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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our monthly Call Your Senator segment with New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. We'll be talking about her actions to get federal help for New York with the influx of asylum seekers, also about the prospect for government shutdown at the end of this month with House Republicans wanting to attach things like a Biden impeachment inquiry to a bill to keep the government running and more.

We'll talk about what you call about. If you're a New Yorker, call your Senator with your questions relevant to the work of the United States Senate at 212-433-WNYC. Non-New Yorkers may call too. Senator Gillibrand is your Senator too during these call-ins. 212-433-9692. You can also text a question to that same call-in number, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Senator, we always appreciate that you do this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: On the asylum seekers, I see you're working on a bipartisan bill with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Want to start there?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Sure. Obviously, our immigration system is broken, and as a result, we are doing everything we can in New York to solve a very significant humanitarian crisis. A lot more needs to be done. First of all, the federal government should be working very hard to provide resources for New York since this is not a problem they've caused themselves. Senator Schumer and I have been working very hard on that. We got about $800 million to address these concerns, and about $140 million went to New York.

New York spent much more than that, so we are hoping to get more resources. I'm working very hard on a number of pieces of legislation, and we're trying to get Republican members of the New York House delegation, we have 11 of them, to focus on how we can do bipartisan common-sense legislation to begin to solve the problem. These are all laws that were created by the federal government. We have the power of the purse, and so Congress has to do their job and actually legislate, but we need Republican allies in the House who are willing to do the work.

One idea is to make sure that we have TPS status for the people that are coming, Temporary Protective Status, that would let them work faster. I have the bill to change the amount of time people have to work to start working once they file their asylum claim, that they can work in 30 days as opposed to 180 days. That would help a lot. We want to ask the federal government to help more with support centers, to use the support centers that we created for the Afghan refugees to be used for all refugees and asylum seekers. Those are just a couple of ideas, but I have other legislation to just change the immigration courts.

We don't have enough. I have legislation to make Title I courts so it's not just in the hands of the administration but that we can have congressionally created courts. I also have legislation to increase the number of lawyers so they can actually adjudicate these cases. These asylum claims are taking two years, three years in some cases, far more than the law requires and so we need more lawyers and more judges to do that. I think we just have to work on a bipartisan basis to get it done. We need comprehensive immigration reform. One of the bipartisan ideas was that of Bill Cassidy, and he wants to work with me to rightsize immigration.

We have the same number of visas that we've ever had, 675,000 over the last several years, and apparently, we don't even use all those visas every year because the processing is not effective. If we rightsize immigration, increase the number of visas for different types of workers where we're desperate; ag workers, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, tourism and hotel workers, maybe you could do industry by industry because we have 200,000 unfilled jobs in New York right now that I could tell you a lot of employers would love to fill if they could do so legally.

These are our challenges. It's a huge, huge, huge challenge, but we need people of goodwill from both sides of the aisle, especially Republicans who aren't coming to the table to solve this problem.

Brian Lehrer: On the length of time that people have to be here for work authorization, you said it's currently 180 days, six months. You want the government to make it 30 days so they can start supporting themselves more quickly. I know that's a major priority of Mayor Adams as well. Have you asked President Biden to do that with an executive order? Does Biden have the authority to do that with an executive order?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: When I've talked to people in the-- yes, I've asked. I've asked many times. They have said they don't have the legal authority to do it, that the law as written requires 180 days, and that it requires an act of Congress to change the law to reduce it to 30 days. I don't know if there's any emergency power that the president has that can change that. The people from the White House I've spoken to have said they don't, so we're going to ask for other types of help.

We can ask for a whole-of-government solution. We can ask Homeland Security, DOJ, DHS, State Department to all work together, HHS, on meeting these asylum claims quickly, getting more lawyers to do the work, asking DOJ to increase the number of immigration courts, asking them to do whole-of-government surge of lawyers so at least we can review these cases quickly and those who do not qualify for asylum can be sent home and those who do qualify asylum can work because we have worker shortages in all these industries as I mentioned.

I spent all of August traveling across New York. I did a bunch of rural counties. When I talked to people who worked on farms, who worked at breweries, who worked in hotels, all of them said they had a worker shortage. If we could fix our immigration system, we can rightsize immigration and people can be working, which means they will not need the support of shelters and food assistance. They'll be able to pay their own bills, pay their taxes, pay Social Security as they wait for their asylum claim to be determined. The people that are here are seeking asylum.

