TOP OF DOC
TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR
1998
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1997.
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UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE
WITNESSES
RAYMOND W. KELLY, UNDER SECRETARY, ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE
TREASURY
GEORGE MUNÓZ, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, MANAGEMENT, AND CHIEF
FINANCIAL OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
GEORGE J. WEISE, COMMISSIONER, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
RICHARD J. HOGLUND, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, ACTING, OFFICE OF
INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
EDWARD F. KWAS, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND
TECHNOLOGY, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
HOMER J. WILLIAMS, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS,
U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
C. WAYNE HAMILTON, DIRECTOR, BUDGET DIVISION, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
RICHARD DAVIS, SENIOR INSPECTOR, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
LANCE LUECK, INSPECTOR, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE
BRAD BENCH, SENIOR SPECIAL AGENT, OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS
SERVICE
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Opening Comments from Chairman Kolbe
Mr. KOLBE. The meeting of the subcommittee
will come to order.
I welcome our witnesses who are here to testify on
United States Customs Service.
I thank my Ranking Member, Mr. Hoyer.
We have had an informal subcommittee meeting
before to introduce our staff, so I won't go through that today.
Since the Under Secretary is here, I would like to
take just a brief moment for a small housekeeping matter.
Mr. Under Secretary, as you know, it is the
Committee's policy to ask for testimony a week in advance. The schedule for
the hearings has been set for at least a month and, in most cases, well
over a month in time. The purpose of this is so that we can adequately
prepare the questions that we ask, and that we then submit to you so you
are not caught unawares of the questions.
Unfortunately, in the case of the witnesses today,
the testimony was 4 days late, and in the case of tomorrow, with the Secret
Service and Under Secretary Kelly, the testimony was 6 days late in coming
to us. My understanding is that this was because the testimony was being
reviewed by Treasury. I certainly don't mean to micromanage your affairs,
but it is very important for us, Majority and Minority, if we are going to
do our job correctly and work with you, that we have that testimony in
advance so we can prepare our questions. And I would ask you to take that
message back to the Department and urge them to be a little swifter in
their review, or perhaps you need to submit it earlier to them.
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Mr. KELLY. Yes, sir. I take responsibility
for that. I think it has to do with my newness in the position, but I can
assure you it won't happen again.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you.
With that, let me begin with a brief opening
statement, and again, welcome Under Secretary Kelly, Commissioner Weise, to
this first hearing for the fiscal year 1998 before the Treasury, Postal
Service and General Government Subcommittee.
My predecessor, Jim Lightfoot, left some pretty
big shoes for me to fill, but I am looking forward to working with all the
agencies that come under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee and continue
much of the work that is already under way.
I hope that, in addition, I will be able to bring
some new and fresh ideas to the Subcommittee to keep us on the glide path
towards a balanced budget, make government more efficient and responsive,
and to produce an appropriation bill that both the Congress and the
administration can support and can ultimately sign into law.
I especially want to say how pleased I am to work
with the Ranking Member, Mr. Steny Hoyer, who has served with this
Subcommittee with distinction for some years, and I fully concede I have a
lot to learn from him about it. As Chairman of the Subcommittee for many
years, he left behind a very impressive legacy of many initiatives that he
started.
Today we are going to focus on the United States
Customs Service, and for the next several hearings we will be focusing on
law enforcement. Obviously, this is an Agency in which I have a lot of
personal interest. In representing a border district, I have been very
actively involved with trade matters and with border issues, and I have
always argued that I think that Customs, and INS, as well, have
contradictory missions.
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In one sense, customs job is to keep illegal goods
from coming across the border, while INS keeps illegal people from coming
across the border. But there is another part of the process, which is to
facilitate the free flow of goods across our borders. And I think sometimes
we may not keep that second mission in mind as much as someone who lives on
the border might wish.
I know this is not an easy mission and we don't
make it easier with the laws that we give you. Customs plays not only a
substantial role in the war on drugs, but in a sense, the primary role. And
upon looking at the President's budget request, I am concerned that Customs
interdiction efforts seem to be lagging in terms of the attention by the
administration, and I will have some questions in that area.
I am pleased to see a continued emphasis on
innovative technologies along the border, which help to provide greater
automation along the ports of entry. I am concerned about the lack of a
master architectural blueprint or operating investment process to guide
these efforts. I think we ought to try to learn from the failure of IRS,
with regard to their tax systems modernization that has cost the taxpayers
$4 billion, which IRS now concedes has given us absolutely nothing in
return. We need to make sure that is not—on a lesser scale,
admittedly—that that is not going to be repeated here with Treasury
law enforcement, most notably Customs or any of the agencies that come
under the jurisdiction of this committee.
I will have questions for the witnesses concerning
these and other topics, and I look toward to hearing the answers.
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Before I call on you for an opening
statement, I would like to see if Mr. Hoyer would like to make an opening
statement.
Mr. HOYER. Just briefly.
First of all, I want to say to the Under
Secretary, you are new, so you don't have experience with those on the
committee, but Mr. Weise is not new and he does have that experience. This
committee is very fortunate to have as its new Chair, Mr. Kolbe of Arizona.
Mr. Kolbe is one of our most thoughtful and ablest Members of the Congress,
and you are going to find a very fair hearing before this committee. And
while some of us may differ from time to time, I want you to know that this
side of the aisle has the utmost confidence in the Chairman's fairness. We
were blessed to have a very fair and open and bipartisan Chairman that
preceded Mr. Kolbe, and we were fortunate to get somebody equally committed
to working together for the best product that this committee can produce
for the taxpayers and for this country.
So I want to welcome him as the Chairman publicly,
I have said this privately and with our committee Members, but we are very
fortunate to have him as our chair.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer, I will
make that statement appear in my next campaign brochure.
Mr. HOYER. And he is almost as good as his
future opponent, as good as that may be. You can bracket that, ha-ha.
Mr. Secretary, the Director of Customs, of course,
is no stranger to the Congress of the United States. He had a distinguished
career here as a high-ranking staff member on the Ways and Means Committee,
and is well-respected. In addition, the law enforcement agencies in
Treasury, as you well know, from your law enforcement experience are
outstanding. The New York bombing, of the World Trade Center, where ATF
made such an important discovery—in fact, it was ATF that led to the
breaking of that case, and, of course, your work in NYPD and the work of
others both at the Federal and local level.
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This committee has historically been and continues
to be a strong supporter of the law enforcement components of Treasury.
Customs, of course, is the largest, with about a $1.7 billion and 17,000
FTEs in its budget, but also ATF and, Secret Service, which has, as you
know, many law enforcement duties, in addition to the more publicly known
protective responsibilities has it has.
Mr. Secretary, I want to tell you, you have some
of the most able law enforcement officials in the country heading up those
agencies in Customs and ATF and Secret Service. And this committee has
continually funded those agencies so that they could accomplish their
objectives.
