The role of austerity in the immigration debate

>>> from new york, i'm chris hayes with brian stevenson. they cramer and david from salon.com and roberto novato from the nation. strange and interesting intersection between austerity rhetoric and progressive priorities in the way in which the constant emphasis at the state level, at the federal level it's a mirage. it's less so. they have to balance their budgets and figure out the deficits and can't get the money. at the state level particularly, a lot of groups found ways of marshalling the language of austerity and budget constraint to the further progressive end. at the federal level , it has to do with pearing back the complex. there is a tangled politics of this immigration where it was reported and later confirmed and announced that the dhs was releasing a number of immigrant detainees who had been picked up on nonviolent infractions and at first it looked like a few hundred and then a few thousand. when they were confronted about this, they said look, we have the sequester coming up and we have a budget that said we can't have these people in our beds. the immigrant rights advocates noted that the cost is 162 to $164 a day. anywhere from 30 cents to $14 a day. this struck me as part of a larger conversation about just how much money we have been spending on the world enforcement in immigration.

>> in the past 26 years, you spent about $186 billion enforcement. in order to do that you have to criminalize them. you have to -- democrats and republicans are in their policies right now and imgrans are criminals. that's why you have president obama declaring more people by the end of this year than all presidents from george washington to bill clinton combined. something is fabulously wrong with -- i don't know that immigrant rights are focused on that. there was an action on the group with the university in florida. the immigrant coalition and state actions against the florida university . they were accepting the stadium.

>> we talked about that which is a pruft private prison organization that makes money off and runs the detention centers for people in the custody.

>> who is making money off of all this? in this case it would be the creeks corporation of america and prison builders and prison managers and police unions, probation unions. a whole slew of interests that are the barriers to real reform that would stop president obama from deporting so many people.

>> the anti-immigrants are banking on the idea that people in their base will be fired up by the idea of more undocumented immigrants .

>> it's a huge story from the right wing media that president obama is letting them run through the streets.

>> i thought you were for shawlshawl smaller government. how the politics play out will be rooted both in the financials of it and in how comfortable america is with immigration in general.

>> part of this and this is why i think the project is key here. the way that we think about what government does is that we as citizens, particularly activists aren't engaged in the process of making trade offs. you are advocating for adults. then the representational system where things are prioritized. often by who has the most political power . there is an industry that relies on massive attention and they visit your office and write you checks. the politics happens along the single actions and it's fed into the system that produces the pie chart that is the budget that has distorted priorities about where we spend our money.

>> immigration enforcement is part of a bigger bundled mess. right now we are at the 10-year anniversary of the department of homeland security . it was the appearance of a solution and a sprawling bureaucracy built. talk about trade offs. since 9/11, wey spent $800 billion on homeland security that. amount substantially more than the cost of the new deal. inflation adjusted terms.

>> but it also makes the point they feel like what's remarkable about the right is that they are able to simultaneously advocate austerity and designate certain things as sacred. the logic of budgetary impact.

>> it's harder and harder to make the case where we ought to spend more than the next 16 largest militaries could.

>> barney frank said before 9/11, we had nothing and we can't spend. the day after 9-11, we had an unlimited amount of money to do anything.

>> it boggles the mind to figure out who is right. calling them criminals and jailing them because they have a broken tail light which is what the current administration to immigrants, what is right? what is left is very clear because there is a clear movement where we talk about the economic costs of improvening peop people, but we are pulling away from moral argument because right voters really support arguments for immigration reform . now some of us are like --

>> that will be interesting because when the fight gets taken to the national level and if this thing passes, it's going to pass by thin margins. people will say that. if you need these swing voters and a utah republican to vote with you. he doesn't want to hear roberto's radical critique.

>> i remember the immigration 20 years ago was not even an issue. now the massive industries and we have these dehumanization of hate crimes and people dying in the desert because of the current policy. you can't vis rate the moral --

>> that's part of the challenge. 20 years ago we didn't have the economic interests that wanted thousands of people detained. you are right with the correctional associations of america . you have economic interests and the industrial complex . you had people on campus and political seconds and legislatures. advocated and lobbying for more immigrant attention. we have 2.3 million prison beds that they want full. for the first time in history, you have people profiting from the excesses and you don't have an effective counter to the infusion of money. never the case that people lobbied for people to punish. you never had to do that. huh this set of interest that is pushing for lots of dollars. and they have no economic ability to counter.

>> part comes back to this phenomenon called.

>> 'tis paer ting budgets. they are making the trade offs themselves as opposed to these feeding into the representation representational system. when people are making the trade offs, they look more progressive than the trade offs made under the hydraulic pressure of interest groups that have a certain monetary state.

>> however people identify before they go into these things, they come with a huge agreement with taxes on the wealthiest and the spending. more on education.

>> we are not just like pulling it, there was a long sign with people doing this.

>> sequestration is with the word in spanish that means kidnapping. that leads to the great hope of our political moment to let politics and not just with more latinos who are more left than ever, but with the welfare state being shattered and dismantled and the wealth cap growing to the 80s and 70s, you are now going to see as we saw the kinds of social media and they are going to think outside of the electoral box.

>> you are painting rush limbaugh 's words. i will see you back at the bottom of the show. will changing public opinion on gay rights force