That is a law that has been in place since the '80s that would need to be changed if people do not want people coming here who are seeking asylum, but we are a generous and a thoughtful country that cares about humanitarian crises for those people who say they are Christians. We welcome the stranger. We help people. It's part of who we are as a nation. Our immigration history and the richness of the cultures and the people that have come here over many hundreds of years, that's what makes our country so great. We should not turn our back on who we are, but we should fix the system so it works properly.

Brian Lehrer: I want to get a reaction from you to a clip we're going to play now of Vice President Pence praising Mayor Adams on a conservative talk show on Monday on WABC Radio here in New York. Here's Mike Pence.

Vice President Mike Pence: You know what? I got to do a hat tip to the mayor of New York who's been willing to call out President Joe Biden and his administration for their absolute failure to secure the southern border of the United States.

Brian Lehrer: How much do you agree with his sentiment there, Senator Gillibrand, or even the characterization of asking Biden to control the border in a different way?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I think that is a perfect example of cynical politics. Obviously, that's Mike Pence. He's running for president. I don't think the problem is President Biden. I think the problem is our immigration laws have not been updated in a very long time. We had a comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate 10 years ago, and the House Republicans refused to act on any of it. Even most recently, the Republicans in the House gutted all the funding that we give to states for emergency basis like this, gutted all the funding.

That funding would go to red states like Texas, it would go to blue states like New York, places where we're having a surge of migrants. They're just literally abdicating all responsibility and putting their heads in the sand. Mike Pence did next to nothing to solve the immigration crisis when he was vice president, so I don't think his words have any weight. I think he is someone who's just trying to get elected.

Brian Lehrer: Well, the lead line on the New York 1 story on this said, "US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said hundreds of thousands of migrants showing up at the US border is both dangerous and unmanageable." Is that a fair description of your position?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I do think it's very unmanageable at this point. You can just ask the mayor, ask the governor. They're working 24/7 to do everything they can to solve the problem. They're working overtime to solve the problem. They're asking for support. They're asking for resources. We need to solve the problem. Unfortunately, we don't have power in Congress, in the House of Representatives, and right now, McCarthy and the ultra-conservatives there just want to make it worse because they want this political point. They want to be able to use this in elections.

We have 11 Republicans in the New York delegation. Any one of them could be co-sponsoring my legislation to solve this problem, and they're not. They are not looking for solutions or answers, and they just want the problem to grow so that they can use it politically. It's very cynical. It's not Christian, and it's not something that reflects who we are as a nation and the generous nature of our country and the ability we've always had to bring disparate people from across the globe to make our economy stronger, to make our society richer, and to make our communities fuller.

Brian Lehrer: Well, one more follow-up on what you were just saying that I guess the Republicans would argue. The law requires anyone presenting themselves as an asylum seeker must be admitted, but 90% or so of asylum cases, from what I've read, get denied as being really about desire to move here but no real threat of political retribution or other things that the asylum laws are supposed to actually cover. Do you think that many migrants are abusing the asylum system and it should be enforced differently or written differently in some way?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: It needs to be adjudicated on a timely basis. This is one of the things I'm going to ask of the Biden administration to increase the number of immigration courts that the DOJ has available and increase the number of lawyers that are surged to do this work now because our laws are very generous. We welcome people who are refugees from around the globe. We have refugee communities all across New York right now that are thriving.

We welcome asylum seekers who are undergoing horrible conditions in their countries, whether it's because of natural disaster, whether it's because of collapse in government, whether it's because of fear of their lives or discrimination, but those are specific standards. I wouldn't say that they're trying to get away with something. I don't think people understand what the asylum law in the United States says. That's why when they come here, they file and they're supposed to get a lawyer to adjudicate their claim.

I wouldn't demonize the migrant who's trying to just get a better life for their families because they're in abject poverty or there's gangs running their country or their government has collapsed. That's what's happening in a lot of these South American countries and a lot of these Central American countries. They're leaving places that are not livable, but we have laws. Our laws require that you go through a process, and a judge determines if you meet the qualifications. If you don't meet the needs of those qualifications, then you will be sent home, period.

If Republicans and Democrats believe that the number of legal immigrants in this country should be higher, that's the kind of bipartisan work we should be doing, and we should be using all those visas. As I said earlier, we have worker shortages in many industry groups, and it would be very helpful if we could rightsize immigration and have the right number of visas for the right number of people that we need across the country in different industries. That's the kind of bipartisan stuff that you're supposed to do in comprehensive immigration reform, but again, we have no partners.