In fact, administrations of both parties have not
been as generous as this committee has historically been. In the area of
Customs, particularly in the 1980s, we had to keep fighting to keep Customs
at FTE levels we thought were appropriate to accomplish their objectives.
You have a distinguished career in law enforcement.
I will ask questions, I am sure other Members of
the committee will ask questions. I am very concerned, as I know you are,
and I am going to be talking to General McCaffrey, about the assertions
that are made daily now in the press with reference to Customs. Any Agency
that has that many people, obviously, from time to time may have a bad
apple, as you had in the NYPD. But the Mexican performance is one I think
we are all concerned about, I am sure we are going to go into it, and I
know the Chairman is concerned about it. I am going to be asking questions
about your relationship with General McCaffrey in terms of our coordination
of this effort.
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Obviously, Justice is very much involved in INS,
FBI, DEA, but I am pleased to have you here for your first time. I want to
welcome you.
I am pleased that we have a Chairman, as I said,
who is going to pursue these issues, which I think are very serious ones,
with a great deal of vigor, but also with a great deal of integrity and
fairness.
Mr. Lightfoot and I were Chair and Cochair during
the 4 years that we looked at Waco. This committee, frankly, developed all
of the information in our hearings that was ultimately discovered in the
last Congress by the extensive investigations. They spent a lot of money, a
lot of time, they didn't find anything more than we did.
In particular, the Treasury Department did an
outstanding job, a much better job than Justice, in self-criticism and
corrective action. Quite obviously, significant mistakes were made at Waco
by the ATF, and they admitted those mistakes. They have corrected them and
completed some personnel actions. But you are going to find as you enter
into this responsibility, you have an Agency that has some of the best
people in the world working for it, and we can achieve great results
working together constructively.
Again, we are pleased, on this side of the aisle,
and the country is very fortunate to have a Chairman with the kind of
fairness and integrity that we have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. KOLBE. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer, for
your kind remarks.
Mr. Kelly, we would like to begin with your
statement.
As you know, the full statement will be placed in
the record, we would appreciate it if you would summarize your statement so
we will have as much time for questions as possible.
Mr. KELLY. Yes, sir. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Hoyer and Members of the
committee, it is a pleasure to appear before you today to present the
Department's antinarcotics work and join in presenting the Customs
Service's requirements for fiscal year 1998. Treasury's enforcements,
achievements and initiatives being discussed this week and next week are
due in large part to the guidance and support of this committee. I am
confident that the Department and its enforcement bureaus will work
diligently to build on this relationship in the coming fiscal year.
I would also like to note the support and
leadership that we have received from Secretary Rubin. Whether in support
of Customs antismuggling efforts, our financial crimes enforcement, or
antiviolent crimes initiatives, the Secretary has been an invaluable ally
to the men and women of the Treasury law enforcement.
Accompanying me today are Assistant Secretary
James Johnson and Deputy Assistant Secretary Liz Brazee and other members
of my staff, and, of course, Commissioner Weise and his staff, which he
will introduce.
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And subsequent to my remarks, Commissioner Weise
will provide greater insight and detail into their efforts. While I will
defer to Commissioner Weise on the specifics of the Bureau's work, I would
like to call to your attention the vital and broad-based nature of the
Customs mission.
Customs maintains critical overflight operations
in the drug source and transit zone areas, antismuggling initiatives at the
border, and investigative and intelligence-gathering operations. It also
conducts investigations of money-laundering rings linked to narcotics
smuggling.
Largely because of its role as the Nation's
primary border enforcement Agency, Customs antinarcotics efforts have been
most pronounced at the Southwest border and the Caribbean. This work has
been significantly enhanced over the past few years through Operation Hard
Line and Gateway. Operation Hard Line, which began 2 years ago on the
Southwest Border, continues to yield positive results. The total number of
narcotics seizures increased by 29 percent, and seizures measured by total
weight increased by 24 percent.
With the support of this committee, Customs is
building further on this program during the current fiscal year. For
example, in addition to the 165 experienced Special Agents and intelligence
analysts who have been relocated to the Southwest Border, $65 million in
fiscal year 1997 funding will allow for an additional 650 positions for
drug interdiction. These additional positions will allow us to extend the
Hard Line from the Southwest Border to other parts of the Southern U.S.,
including the Miami area.
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A focus on the entire border is absolutely
essential given the likelihood that traffickers will alter their attempts
in response to the heightened enforcement in any area. In fact, Customs
already has detected such a shift in response to Hard Line with the
crackdown at the Southwest Border, forcing traffickers to look for
additional smuggling routes, particularly in the Caribbean.
In response to this shift, Customs has implemented
Operation Gateway. Since the initiation of Operation Gateway last March,
Customs narcotics enforcement activities in Puerto Rico have increased
dramatically. From March to December 1996, heroin seizures increased by 28
percent and cocaine seizures by 37 percent. Customs consistently seizes
more illicit narcotics than all other Federal agencies combined. We will
continue to play a principal role in this fight.
Our counternarcotics efforts also extend to
money-laundering, which is both the life support system and the Achilles
heel of narcotics traffickers. The better we are at tracking dirty money,
the better our chances at unraveling the criminal enterprises that depend
on it.
We have developed counter-money laundering
initiatives that focus on effective enforcement, flexible regulatory
measures and an aggressive training and advisory program for our foreign
counterparts. We continue to focus efforts on deterring and detecting
money-laundering internationally.
Last year the Customs Service seized over $232
million as a result of money-laundering and drug-smuggling investigations.
In addition, Customs, along with the Internal Revenue Services Criminal
Investigative Division, the FBI and the DEA successfully concluded
investigations of numerous money-laundering organizations linked to major
trafficking organizations, such as that which resulted in the capture,
extradition, and conviction of Juan Garcia Abrego, one of Mexico's most
notorious drug kingpins.
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In addition, Treasury has been working in
partnership with financial institutions to reduce burdensome paperwork in
order for them to focus on reporting of suspicious activity. Under the
Suspicious Activity Reporting System, banks report suspected criminal
activity to one collection point that provides the information to law
enforcement.
This single filing point provides easier access to
the information by the law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The result,
better information about trends and patterns which is vital to law
enforcement and banks in their efforts to combat money laundering.
Another example of how a flexible approach to
regulation leads to better enforcement is Treasury's recent Geographical
Targeting Order, or GTO. It is designed to prevent money laundering through
a specific group of money remitters in the New York metropolitan area who
are suspected of funneling drug proceeds back to Colombia.
As a result of this order, the flow of drug money
through remitters in New York City to Colombia has been reduced
dramatically. The GTO has forced the drug traffickers to attempt riskier
schemes to move their profits back to Colombia. Customs has seized an
additional $40 million in currency over a comparable period last year, as
traffickers tried to smuggle cash out of the country through JFK and other
East coast ports and airports in Miami, Newark, and Boston.
