Roundtable: Immigration Enforcement; Issa's Big Day; SDUSD Budget Math

DS; Dan McSwain, columnist, The San Diego Union-Tribune KM; Kate Morrissey, reporter, The San Diego Union-Tribune SM; Susan Murphy, reporter, KPBS News MB; Megan Burks, education reporter, KPBS News Mark Sauer: More undocumented Mexicans are leaving the U.S. that arriving. What happens to San Diego economy if more are deported or kept out. A local Republican Congressman shows up at one community meeting but that's another as democratic protesters use tea party tactics. San Diego unified is facing budget cuts and angry parents and teachers. The KPBS Roundtable starts now. Welcome to the discussion of the weeks top stories. Joining me at the KPBS Roundtable is Dan McSwain, columnist, The San Diego Union Tribuen . DM: Hello. MS: Also Kate Morrissey, reporter, The San Diego Union-Tribune . KM: Thanks for having me. MS: KPBS Susan Murphy and KPBS Megan Burks. First up the news that the Trump administration has banned the New York Times, LA Times, CNN and politicals from a press greasing -- briefing. I will throw it out here, how unusual is this? Trump has had this what with the press now they are saying only certain folks can come in and talk to us. DM: It appears to be unprecedented. We use that word a lot. This time it is true. I think it's another reminder that in politics is something is working the politicians will keep doing it. This war against the mainstream media is working for Donald Trump and his team. They will keep doing it as long as the media keeps helping them. MS: It is working with his base. His there some ramifications with that newspapers are not allowed to talk to the White House? KM: I think people get their news from a variety of places. I think with the way that different websites are popping up and wait your Facebook over the limbs are changing the way we see news, for a lot of us many of us may not have seen the stories. MS: So the press briefing itself may be outdated? KM: It's hard to say how it is affecting on how people see things these days. MS: We do have and will will happen to get on Darrell Issa and Susan story. The Republican Congressman Darrell Issa has avoided the press . We have a bite from him on this idea on the trump suppression. Darrell Issa: For the press you are not the enemy of the people. I have had difficult times from time to time with the press. I've had better times. In America we go and talk to the press whether they agree with us or not. We go and talk to the other side whether they agree with us or not. MS: What's your last word on this? Darrell Issa is not following the trump lead on this. DM: He's been a constant presence on cable news. He has enjoyed it. He has become successful. Trump has perfected the old idea of going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt of going directly to the people. One of the other things is when the entire Washington press corps is chasing down and fact checking a tweet, they're not paying attention to something else. It is a successful strategy and he will keep it up. MS: Let's go onto our first segment. It was a campaign for trump and built a border wall and make Mexicans pay for it. They say they have no intention of paying for the wall. Republicans and Congress appear lukewarm to the idea. As a border wall a reasonable idea. There was a big story on Sunday. Be safe for more than 10 years more unauthorized immigrants have been leaving the U.S. than coming in. That's not what we got from in the campaign and certainly not the rhetoric from Donald Trump. DM: If you look at the data, there is no doubt present Trump is having a debate about social policy that should have been more robustly debated in the 1990s. For at least the last 10 years illegal immigration has been negative. The research outfit does some work on this. More people have been returning to Mexico that have been coming across legal and illegal. California over the last 10 years has lost 450,000 people. This is affecting the various job categories where these folks have dominated. Some of them are skilled. Skilled in the construction trade. Skilled in manufacturing. All the way down to the lower skilled trades like farm working. MS: It is having an impact. We will get to this on the workplace enforcement later in the segment. Some of the reasons folks are going back may be a better economy in Mexico? We've had our struggles. DM: If you look at the history there has been a big push of illegal and legal immigration from Latin America that was precipitated in the 1980s where there were various economic crisis. There was a huge pesto devaluation in Mexico. There wasn't economic crisis that followed. In 1990 we had a jobs bill in the United States. There was a push then there was a whole and starting in 2000 the job growth slowdown. The North American Free Trade Agreement kicks and. A lot of jobs being created in Mexico. It became the birth rates have declined in Mexico. There are many moving parts but the short answer is things got less great here and conditions got better in Texico. A lot of people stay put or decided to move back. KM: How much does affordability play into this? DM: That is huge. Immigrants going back to my ancestors are pretty good at managing and making do. I'm not sure affordability is a bit component. I think it's all about jobs. MS: Speaking jobs, and the campaign Donald Trump said workers from Mexico and China costing America's manufacturing jobs. Today at the CPAC conference -- what may have been lost does not automation play a big role in the manufacturing jobs? DM: It turns out it is true. There's no question that the president is correct. The free trade, globalization, North American trade act has destroyed perhaps American -- millions of American jobs. At the same time automation has displaced many more. It goes both ways. One of the things that NAFTA did was lower tariffs that Mexico had against U.S. exports. Court for example. When those went down American corn farmer started shipping core to Mexico. Today the U.S. farming is so automated that a farmer can run a harvester I remote control from his office. Automation works both ways. MS: You can not demonize a robot or software program. DM: Some people – MS: That's its own discussion. DM: The problem is a lot of these problems are not fixable. When you raise barriers to trade that will hit