We have no Republican partners who want to do this work with us in the House of Representatives, and that's a problem. I will work with the White House to do the few things that they do have the authority to do, improve our immigration courts, have TPS data for Venezuelans particularly, because that 40% of these migrants are from Venezuela. What's happening in Venezuela is terrible. There is a government collapse. It's a disaster. There's lots of things happening there that are very, very horrible.

Then have a whole of government response so that DOJ is working with DHS and working with HHS and working with state departments to solve these problems, use some of these welcome centers that we've used so effectively for Afghan refugees and Ukrainian refugees for all asylum seekers so we just have a better government, more efficient. I'm going to work on those small things with the White House, and then I'm going to keep pitching my bipartisan legislation to get Republicans to help solve the problem. We need Republicans of goodwill to meet us halfway.

Brian Lehrer: Desiree in Park Slope, you're on WNYC with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Hi, Desiree.

Desiree: Good morning. I feel like there's a bit of magical thinking when it comes to what having a work visa is going to do for new migrants. I fully support new migrants being supported in New York City. I am happy that my tax dollars can help in any way, but minimum-wage jobs are not going to get housing for new migrants. We already have a housing crisis where people who make well above the minimum wage can't afford to live in New York City, so I'm trying to understand how the mayor and how the senator think that getting new migrants a work visa to do service work is going to magically allow them to afford an apartment.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Desiree. Senator?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: There's two problems that you've raised, Desiree. One, we have an affordable housing crisis in the entire country and so I have a lot of legislation to incentivize development of affordable housing across our state and across the country. In New York City, for example, we have a lot of commercial buildings that are empty right now. I want to create an incentive and support for conversion. They tried to do that in the legislature. The legislation didn't get passed because there was problems that they needed to work through, but I'm going to try to find federal support for changing a lot of our current commercial properties to residential.

Certain waivers will be required, certain resources will be required, but I'm going to work on that because I do appreciate how severe our affordable housing shortages in our state and our city. You're making an assumption that migrants that are coming are all low-wage workers, and you're making an assumption that they're all going to be minimum-wage workers. That is not a fair assumption. You have people coming with medical degrees, with training in all sorts of industries. Post-COVID, a lot of these jobs are no longer minimum-wage jobs.

We found that a lot of industries to compete for workers have had to increase wages to just get workers, so I wouldn't assume that they're all going to be the lowest-wage worker because that's just not the reality of who people are that are coming to this country for help, and that's why I really want to do an industry-specific. We have a nursing shortage in this country. We have a teacher shortage in this country. We have shortages in agriculture workers, childcare workers, assisted-living facility workers. Some of these jobs are very highly trained jobs.

We're hoping we can solve our crisis with open jobs that can't be filled and solve an immigration crisis at the same time, but it takes thoughtful bipartisan leadership that I am going to work very hard to develop. I have several Republicans I'm working with on a number of the bills I discussed today, but we need our House delegation to care and to start working on it, all of them, and there's 11 of them.

Brian Lehrer: Carol in Westchester, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Good morning to you both. Thanks so much for taking my call. Senator Gillibrand, I really support so much of what you say, especially how important it is to maintain the generosity of our nature as New Yorkers. We're here in a nutshell [unintelligible 00:17:44] that we exercise eminent domain over some of the developers, many of whom had been given tax breaks of the empty office buildings.

This is why the federal government then would come in to supply funds for conversion of those buildings into housing units, not only for the folks who have been shipped here against their will, not only for the people who are legitimately coming in as immigrants but of course, also for the homeless people that we all see and try to help on our streets. Thanks so much. I'll listen and take my answer off the air.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Carol. Eminent domain over empty office buildings to start using them for housing. Senator?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I think the bigger problem is area median income is not reflective of affordability in New York City, for example, because when you are assessing area median income, which is a term of art that assesses who gets vouchers for housing and how much they get, that includes Upper East Side, Upper West Side, includes Westchester, it includes some of those expensive housing in the world. Our area median income does not reflect affordability for any of the federal programs, whether you're talking about Section 8 Housing or Section 202 Housing for seniors.

All these different programs are based on these formulas in terms of art, so I want to change that. That's something I'm working with Yvette Clarke on. Then I am thinking about, as I mentioned, ways to incentivize using the commercial buildings. I don't think eminent domain solves any problems, but I do think your instinct to suggest some federal investment and some federal participation, I agree with. I think incentivizing developers and owners to convert is necessary.