Of course, making the U.S. financial channels less
user-friendly to criminal enterprises is just half the battle. Since
organized crime is increasingly a transnational phenomenon, a truly
effective attack requires that controls over the movement of their funds be
implemented by all nations. The U.S. has made important strides in this
area over the past 6 or 7 years, particularly through multilateral
antimoney-laundering organizations, such as the Financial Action Task Force
and the Summit of the Americas Process, led by Secretary Rubin, as well as
through bilateral initiatives.
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As a result, nations increasingly are adopting the
necessary legislative and enforcement tools to address money-laundering and
to facilitate transnational investigations. At times, however, all the
diplomatic efforts in the world will not accomplish what certain
well-targeted enforcement measures will. In October 1995, President Clinton
announced a major new international organized crime initiative that also
targets narcotics traffic.
As a first step towards accomplishing this goal,
he issued an Executive Order invoking his powers under the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act to block assets and prohibit transactions
with the Cali Cartel in Colombia and people in businesses associated with
the cartel. The President's order delegated to Treasury's Office of Foreign
Asset Control, working with the Department of State and Justice, the
authority to identify the individuals and businesses that act for them or
on their behalf and to block the assets of the traffickers and their front
companies in the U.S.
This action bars U.S. citizens and companies from
doing business with them. The initial list included the four kingpins of
the Cali Cartel and 80 companies they own or control. OFAC has since added
over 300 names of persons and companies to that list.
Finally, our antidrug efforts also include the
work of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms which has made reducing
drug-related violent crime a priority through its participation in OCDETF
and HIDTA task forces, as well as its own Achilles program. Since its
inception, Achilles has resulted in the recommendation of 20,000 defendants
for prosecution as well as the issuance of 35 life sentences and 30,000
cumulative years of prison sentences in connection with drugs offenses.
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ATF also participates in vital demand reduction
efforts chiefly through its Gang Resistance Education and Awareness
Training Program, or GREAT as it is called. Working with the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center and local police forces throughout the country,
ATF uses the GREAT program to reach school-age children and help them
reject gangs and drugs. With the invaluable support of this committee, ATF
has been able to extend GREAT's reach to over 2 million children since
1992, and to include the participation of 1,300 police officers from across
the country.
As impressive as our Bureau's efforts have been,
we recognize we must continually reevaluate them. To this end the
Department intends to enhance its own oversight of some of the issues and
areas addressed today, with an eye toward improving the quality of Treasury
enforcement's in-service training, improving the internal investigative
capability of Treasury's enforcement bureaus and enhancing and further
coordinating departmental antimoney-laundering initiatives.
We look forward to working closely with you, Mr.
Chairman, Congressman Hoyer, and other Members of the this committee as we
move forward in these and other areas.
Thank you very much.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
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Mr. KOLBE. Thank you very much, Mr.
Secretary, for your comments.
Commissioner Weise.
Mr. WEISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Hoyer, Members of the committee,
it is a real pleasure to appear before you once again.
Mr. Kolbe, as you have indicated, if my full
statement could be submitted in the record, I would like in the interest of
time to summarize, because we have some people here, as you might notice,
some people from the front lines of Customs, which have some information
they would like to share with the committee in terms of actual experiences
from the border.
Mr. Chairman, I take to heart the comments you
have made in your opening statement about the difficult challenge that the
fine men and women of the Customs Service face in trying to balance the
very delicate interest in ensuring that we do everything in our power to
keep drugs from entering this country, while also dealing with the fact
that we have an important commercial responsibility.
The people you will be hearing from in a few
moments make that balance every day, and we know from our prior experience
as we have been working together in the commercial aspects of this in this
past, it is something we shouldn't lose sight of. But having said that, my
entire experience before assuming this position was in the commercial
arena.
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I will tell you, as the parent of two teenage
daughters, it is very clear to me that there is no mission that we have in
the Customs Service that is more important than keeping drugs from entering
this country. We have all seen the tremendous devastation that has occurred
in our streets and society with our teenagers and our youth. So we try our
best to do the best job we can.
I think we have, with the great support of this
committee over many, many years—and I appreciate Mr. Hoyer's
comments—on a bipartisan basis, you have been there for the Customs
Service, and as a result of that, I think we have demonstrated to you and
the American taxpayer that they are getting the value for the dollars you
have helped invest in the Customs Service.
OPERATION HARD LINE
If I could back a couple of years, just before we
got the support of this committee to implement Operation Hard Line, we were
facing tremendous stress on those ports of entry down along that Southwest
Border. The Immigration and Naturalization Service had put in some
significant operations to really clamp down on smuggling of illegal aliens
between the ports of entry. They had two major operations, Operation Hold
The Line and Operation Gatekeeper in California and Texas.
There had not been a lot of preplanning in terms
of what the impact might be, but the impact clearly was at those 38 ports
of entry, along that 2,000-mile span, as the pressure mounted and
overwhelmed us to a certain extent at the ports of entry. We saw instances
of port-running, which increased to over 900 instances in a single year.
Port-running is when a vehicle pulls up to the primary inspection booth,
the Customs officer in the booth asks the individual to open its trunk;
instead of doing so, the individual hits the accelerator, at great speed
and great peril, not only to the Customs officers, to other innocent
bystanders and vehicles and pedestrians in the area, and at great risk to
the local community. We had over 900 instances of that.
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What we were seeing were such brazen techniques of
smuggling that they weren't even resorting to hidden compartments or to
trying to find any subterfuge. The drugs were just loaded into the trunks,
and when they got to the booth, they would fly through.
Well, with the committee's help and the help of
the administration, we were able to implement Operation Hard Line. In the
early going, it was an investment of about $55 million, it was a
combination of a number of investments in terms of technology, some very
basic technology of putting some barriers in and around and configuring
them in such a way you couldn't move directly through and around the
inspection booth.
We were able to put a lot more overtime, people in
the area so they could roam with their canine and with their teams, so in
the area before you actually got to the primary inspection booth, we would
know we had a suspect before they got the opportunity, with all the traffic
in front of and behind them, to move forward.
Looking back 2 years later, we have seen
tremendous success. We have reduced the instances of port-running by almost
60 percent in that 2-year period. We have also seen in the course of the
last 2 years with Operation Hard Line and its supplement to that, Operation
Gateway in Puerto Rico, we have for the first time in the history of the
Customs Service seized more that 1 million pounds of narcotics in the past
year. Now, that is something we can be proud of, but it also is a
reflection of the challenge we face.
[CLERK'S NOTE.—The agency later
change ''more than'' to ''approximately.'']
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We know that we can't be comfortable with what we
are doing. We know we have much work to do and have to work in close
consultation with other organizations, with the DEA, FBI, Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and so many others, to ensure that we are doing
everything in our power to carry out that important responsibility to keep
drugs out of the country, and also ensure that we are not stopping
commerce. We do have a responsibility to do that.
