking just, the farmer's market, there's a Laotian family that I often buy vegetables from. And the parents came as refugees from Laos in the early 70s. The five kids all work at different farmer's markets throughout the state. And the grandchildren are in college now. Now, the parents never had the opportunity to go to college. I'm sure they didn't even finish high school. The kids came to the United States, they finished high school, but they worked and that was it. But the grandchildren, that next generation, and they're picking and providing, you know, the vegetables that we, so, you know, so again, we all benefit. Imagine Chinatown without Chinese immigrants. I know it's hard in Hawaii because so much of Hawaii is built on immigration, but we talk so much about what immigrants take. We don't talk about what immigrants contribute. Wouldn't it be great to have a Syrian restaurant in Hawaii? We don't have a whole lot of Middle Eastern food here. It could really benefit our community. And I also hear you saying that there are some communities in the United States that want refugees, that are willing to take them in and maybe see a benefit. Refugees and immigrants, they're welcoming Mexicans and Central Americans too because they've lost so many, you know, in a lot of small towns throughout the continent. They've lost a lot of their population and they see the benefits that immigrants, not just from the tax base, but also just, you know, commerce and the economy, you know, they, you know, I represent a lot of immigrants who don't have legal status, who have businesses and they hire US citizens. So the level of innovation and smarts that these people bring and again, ability to work really, really hard because they realize that they have something really special that a lot of us here take for granted. You know, and that brings me to the question. I mean, are they trying to perpetuate their prior lifestyle from their home country? Or are they not adopting American, whatever our American lifestyle is, are they trying to fit in? Are they speaking English? Well, it's, I mean, you have to always be careful not to generalize too broadly. I mean, I think most immigrants really want to assimilate. They want to be a part and feel a part of the community here. They want to be able to communicate with their children's teachers. They want to be... And that's your experience as an immigration... That is my experience and I've worked with, yeah, thousands of immigrants over the years. For a lot of people, though, the reality is it's really hard to learn English when you haven't... When your own education has been disrupted because of war or because of socioeconomic reasons and you come here and these people are working multiple, multiple jobs and they're having, you know, they don't have the luxury to go to an English class that's available through some of the community education programs. You know, some people do, a lot of people don't. So that generation is often... But looking at my own immigrant family experience where my great-grandmother, you know, she came when she was young but English was not ever her best language, right? And that's just, again, that's normal. I think if most of us go back in our own family histories, we'll see, unless we're native, that's probably where we all came from. And you give it a generation or two and look at the advancements. They assimilate. They do. Look at those advancements. Now, also, I just want to talk a little bit about Mexico because that has been a focus, not Canada, which I've gone across that border quite easily many times, but Mexico, and there is talk about a lot of illegals coming across the border from Mexico and criminals. I think criminals, murderers and drug lords are pouring into our country. And rapists. And rapists were one of the things that came up last night in the town hall. Is that... What are the facts? Is that true or false? So the facts, as far as immigration and crime, there are almost twice as many native-born people in the criminal justice system than there are immigrants. By percentage. By percentage. It's three point... Yeah, the figures are out here. I have it in one of these fabulous articles here. Oh, this is from the American Immigration Council that had a great chart that shows that immigrants are less likely than native-born to be behind bars by three point... This is where my eyes are failing me. Three point three percent of native-born people are behind bars. One point six percent of immigrants. So this idea that more immigration, whether it's legal or illegal immigration, leads to more crime. I don't think there are any studies that show that. I mean, you can do studies, I guess, and show lots of different things. But the real research shows that increased immigration does not lead to increased crime. Now, there have been some very high-profile cases in the news involving undocumented immigrants who've committed some pretty, pretty horrible crimes. And it's almost similar to... You know, you have a handful of Muslims who do some really crappy things, and then everybody gets painted with the same brush... with the Mexican and the Mexican-American community. But again, the statistical correlation isn't actually there. The United States and Mexico... And remember, a lot of the United States was Mexico, not too long ago. So you have these kind of divided families on La Lina on both sides of the line. And again, the history, it wasn't that long ago that what was a lot of the United States was Mexico. The history goes on. It's not anymore. But you have really what's the largest first-world, third-world border in the world. And of course, there's going to be tensions and of course, there's going to be problems and of course, there's going to be people looking to make a better life and people looking to take advantage of the appetite we have for drugs in this country. And what I hear is that a lot of this immigration talk is perceptions, perceptions of people and a little bit of fear of what is unknown. And I think I'd like you to close on that. And you agree? Is that basically... I totally agree. And I really think when I think about the immigration issue, I think a lot about how not too long ago the perception of gays and lesbians by so many people was really negative because most people didn't know someone or they didn't realize that they knew someone who were gay and lesbian. And then when they realized that they did know someone... Attitudes change. And they're okay. Attitudes change. So the ability to get to know someone, to feel empathy, to try to stand in their shoes, makes such a difference. And if we can stop thinking of the world and ourselves as us and them and think about all of ourselves as human beings who want the best for ourselves and the best of our children, I think we'll come a long way in advancing the discussion on immigration. Claire, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. My pleasure. And we are pow for today. Thank you. Aloha.