I'm working on legislation right now on a bipartisan basis to see if that's something we can focus on. The housing crisis in our state is real and it's real everywhere. I do believe through thoughtful leadership and common-sense bipartisan solutions, we can solve these problems.

Brian Lehrer: We are in our monthly Call Your Senator segment with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. 212-433-WNYC. Senator, new topic, the potential for a government shutdown at the end of this month, which is the end of the federal fiscal year. Are you concerned about House Republicans forcing Senate Republicans into something?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: My sense is that the House Republicans and the Senate Republicans are at odds. Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer are working well and already have the entire appropriations ready to go. They have 12 different bills done. Not surprising two women senators got that done. Susan Collins and Patty Murray are the chair and ranking members of the Appropriations Committee, and they've gotten all 12 bills done. We are ready to go. We want it governed. We have a budget. We have a budget for every area of the federal government ready to go, but the challenge is that McCarthy does not have control of his delegation.

He's got conservative right-wing members like Marjorie Taylor Greene who have said, "I will not vote for anything until I have an impeachment proceeding," trying to hold the entire Congress hostage. That irresponsible behavior is very damaging. We've had government shutdowns in the past, and none of them have gone well. The CBO estimated that the five-week partial government shutdown in 2018 to 2019 reduced the nation's economic output by $11 billion for the following two quarters, including $3 billion that the US economy never regained.

Moody's said that in the 2013 full government shutdown, it reduced the GDP, which is the gross domestic produce, by $20 billion. That's pretty severe. It doesn't go well for us and it hurts people. It hurts people's ability to get access capital. It hurts people's ability to-- Something as simple as getting a passport doesn't get done. It's from severe to small, but it's never good. It's really, again, cynical politicians that think their way or the highway is more important than keeping our government up and running.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie: Thank you for taking this call. I am a nurse. Actually, I'm a retired nurse, so that gives you an age-frame reference. I do not understand why-- Clearly, there are two senators that are currently serving in the Senate that are impaired. That was my casual observation. I do not understand why they have not--

Brian Lehrer: Are you talking about Feinstein and McConnell, just to be clear?

Leslie: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Leslie: One of my questions are, I don't understand why we don't have mandatory retirement. The other dirty word is, why don't we have term limits? I understand that all of our representatives are voted on by the people, but there is so much lobbying going on. There is so much holding on to the job until I get a better offer that we have a totally dysfunctional government.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie, thank you. Senator?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: A couple of issues. I really admire Senator Feinstein and I work extremely well with her, and I work very well with her on the Intel Committee in particular. My heart goes out to Senator McConnell as he wrestles with his health concerns. We have never had an age requirement in the Senate, and I don't think we ever will. That's what elections are for. States are supposed to decide which senators they want to send to Washington to represent them, but I have thought long and hard about this idea of term limits.

I'm not opposed to term limits. I like the idea of term limits. I tend to think that people do need a level of seniority and experience to get good at their jobs. I've seen myself improve in how I can deliver for New York over the last 14 years I've been in the Senate. I got almost every bill I've ever written passed last Congress and some of them took 10 years, some of them took 5 years, some took 12 years. It's all different. It takes time to get things done. I do see some merit in term limits, and I see merit in term limits for everybody, especially the Supreme Court.

As a way to depoliticize them, I would give them a 20-year term limit. I think Congress could have similar term limits. 18 years in the Senate might work. Maybe 18 years in the House might work. That's a lot of time to get good at your job, to become a chairman, to get things done. I am working with Senator Ted Cruz on this right now. I know he's very conservative, but he likes the idea of term limits. I really think it should apply to all these massive positions of power long term.

Now, the other side of the argument is very simple. That's what elections are for, and that's a legitimate argument. That's a smart argument. If the voters want somebody in for 25, 30 years, we have examples of really great senators that have been in for more than three terms. Senator Schumer, for example, I can't think of a more effective better senator than Senator Schumer. Those are legit arguments too, but for the two senators that you mentioned, it's up to them and their families about when they step down. I appreciate both of their dedication to serving. I would never tell somebody they have to leave. The voters can do it and their families can help them.