I think through a lot of the technology and
information we have been able to gather, and the intelligence we been able
to put forward, we have been able to be more strategic in our focus. We
have also worked with the local business communities, and there is an
initiative, I am sure you are aware of, Mr. Chairman, that started in
California, but which is going to grow. It is called the Business
Anti-smuggling Coalition, or BASC, and it is a number of businesses taking
upon themselves to work to ensure that they are doing careful background
checks, criminal background checks with the people they are dealing with in
Mexico, making sure that the loading sites where their merchandise is put
into the trucks in Mexico are clean and clear and that they are doing what
they can to reduce the possibility that drugs are going to be put into
vehicles unbeknownst to them. So there are a number of things we are trying
to do to make that delicate balance.
BORDER CORRUPTION
Now, we can't talk about the difficult challenge
we face in the Southwest and in the United States without talking about the
issue that you raise, Mr. Hoyer, and that is the integrity of the Customs
worker. And the one thing I would like to make as clear as I possibly can
on the record in this public arena, is that I believe strongly in the
integrity of the U.S. Customs work force.
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I knew when I took this position, one of the
things I knew is if I wasn't going to be able to understand the issues
facing us on the Southwest Border, I couldn't lead this organization. So my
very first visit as Commissioner of Customs was to the Southwest Border,
and I have since made about 22 additional visits down there.
I have met with these front-line people, I have
walked alongside them, and seen how they risk their lives day in and day
out. It is a very difficult challenge with unbelievably poor working
conditions. You know what the weather is like along that border, 120-degree
temperatures, and they have a great deal of integrity.
Now, does that mean we don't have corruption
problems in the Customs Service? Absolutely not. I know with the mission
that we have and the resources available to the drug smugglers, that in one
payoff they can pay an individual more than they can make in an entire
year, that we have to be forever vigilant about the fear of corruption.
But I am very frustrated, as is our work force,
that numerous articles are painted with a broad brush implying the
Southwest Border is rampant with systemic corruption. Virtually every
instance where we have had either ourselves or outside interests come in
and take a comprehensive look at the situation has come to the same
conclusion, that there are individual instances, we pursue them vigorously,
we take a number of steps to minimize the risk of corruption, but there is
not, in my judgment, systemic corruption in the Customs Service, and we all
owe it to the fine men and women of the Customs Service to ensure that we
understand that.
We can get into the question and answer period,
Mr. Chairman, about the number of steps we take to minimize the risk of
corruption within our work force. Some of the things we need to talk about
we perhaps will need to talk about on Thursday in the closed session, about
some of the proactive efforts we are taking to minimize this risk.
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Finally, before introducing these fine gentlemen
to my right to the Members of the committee who do not live on the border,
and have your personal experience of living on the border, to get a feel
for some of the important cases we work on there, I would like to mention
some of the other activities of the Customs Service.
I think you were right to focus the subject matter
of this hearing on drugs. It is the area, as I said, that is more important
than perhaps anything else we do. I am proud of what we have been able to
accomplish in the last few years with the support of this committee.
We have completely restructured the Customs
Service. We have reduced the size of our headquarters operation, eliminated
regions and districts. We have reinvested our resources into the front
lines. We have been the recipient of 16 Hammer awards from the Vice
President's National Performance Review, because we have been working to
make an organization that works better and costs less, again with the full
support of this committee.
We are trying to, as you alluded to in your
statement, not make the mistakes that other organizations have made in the
past in terms of our automated systems. We have the tools that this
Congress gave us in the Customs Modernization Act that was enacted as part
of the NAFTA implementation bill, to now have a system that will allow us
to work more closely with the business community to try to assure that we
achieve the highest level of compliance with U.S. laws.
COMPLIANCE RATE
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We have for the first time in the Customs
Service's history, have a system in place where we can actually measure the
level of compliance. And we have increased that level of compliance to 82
percent, and we are striving to work through the concept of informed
compliance and inform the business community of what is expected of them to
work together to bring that compliance level up even higher.
An important number that the committee should be
aware of, even though the overall compliance rate is only at 82 percent,
although I think that is quite good, the actual revenue gap, in terms of
the revenue that we should be collecting, is 99 percent. There is only a
1-percent revenue gap. So of that 18 percent shortfall in terms of reaching
100-percent compliance, we are still achieving only a 1-percent revenue
shortfall.
What that means is a lot of errors that we are
finding are related to wrong marking, country of origin, issues that do not
relate specifically to the revenue owed to the government. So I think that
is something we all should be proud of and we could not have done without
the clear support of this committee.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce
the individuals to my right who have come up from the border States. We
have one actually from Arizona, and we would like to have them speak to the
committee about some of the cases they have been working on.
NOGALES, ARIZONA SEIZURE
First of all, Senior Inspector Rick Davis, who is
from Nogales, Arizona. Then secondly, we have Inspector Lance Lueck and
Senior Special Agent Brad Bench from Otay Mesa, California, who would like
to share experiences they have had in terms of challenges on the border and
the success they have had.
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Mr. HOYER. Who is the second individual, I
am sorry?
Mr. WEISE. Lance Lueck, L-U-E-C-K.
Mr. HOYER. Okay. And he is from where?
Mr. KOLBE. Both from Otay Mesa—it is
Nogales.
Mr. DAVIS. I am Inspector Rick Davis from
Nogales, Arizona.
On August 3, 1996, I was working at the Nogales
commercial facility——
Mr. KOLBE. Just turn one of those
microphones so this can be recorded here.
Mr. DAVIS. On August 3rd, five transformers
came in to the commercial facility in a refrigerated trailer. The five
transformers were selected for intensive inspection, and due to my
expertise in compartments and concealment, I was given the task of
inspecting the transformers.
The transformers create quite a few problems with
their size alone. This one here is probably 2.5 feet wide, about 4 feet
long, and probably 5 feet high. They also contain oil for a coolant.
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Oil in the transformers sometimes has PCB, which
is carcinogenic. Therefore, until we get the oil tested we do have to
consider it as a hazardous material. So the initial inspection of this is
going to be minimal and as nonintrusive as possible to keep from dealing
with a HAZMAT problem.
In this particular transformer load, three were
not loaded, they were legitimate transformers. The other two were both
loaded with 1,146 pounds of cocaine. The inspection, initial inspection was
performed with a buster. That is a portable contraband detector, a
hand-held item. And the buster showed a difference in density between this
area and this area.
There were other inspection techniques that were
performed by myself, and through these special techniques, it was
determined it was a very good possibility that a compartment had been built
in the transformer in about this area here. To try to confirm that, we
opened the—there is an inspection plate on the top up here and you
can open that very small portal, and utilizing some techniques we
determined that indeed there was a box in the two transformers.