U.S. consumers mostly. When he put a 20% even a 35% tariff on imported goods that shows up immediately in prices and meanwhile it may take many years even decades for any of those jobs to return. MS: These are some of the things that the Trump administration is talking about doing with these barriers and all. It is more complicated than just helps American workers. DM: Does go both ways. In the mid-1980s president Reagan erected a voluntary ban on Japanese cars. So the Japanese started building plants in places like Kentucky and Tennessee. This plans created American jobs. The wages turned out to be lower than in some of the manufacturing centers in Michigan and Ohio. Foreign companies have created jobs here in response to barriers so what we do know is there is going to be a lot of consequences to big policy shifts. Some of them are intended and some are unintended. It will ripple across the economy. MS: I wanted to shift to a related topic. Your story on immigration Kate is being increased on enforcement. What's been the history of this enforcement. We don't hear too much about it. KM: The first system in place that started looking at enforcing not just workers who were unauthorized work in the U.S. but also the employers. It began with the I-9 paperwork system that started in 1986. We start ebbing and flowing. Then the government said we need to educate employers are what the system is and make sure everyone is up to speed on it and start enforcing on it. That took a range of how that came about over the years under --. Towards the beginning and middle part of Obama's administration we sat and increase in workplace enforcement against employers and not just workers. That tapered off toward the last several years. MS: How does it work on the ground? Explain the raids and audits. KM: When you are hired to work you fill out an I-9 form and that includes providing documentation that shows you are authorized to work. Most of us provide our Social Security card, passport or what have you. Occasionally that gets audited. Government official go through that report and make sure you are who you are and the number you provided with your documentation is a real working number and it is yours. If they find a discrepancy in that, they will send a no match letter to your employer and say that's not right. You can contest that and say I am who I am. Here's my documentation. Maybe you miss wrote a number or something like that and you can get preapproved or if it comes out that that is not your number then you are not authorized to work here and at that point your employer is supposed to stop employing you. That's not always the case. DM: I cannot emphasize enough how important enforcement is. That is what President Trump is advocating. These laws have been on the books for decades. They have not been in force. I had a manufacturing company in 1986 and had to walk out into my shop and ask many people who were born and raised in Kentucky to prove that they were citizens. Everyone got a good laugh. I did not hear from the government again for years. Every month a city fire inspector came to our facility and make sure that our fire exits were not blocked I'm Abels follower. Enforcement matters. The big part of the consequence that the Trump administration is laying down right now is not necessarily new policy. It's emphasis on enforcement. That will change the employment landscape in a major way. MS: We hear about E-Verify we talk about enforcement. What's that about? KM: E-Verify is a digital system that allows you to check documentation and make sure it is valid documentation. It's putting a little more power with the employee rather than waiting for an audit and a letter to come back which can take years to find out that this person is not who they are. It allows the employer to quick more quickly that someone is authorized to work in the country. There are some concerns about it having false positives and things like that. It's not a foolproof thing. That's the criticism I've heard. DM: If I'm and employer and I run everybody through E-Verify and I know they are not legal are there more sanctions associated -- MS: Could you be prosecuted? KM: That's where the prosecution against employers coming. If you hire someone and you don't know they are unauthorized and you find out that they are on authorized and get rid of them you have followed the law and nothing happens you. If you continue to knowingly employ that person and the government can prove that, that's where we have seen enforcement come against employers on and off. One of the complaints from employers is that that enforcement has been scattered and not consistent. If one employer gets taken down where that is a norm than that employer feels disadvantaged compared to his competitors. MS: Is a very complicated issue. I'm sure you will all be doing more reporting. Now we are moving to the tea party mobilizing to torment the new president and take control of Congress away from his party within two years. Now Democrats are turning the tables. Local protesters descended on Republican Congressman and Senators back home on recess. This week Darrell Issa the Republican Congressional from Vista who barely kept the seat avoided a town hall meeting on health care. He did show up for a morning confrontation between supporters and detractors. Susan you were there. Set the scene. SM: There were dueling rallies on with side of the street. They were dressed patriotically waving American flags. They had signs that read repeal Obamacare. On the other side of the street people yelling back at them saying save ACA. Chanting where is Darrell Issa . The crowd -- then Congressman Darrell Issa emerged from his office. There happened to be a microphone set up from supporters who had been using it. He came out and said who has questions and the whole crowd came running. Now they were standing shoulder to shoulder. Imagine that. MS: As we said the detractors have been out there every Tuesday with a rally. Were they surprised? How did that dynamic play? Did a circle around? SM: They seem to be surprised here they had been protesting. They had crowd sourced funds asking for Darrell Issa to come to a town hall meeting. He told them he could not make it because of another commitment. That's why he could not make it. They held it anyway. This group has been chanting where is Darrell Issa . They were calling on him to meet for a face-to-face town hall. Here he was offering answering any questions. He stood there for more than an hour. MS: Was not planned. SM: His critics wanted him at the town hall which was focused on healthcare. They were happy that he came out to talk to them. MS: You did interview a woman who expressed skepticism about the supporters. Let's hear that. Interviewee: I thought it was good. I want to compliment him on doing it however there has never been any trump supporters here before. I have a feeling it was arranged. MS: What do you think about that? SM: She was think we were not allowed to step foot on the last and now they had a sound system set up. There were some things that were questionable. MS: She did complement him. He stood there a long time and answered everyone's questions. He even – SM: --some people in the back of the crowd could not get up to the fright he's a clear path so that people could come up here expect -- MS: A lot of stuff on repeal and replace on Obamacare -- rare among Republicans. Darrell Issa has a plan. Tell us about that. SM: He does. He released it that morning. It's called the access to insurance for all Americans act. It gives access for Americans to purchase the same healthcare insurance plans offered by federal employees. There are 9 million people who are under this plan. Two of the popular plans of the Obamacare act are within this plan. That is guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions. It allows coverage for dependents until the age of 26. It offers flat pricing regardless of age or gender. Everyone pays the same price. MS: Joined the federal plan. What does it cost? SM: That has not been released. MS: We do have another bite. One of Darrell Issa supporters tell you why Obamacare is to be replaced. Let's hear that. Interviewee: It is not working. It is broken and expensive. Our premeds are going up like crazy. We cannot afford it. MS: We just saw a release from the peer group survey that's more popular than ever. Let's talk about other questions and investigating Trump and Russian tries in the Benghazi hearings on Hillary Clinton that Darrell Issa was involved in . SM: On Russia he said I am anti-Russia. I have warned previous presidents about Vladimir Putin and that dangerous leader he is. He talked about trumps taxes and how there's a federal law that protects them from releasing taxes and that law applies to everybody. He talked about healthcare. That was the biggest topic. Also immigration was a big one. MS: All of Congress is on recess. What about the other Republican Congressman SM: Duncan Hunter. We have not seen anything like what you experience the other day. MS: He has been a no-show. No one seems to know if he is meeting with people. He has not held a town hall. SM: KPBS has asked them many times. He has -- his office has not replied at all. MS: On the Democratic side Scott peters -- SM: Scott peters is the only one who held an official town hall meeting. Susan Davis has met with several groups. She did accept an offer from KPBS for a sitdown review as did peters. Juan Vargas office did reply to KPBS think they will get back to us. However they have not back to us. We have not had the chance. I don't think he's held the town hall. MS: We will shift to Megan Burks segment. For years [ Indiscernible ] in an improving economy years of streamline less schools here and in California are in better shape. Not anymore. What sort of budget shortfalls is SDUSD facing. MB: 124 million. MS: That's a lot of money. MB: That's due to declining enrollment. They say it's structural. They need to make 124 million in cuts this year and next year about 52 million. MS: Where are the cuts specifically? MB: They are taking the cuts from the central office and centralized support services. That's about 95 million. And 30 That's about 95 million. And 30 million from the school sites themselves. They will reduce the work year so that equates with a cross the board pay decrease. They are also looking at eliminating 800 positions. MS: Which sort of employees? MB: In the central office they are eliminating six directors as well as the folks who are deployed from the central office. Custodians, landscapers, Tempest police and other centralized support services that's where teachers and parents have said, wait a minute this will impact school sites. Those are special education, technicians, occupational therapist, elementary school prep teachers, cafeteria workers and all kinds of people. MS: You did cover eight meeting -- school board meeting that this was vocalize. Did he get angry? MB: Yes. When you pulled into the education center there was this big car size SAM -- sign saying fire the superintendent. The unions were out in force there to speak about the jobs that could be on the line. There were parents and students but mostly employees trying to state the case for their jobs. MS: We did have a bite from Sabrina who spoke about when you eliminate positions that deal with children. Sabrina: They are eliminating one third of the duties that cover 200 schools. I'm a held at. Even with the current number of people we have covering children, I've had come crunches, broken arms -- what will happen to those kids when there is no one watching them? MS: She explains it on a personal level. Does it look like we are entering another period of shortfalls in the years to come? MB: The pension bill is always set to rise for the school district. I do think the budget will be constricted moving forward. MS: Other school districts in the county? MB: The voice of San Diego has done good reporting. Four of the five major school districts in town are spending more than they are bringing in or spending down their reserves. MS: We will have to keep an eye on that. When will the budget come out? MB: They have to make -- get the ball rolling on these pink slips. Those could resend it depending on how and early retirement program works out. MS: We will be looking forward to all that. That wraps up another week of stories of the KPBS Roundtable. I'd like to thank Dan McSwain, columnist, The San Diego Union Tribuen , Kate Morrissey, reporter, The San Diego Union-Tribune , KPBS Susan Murphy and Megan Burks also of KPBS News. A reminder all stories we discuss our available on our website KPBS.org. Thank you for joining us today on the Roundtable.