Brian Lehrer: Is this new for you, supporting term limits? I haven't heard you say it before, and maybe I just never heard it. Is this new for you?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Not new. Not new. I've been thinking about it for a long time and seeing if I can find some good bipartisan consensus around it. I've specifically been going to think much more about it with regard to the Supreme Court because we've talked about how they depoliticize the Supreme Court, and I think adding justices isn't going to work. First of all, let's say we said, "Let's add three justices." Well, we couldn't fill three justices in time to not have them go to McConnell to fill. It doesn't help us depoliticize the court, but something like term limits might depoliticize the court.

These justices would know, "You only have 20 years to do this, so don't screw around. Do it well and create a record for yourself." Typically, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so I've just been thinking a lot more about it. I just don't know if there's any will behind it. Probably not, but I'm certainly thinking about the merits of it.

Brian Lehrer: One more question from a listener before we run out of time, and we'll take this one from a text message that somebody wrote to us. Question for Senator Gillibrand. It says, "An underlying issue that seems to undermine citizens' trust in government is the belief that government officials are corrupt. Have bills been introduced to address the dangers of corruption? The most obvious area is the revolving door between government and K Street, the lobbyist community. If corruption is widely perceived as a problem in governance, why have there been no bills introduced in Congress to combat it?" What do you say to that listener?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I share the listener's concern that people worry that Congress is bought and paid for. I have two things that I've worked on to change that. One, I'd love to get money out of politics. I believe in publicly-funded elections. I think that would change who gets elected overnight, and it would change the influence that the moneyed interests of the United States have over members of Congress, whether you're talking about the oil industry or the NRA or Big Pharma. Those influences are real and significant in many places.

Getting money out of politics would make it less easy for those industries to just pay for campaigns and pay for advertising and to influence the outcomes by doing independent ads and doing independent organizing like the NRA does. That's one point, and I'm going to keep fighting for that. The second point is the members of Congress that get rich quick on non-public information. About 10 years ago, I passed a law called the STOCK Act that told members of Congress they had to actually disclose all their purchases of stock regularly because there had been no prosecution of any members of Congress on insider trading.

I wanted to make it clear that, yes, insider trading laws apply to members of Congress to the non-public information they receive in their jobs and that with disclosure, we would give the DOJ the authority and the ability to prosecute members who were buying and selling stock based on non-public information. That didn't really come to fruition, and 10 years later, what we're seeing now is one in three members of Congress are trading stocks. One in seven are not failing to properly report those stock trades.

97 members of Congress, their spouses, or dependents who traded companies affected by their committees from 2019 to 2021, [unintelligible 00:29:51] stock trades reported by members of Congress from 2019 to 2021 that potentially posed conflicts of interest. This is the kicker. 17.5% is the average amount by which Congress's stock portfolios outperformed the S&P 500 in 2022. Do you think 17.5% increase is because members of Congress are smarter or do you think they are getting access to non-public information that is affecting their trades? Probably the latter.

That's why I have a bill right now with Josh Hawley, another conservative Republican, to ban stock trading by members of Congress, their spouses, and their minor children.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, ban it all together?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Ban it all together since we're clearly not good at disclosure and include the senior federal officials as well from the administration, so both senior White House and administrative officials and members of Congress, all of their spouses and minor kids banned. That bill I think answers the need of this perception that people have and perhaps reality that members of Congress are not serving the public first, they're serving themselves first, and this legislation would go a long way to fixing that perception.

Brian Lehrer: Can you give us a quick thought before you go with the 9/11 anniversary coming up next Monday on the World Trade Center Health Program, which I know you've been very involved with?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Yes. In our last National Defense Authorization Bill, I was able to, along with Senator Schumer and others, make sure there was money in there to increase the funding we spend on healthcare because the cost of healthcare has gone up exponentially higher than the cost of everything else and so that inflation for healthcare costs has really upended the ability of the fund to stay solvent, so we put some money in for that. Second, we made sure that the first responders at Shanksville, Pennsylvania and from the Pentagon are also now covered by the program.

Those were really significant good wins. Republican Garbarino and D'Esposito and others helped as well, so that was a good bipartisan win, but we still need to do more to make sure this program is there forever and for the life of all of our first responders and community members. We will continue to work in the next Congress and the next Congress until we have enough money to make sure the money's there. This most recent success is going to help us make sure that the money's there at least for the next five or so years so people don't have to worry about it. We will continue to work to make sure it's there till the very end.

Brian Lehrer: Our monthly Call Your Senator segment with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Senator, we always appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian. I appreciate you. Take care.

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