Our problem now came up with getting the oil from
the transformers so that we could have access to the compartments. The
first thing that we decided to do was make sure that it was clean oil and
did not have the PCBs so we wouldn't have any HAZMAT problem. We did get it
tested and it was clean oil.
The second problem was they are very big and very
heavy, and we have no equipment to move them. This one we could barely get
out with a forklift. The other we could not even get off of the truck with
a forklift. So we had to drain the oil on the truck. That is what we
drained it with, a garden hose, siphon method, into 55 gallon drums.
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The removal of the lid itself, it weighed several
hundred pounds, and we did get that off. Once we got inside, it had a
portion of about 2 feet of legitimate transformer parts that had been
placed back in; they had been removed, a box built in the bottom and the
transformer parts placed back in. The oil is very dense and you can't see
through it. We dropped a flashlight in it and the flashlight just
disappeared. This one here, you can see we finally removed the entire top.
It took a forklift to bring it off.
This is the second transformer. You can see this
one is almost 7 feet tall here, and this one we have got the oil drained
out of this.
The top of this one is off, the top of this one
also weighed several hundred pounds. The compartment was built in about
this area, about 3 feet down from the top, so in-between there and the top
of the compartment you did have legitimate transformer parts. All these had
to be removed before we could get to it.
As you can see, the inspector here is wearing a
mask, a face mask and goggles. During the cutting process, the oil, the
flash point is pretty low so the fire hazard is not there, but it does
create a lot of fumes and can make you sick. So we take precautions on the
inhalant problem also.
This is a coil of copper wire that had been placed
on top of the boxes the compartments of the cocaine was in. This coil of
wire, the only purpose we could figure it being there for was to defeat the
fiberoptics scope which we occasionally use, and if you drop the scope into
the transformer and try get a view of it, this is going to look like a
legitimate shipment right down to the top of the compartment.
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This is the compartment itself. You can see this
individual is standing in the compartment, in the transformer, I should
say. The compartment is, like I said, about 5 feet tall. It was completely
surrounded by oil, as you can see there, and the copper wiring was all the
way to the ground, completely encased it.
The problem, once we got it open here, arose with
getting the cocaine out of it. It was physically impossible for us to get
in, so what we ended up doing was using a forklift and knocking it over on
its side and crawling into it that way.
This is the second transformer, the box, the
square one again. Again, you can see that the coils, all the way around the
box, all the way to the bottom, so if you run the scope all the way to the
bottom, you just saw copper wires all the way to the bottom, again
surrounded by oil, preventing us from drilling any portion into the
transformer itself.
And this is a view in the compartment itself, on
the rectangular one. This is the bottom of it after the cocaine has been
removed. Hindsight, you can see that there is a cut in the floor there, a
weld. If we had the equipment to have lifted this thing up and got it above
where we could look under it or put it on a pit or something, we would have
actually been able to see the trap door which came in from the floor. But
we never did get this high enough to look. That was a net of 1,164 pounds
of cocaine.
Thank you.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you very much. That is
good detective work.
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[CLERK'S NOTE.—Due to difficulty with
reproduction, photographs of the visual presentation are maintained in the
subcommittee official files.]
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, sir.
Mr. BENCH. My name is Brad Bench, I am a
Special Agent out of the Office of Investigations. This is Customs
Inspector Lance Lueck, who works at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility.
I am the Program Manager for the Cargo Analysis
Research Investigative Team that Lance works on down in Otay Mesa, and we
put this presentation together to show what can be achieved when all the
entities within Customs work together towards a common goal.
Lance is going to be telling you a little bit
about the enforcement programs they have down at the Otay Mesa Cargo
Facility, then I am going to tell you about a case we worked just last
month, Lance and I, where we netted over a ton and a half of marijuana in a
one-week time period.
CARGO ANALYSIS RESEARCH INVESTIGATION TEAM
Mr. LUECK. I am a member of a Cargo
Analysis Research Investigation Team, we call it the CARIT. This is a
multidiscipline enforcement team made up of all entities of Customs. We
have inspectors, agents, Intel research analysts, operational analysis
specialist, National Guard, Intel, and other entities as we could gather
them. Canines also.
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The CARIT acts as a command post for such units as
the cargo rovers. They perform inspections in the cargo environment on a
random and spontaneous nature. We also have the enforcement rotational
team. They do specialized inspection. They are self-directed and work
independently within all the cargo facilities.
We also utilize heavily the Canine Enforcement
Officers and their animals. They screen crates and vehicles for narcotics.
And Otay Mesa has a full-time x-ray. It is interesting that last Wednesday
we intercepted another front-wall compartment and netted a load of 966
pounds of marijuana while Congressman Packard and Kim were there. They saw
that happen. Through all our inspections and enforcement activities, we
have the assistance of California National Guard to help us everywhere in
the facility.
We use a lot of different tools. The
buster-density detector, laser-range finders. We have encrypted secure
radio, various hand drills and hand tools, and when these teams go mobile,
we have an enforcement support vehicle dedicated to us.
Mr. BENCH. Prior to fiscal year 1997, we
were getting unconfirmed reports that smugglers may be trying to use
front-wall compartments in empty trailers. And starting with fiscal year
1997, we decided to have a combined effort between the Office of
Investigations, Field Operations, and the Office of Intelligence, to try to
target some of these front-wall compartments and see if we could confirm
it.
We had Special Agents begin debriefing all their
sources of information. And in one instance, we got some solid information
about a warehouse in Los Angeles.
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We took Special Agents up to Los Angeles in
conjunction with the Los Angeles Office and State and locals that were
helping us out. We served a search warrant on this warehouse.
Inside, we found a trailer with a front-wall
compartment. There was no narcotics at the time, but we were able to
identify the trailer fully, and we provided photos, sketches and
information to Customs Intel specialists. They in turn created intelligence
reports that went out to the front-line Inspectors and other Southwest
Border units to watch for this trailer and this particular smuggling
method.
At the same time, once they received the reports,
Inspectors, Canine Enforcement Officers and the National Guard intensified
their efforts to identify this trailer and other front-walled compartments.
The intelligence began to pay off as we began to see the first of many
front-wall compartment seizures.
OTAY MESA SEIZURE
This is the case I was talking about. It happened
one week in January, just last January. On January 21st, Customs Inspectors
and Canine Enforcement Officers at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility intercepted
a front-wall compartment in an empty trailer.
The cargo Analysis Research Investigative Team
coordinated the follow-out of the trailer, and they do this by telling the
driver a untruth we make up so he feels Customs is not suspicious of his
trailer. This creates a window of opportunity that lets Special Agents and
Customs surveillance to respond to the cargo facility where we can conduct
surveillance.
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This is the helicopter that helps us on our
surveillance down at San Diego. It is outfitted with a forward-looking
infrared system for night follow-outs. It has also got about a 10 million
power Night Sun on it. It carries two pilots and can carry three
passengers. At the same time the helicopter is in the air, Special Agents
on the ground from the San Diego Office initiated the ground portion of the
surveillance. This truck was followed.
