This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, May 1st, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

Good immigration policy means respecting people's humanity, understanding immigrants contribution

to economic performance, and rejecting xenophobia. That's the message from

Democratic Representative Zo Lofgren of California, she spoke at the Cato Institute's Conference on Immigration

held last week. I just wanted to make a few comments about the state of the law and

then I of course welcome some questions.

You know, as someone who's been involved in the whole legislative scene on immigration,

I've just got to say the whole system is a mess, really.

It needs reform from top to bottom.

We've got a situation where families, husbands and wives

can be separated for four and five years or more,

where adult American citizens can be separated

from their adult sons and daughters.

Stuart and I keep running into each other

at these events.

His study indicating that an employment-based visa application based on a bachelor's science degree when the

individuals born in India could result in a 70-year wait wait how competitive is that

When you take a look at employment based you know a lot of Americans think that people are here illegally

because they just declined to go and use the regular system

and don't realize that there is no way to legally come over the United States.

We have 5,000 permanent residence visas a year

allocated to people whose immigration would be based on their employment skills who don't have a bachelor's

...