This is a map of the area. The red dot is about
where the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility is. This is 905, the freeway that comes
out of Otay Mesa. The trailer took this route and went up to a empty truck
yard in the Chula Vista area right there.
The trailer was dropped in that yard, and then the
tractor disconnected from the trailer and returned to Mexico, and we
allowed it to return to Mexico without stopping it while we maintained
surveillance on the trailer.
During the surveillance we have Intel specialists
that we are in contact by phone and radio and they are able to run data
checks for us on just about anything we have in question, and it gives us a
lot of help on the ground during the surveillance. In the meantime, back at
the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility, Inspectors intercepted another front-wall
compartment, this is about 2 hours into our initial surveillance, and found
another front-wall compartment in the trailer that we had seen in the
warehouse in Los Angeles.
The Cargo Analysis Research Investigative Team
coordinated a second controlled surveillance for us. We had to divide our
manpower in half from our first surveillance. Since it was stationary, we
were able to do that and we also took the helicopter with us so we could do
a second follow-out on this second trailer.
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At one point we decided to concentrate the full
efforts onto the second trailer, the one we had seen in the Los Angeles
warehouse. We did this because it was an identified smuggling operation and
we had some prior intelligence on this. So we seized the marijuana from the
first truck in the truck yard and left the trailer empty in the truck yard.
We seized approximately 1,113 pounds of marijuana from that trailer.
The next morning, the smugglers picked up the now
empty trailer and we allowed them to return to Mexico. We continued
surveillance on the trailer we had seen in Los Angeles for approximately 2
days; there was no activity on it. We terminated the surveillance and
seized the trailer.
When we seize a trailer like that, we take it down
to the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility, we allow the Canine Officers to run the
dogs on it as a training aid, and we also allow the X-ray Inspectors to
take X-rays of it so they can refer to it later as a training vehicle. That
right here, that is the front-wall compartment and the darkened area is the
actual marijuana in the front-wall compartment area, and that is what the
X-ray Inspectors see.
After that we unload the marijuana with seized
property specialists, inspectors and agents, and from that trailer we
seized 1,076 pounds of marijuana. So after 48 hours, we had seized 2,189
pounds of marijuana, seized one trailer, and at that point there were three
tractors that were subject to seizure.
TECATE PORT OF ENTRY
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Approximately one week later, at the Tecate
Port of Entry on January 28th, the smugglers attempted to cross a load of
marijuana in the same trailer that we had allowed to return to Mexico a
week earlier in the same front-wall compartment. The Inspectors and
National Guard were ready for this because they had received the
intelligence report that the Intel specialists created for us. The cargo
Analysis Research Investigative Team was notified and they again
coordinated a controlled follow-out.
Again, they have to give an artificial reason to
the driver so he is not suspicious as to why he is being detained at
Customs. This is an overhead shot of the Tecate Port of Entry. It is in the
remote Otay Mesa mountains, and it is unique in the fact that it has a very
small town on the United States side and actually quite a large town on the
Mexican side.
It is about 45 minutes outside of San Diego. This
is the road that leads down from Tecate to San Diego and it is very
difficult to do a ground-only surveillance from Tecate. It is important for
us to have the surveillance helicopter to do the surveillance on this
winding road.
It increases our chance of success on a follow out
about tenfold. After a 3-hour surveillance down from Tecate, the trailer
was dropped at this auto-wrecking yard which is in National City,
California. It was backed into a bay which obstructed both the helicopter's
view from the air and agent's view on the ground.
We had to terminate the surveillance and went into
the yard, made three arrests and seized the tractor and trailer. In
addition to the three arrests and seizure of tractor and trailer, that
business also becomes subject to forfeiture.
Page 189 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Out of that trailer we seized 1,173.5 pounds of
marijuana. And the results of this case to date, we have made four arrests,
two trailers were seized, three tractors were seized, one tractor is still
subject to seizure, one business is subject to forfeiture, and we seized a
total of 3,162.5 pounds of marijuana.
All of the entities within Customs worked well
together on this case and without the cooperation and coordination of all
of them together, it wouldn't have been a success, the Office of
Investigations, the Southern California CMC, and Inspectors Office of
Intelligence Specialists who put together the briefs for us, the San Diego
Air Branch which supports us in our surveillance, the Operational Analysis
staff and their expertise in the various computer databases, and the
California National Guard which assist the Inspectors.
Since we started targeting these front-wall
compartments at the Otay Mesa Cargo Facility, in fiscal year 1997, we have
made eight narcotics seizures totaling 8,669 pounds of marijuana. These
seizures have an estimated street value in San Diego County of about
$12,400,360.
Thank you.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you, very, very much,
Inspector Bench, Inspector Davis.
Does that complete the presentations?
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[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
Mr. KELLY. Yes, sir.
Mr. KOLBE. Let me begin the questions. We
don't have all the Members here, but, first of all, we will try to adhere
to the 5 minute rule and that will apply to the Chairman as well in asking
the first round of questions.
WAR ON DRUGS
We will also be going to the Ranking Member next
and following that we will alternate between Majority and Minority Members
that are here at the time the gavel goes down. And after that we will go to
Members as they come in.
Let me begin by asking, we have heard some very
impressive information. Your testimony and written statements are very
impressive, what we have heard from the Inspectors is very impressive, but
the bottom line is, can either of you tell us that we are winning the war
on drugs today?
Mr. WEISE. I would never say we are winning
at this point in time.
Mr. KOLBE. Are we making any progress?
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Mr. WEISE. I think we are making
progress, but clearly this is a very serious problem and going to take a
long, long commitment to resolve it. We have an important responsibility in
the Customs Service, and interdiction is, in my opinion, a key component in
dealing with this problem. But it is only one component.
Mr. KOLBE. What gives you hope that we are
making progress here? I want to believe it.
Mr. WEISE. I guess the fact that we are
seeing the kind of cooperation between the various organizations that are
involved in this effort that we have over the last 3 or 4 years. It gives
me some sense of hope that we can work better together than we have in the
past and deal with the supply side of this.
But clearly, I think one of the things that is
obvious from the President's commitment and General McCaffrey and others,
is that this can't be done with just one side. Unless we can work
comprehensively to reduce the demand, we can't resolve it alone. But it is
an important component, and as long as we have a bipartisan commitment that
we are going to do everything we can to resolve this problem, I think we
can make progress. Whether we can solve it overnight, that is not something
that is likely. This problem has been too many years in the making. But I
think we have a need to have a collective resolve, and I can tell you from
seeing the kind of people you heard from today, we have a resolve to do
everything we can to keep the drugs from flowing across our borders.
It is not an easy challenge, but we are seeing
some impact, at ports of entry where we are responsible for keeping those
drugs from flowing. We are seeing impact in terms of smuggling routes going
in different places now. It is a balloon effect. We are seeing more
smuggling around San Diego and Brownsville. We are seeing more activity
between the ports of entry. So we need to have that comprehensive
approach.
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PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Mr. KOLBE. Well, I agree we are making it
more difficult, and that certainly is one of the things we need to do, but
it still doesn't tell me that we are winning the war. And I say this from
the same frustration I know you feel and your people in the field feel and
probably a lot of Americans feel. This wasn't going to be my first line of
questioning, but I notice in terms of the performance indicators that you
have, you have some interesting performance indicators—but one that
seems the most logical to me is, what is the street price of drugs? You
don't even use that. Wouldn't that tell you what is happening to supply and
demand?
Mr. WEISE. There is no question that the
street price is a relevant criteria for the success of the overall program.
And that is something we are working on with ONDCP to come up with a new
measurement. Because to be candid, and I don't want to seem bureaucratic,
but in terms of Customs, looking at seizures as a measurement of success is
ultimately going to come back to bite us. Because if we are successful in
basically making it impossible to smuggle drugs, what is going to happen to
our seizures?
The seizures are going to be way down because they
are going to try to go through other routes. So we recognize that seizures
alone, arrests, they are relevant factors of measuring performance, but
they aren't sufficient. And we are working both internally and collectively
with General McCaffrey and others to try to come up with more measures of
the success of the overall program. But we can't individually control the
price of drugs on the street. It also involves a lot of other organizations
that have a piece in that. So we won't be able to measure Customs success
purely on that, if you just use that as a Customs' measure of success.
Page 193 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. I agree, from a Customs'
measure. I am looking at the overall thing. In the very brief time that is
remaining, let me return and get started on what I wanted to be at least
the initial line of questioning, and that is this issue of corruption. And
there is kind of a rule of thumb that if there is smoke, maybe there is
some fire. And I want to make clear in my dealing with Customs, with people
along the border and in my region, I have great respect, and I believe the
overwhelming majority of them are honest. But corruption has got to be
something that worries all of us, because it absolutely undermines the
credibility of any law enforcement agency. One bad apple can do that.
And I just want you to tell me why you think there
has been more attention to this Agency, or allegations, I think that is
fair to take, more allegations of corruption than there have been with
other law enforcement agencies, and how serious do you think the problem
really is?
Mr. WEISE. Well, it is a very difficult
question, Mr. Chairman, and one that has been my greater bone of
frustration over the past 4 years. I will just give you a few
illustrations.
When I became Commissioner in May of 1993, there
was an instance that had occurred several years earlier that many, both the
current Customs employees and some former Customs employees felt was a
clear indication of corruption in the Customs Service. This matter had been
thoroughly investigated on two prior occasions, once by the Treasury IG's
Office and once by the Internal Affairs Office.
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Notwithstanding that, allegations were made
not only in that instance but a whole host of people who had information
with regard to that one were alleging that there was rampant corruption and
they didn't trust the Customs Service to get to the bottom of it. We took
the unprecedented steps of obtaining a Memorandum of Understanding with the
Justice Department, Treasury Department, FBI and Customs. We asked for a
complete review of all those allegations. And they took almost 18 months
with a Grand Jury that sat in San Diego, and they came to the same
conclusion that the first two did: There was no evidence of corruption on
the part of those individuals.
We have had instances where we have worked
cooperatively with the FBI and others, and there are individual cases. It
seems to me that there are a lot of folks who jump to the conclusion that
because the drugs are getting in, and because they see Inspectors in
uniform at the ports of entry, they come to the conclusion that the only
way to get it in was to bribe an inspector.
STEPS TO PREVENT BORDER CORRUPTION
One of the things we have attempted to do from an
operating standpoint, that I touched on, we try to make it as unlikely as
possible that a single individual, an inspector or otherwise, will have the
final say as to whether a load is going to come in or not. We do that
through a number of steps we take.
I have already talked about doing more activity in
the preprimary area. Instead of waiting for that load to get to an
inspector in a booth, we have whole teams of people with canines that are
roaming.
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You have seen them along the border before. We do
something called a post-primary blitz, where just on a random basis, no
matter what the inspector said in that booth, the next 25 vehicles are
going over here and going to be lined up, and another team is going to come
in and look at them from beginning to end.
We rotate the people in the booths, not on a very,
very frequent but irregular basis, so it is not predictable, so it is very
unlikely of being able to predict what inspector is going to be in what
booth at which time. Like I said, we can discuss in closed session about a
number of things I can't discuss in a public arena.
Yes, there are continued instances of problems,
but it is not systemic. We are looking at new approaches and Under
Secretary Kelly has brought somebody in as a consultant, too. He had
experience with this individual in the New York City Police Department, and
I think that it is a positive step.
We are looking at other approaches we can take in
the Customs Service to not only deal with the actual corruption but this
perception of corruption, which is demoralizing to the Customs Service.
Mr. KOLBE. My time has expired.
Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. HOYER. I won't pursue that. But I
mentioned in my opening statement, Mr. Secretary, coordination with General
McCaffrey. I was very pleased with General McCaffrey's appointment. Because
of his training and reputation I think he is very able to help coordinate,
obviously not in the line capacity, because we haven't set up the so-called
SARS with any real authority, but in a coordinated capacity, all of our law
enforcement efforts as well as rehabilitation efforts and other efforts
related to the demand side.
Page 196 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
But in terms of the supply side, the Chairman
asked: Are we winning the war? I don't think anyone thinks we are winning
the war in the sense that the other side is going to give up as long as
there is billions of dollars to be made in this market.
Having said that, however, the publicity such as,
''The Bleeding Border,'' published in U.S. News and other reports like
this, is very concerning to the public in that they think we are not
stemming the supply or staunching it with any degree of effectiveness.
Toward that end, I am going to talk to General McCaffrey. I would hope that
you and General McCaffrey and others in law enforcement coordinate on a
very, very regular basis and let the public know the efforts we are taking.
Let the bad guys know the efforts they are going to confront.
When you read stories, as I am sure you both read
these articles, of the blatant intimidation and bribery that is occurring
in Mexico, the killing of the prosecutor in Tijuana, I think it was the
prosecutor, you realize this is a war. I know General McCaffrey doesn't
like to refer to it as the War on Drugs, but in this instance, it is a war.
It was a war in Colombia and continues to be; it is a war in Mexico and
continues to be; it is a war in America.
I just read that in this city we have more hits on
law enforcement officials than any other city in America—targeted
killings of law enforcement officials. Unfortunately, too many people don't
believe we are as serious—historically it has been unthinkable to
take out purposely a law enforcement official because of the consequences
if that were to occur. So I think we need to escalate the effort both in
actuality of coordination, but also in letting the public know what we are
doing, to give them a greater degree of confidence that this government,
this administration, this country is determining that we are going to
protect ourselves from this assault.
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I didn't mention one agency, but I want to mention
FinCEN, a critically important agency. I have been over there and seen
their capability in terms of tracking money. Ultimately the goal of all
this is to make money. If you track the money and make it more difficult to
utilize, we are going to have some success.
HAZMAT TREATMENT
Let me ask you a question that is somewhat
specific and deals with hazardous materials. In our conference report we
directed Customs to, and I quote, ''work with Operation Respond Institute,
the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Railroad
Administration, in enhancing and implementing computer software to identify
HAZMAT crossing the borders of the United States.'' The purpose, of course,
in part was to assist fire and emergency response teams when something
happens as we see greater NAFTA-related travel, truck travel, train
travel.
Tell me how that is going?
Or does anybody know?
Mr. WEISE. I am looking quickly here. I
will get a response to you.
[The information follows:]
Page 198 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
HAZMAT TREATMENT
In the United States, the national North American
Trade Automation Prototype (NATAP) processing system displays a HAZMAT
indicator at both primary and secondary processing workstations so that
federal personnel are aware immediately upon arrival that a vehicle
contains such material. In addition, the secondary workstations provide
full commercial data on each shipment including the exact description of
the goods on board and information on the producer/manufacturer in the
event it is necessary to contact them in the case of accident regarding the
handling of such goods.
The NATAP process is also testing a simulation of
the proposed ''International Trade Data System (ITDS) which the U.S. is
designing to standardize U.S. data requirements and permit U.S. agencies to
share prefiled data from a system, like NATAP, for purposes of assessing
risk, identifying special needs cargo, as well as those shipments requiring
permits, licenses, etc. In this vein, ITDS officials are currently
discussing with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of
Transportation the possibility of those agencies participating in designing
criteria and interfaces which would effect appropriate treatment for such
goods.
Mr. HOYER. All right. That was somewhat
esoteric, I know.
Mr. Weise, you said the number one priority is
narcotics interdiction. Would you clarify where the seizures occur?
We have had some specific instances today of,
excellent work. I congratulate the agents involved. They are a credit to
the Service and this committee's confidence in them and funding.
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Would you say these are random or long-term
investigations? In other words, how good is our intelligence?
I know we are going to have a private hearing, you
may want to go more definitively into this, but and you've got to be
somewhat lucky, we all understand that, but if we have intelligence, if we
have got people inside letting us know that those trucks or planes or boats
are coming or the people carrying drugs are coming, we are obviously in
better shape. How is our intelligence doing?
Mr. WEISE. Our intelligence is better than
it was but not nearly good enough. We have done some things on the
Southwest Border, put together what is called ICAT teams. They are
interdisciplinary, with intelligence analysts, agents, and inspectors,
working with a number of different institutions, that try to get the most
appropriate intelligence they can gather but make it tactical and get it
into the right hands. But there is absolutely no question in anyone's mind
that this is an area that needs a lot more work.
MEXICAN INTELLIGENCE
We now have a restriction, for example. About 6
years ago, a policy was changed in the aftermath of the Camarena killing in
Mexico. We had been able to use confidential informants within a 26
kilometer range within the Mexican border.
We have not been able to do that for the last 6 or
7 years. That has put a real crimp in some of the operable intelligence
that would have helped us target some of these containers before they
arrived. We are working with intelligence-gathering agencies, DEA and
others to try to do better than we have done in recent years, but this is
an issue that is on the table of the Mexican authorities. We have requested
the ability to go back to using that confidential informant, and it is
under advisement now, and we are hoping that it might come to fruition. But
it is a problem that does need to be addressed.
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Mr. HOYER. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, could you respond to my assertion
that we need to have as much coordination as possible?
Mr. Chairman, it is something I know you are
familiar with, but my local law enforcement officials believe that the
Baltimore Washington HIDTA, major contribution, is not so much the
resources that they get, but the psychology it has created in terms of
cooperation between national, State, and local law enforcement. How are we
doing in terms of not only law enforcement but DOD and other resources
available in this drug fight?
Mr. KELLY. I think we are doing better than
ever before. I have been in law enforcement a long time, and State, local,
and Federal enforcement agencies are working better now than ever before.
People have realized that you just can't do it alone.
In New York City, we had, literally, agencies who
were not talking to each other in the early 1980s. We put together a
Terrorist Task Force which ultimately was the agency or the organization
involved with the World Trade Center bombing investigation and other events
that happened since that time. So I think there is a recognition throughout
the law enforcement community that we have to work together. We are
working, I think, much more effectively, you will hear tomorrow, for
instance, Secret Service is involved in some 133 task forces throughout the
country.
I think that HIDTA is working well. I had
experience with HIDTA in New York City. We have the OSADEF task forces from
the several hundred FTE positions in Customs.
Page 201 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
As far as other DOD, we, quite frankly, are not
working probably as close to DOD as we can. There are certain posse
comitatus issues that surface with DOD.
I think Customs is using very effectively the
National Guard. I was out on the Southwest Border and, quite frankly, they
would be hard-pressed to do what they are doing without the National Guard
involvement. So as far as cooperation, working together, there are probably
always going to be some turf issues that are human nature, but having
worked with Federal agencies throughout my career, it is better now and
there is much more recognition now than ever before.
Mr. HOYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you.
Mrs. Meek.
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have some detailed questions, and I request
unanimous consent from you to submit them for the record.
Mr. KOLBE. Absolutely.
Mrs. MEEK. I would like to ask a more
general question now, and I certainly welcome Mr. Weise, with whom I worked
in Miami.
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We all know that international trade and tourism
are growing very rapidly, and Miami, my home city, is a major port and a
major airport for both cargo and passengers. Miami International Airport is
now the largest international cargo airport in the country, and by most
estimates it will be the largest in the world by the year 2000.
I know that Customs has a lot of responsibilities
and that they are a special interest to us in South Florida. What is most
troubling to me is a situation I have brought before this committee on the
first day it met, and it may not be within your purview, but I think it is
within the purview of Customs and DEA and any other Federal agencies that
may have some concern over this. What is troubling to me is why do we have
the existence of such wide-scale drug sales in the inner-city minority
communities?
It is very wide-scale, pretty much focused or
centered in those areas, and it appears to me—I would like to know
what kind of studies have you done, what kind of intelligence have you
done, to see why that keeps occurring?
Now, if this is something societal that has
happened, and it still is happening, I just cannot get any answers to why
there is such a reflow and redistribution. I know Customs is primarily
concerned with the border and concerned when the supply comes in from the
outside; I think I am talking about within the parameters of the inside
where these drugs are. That is my first concern, and I hope a little bit
later you can address that for me.
The other one is the flower industry, which is
very, very big in Miami, and the Tomato Agreement, I have had quite a bit
of problems in these two areas. Flowers, tomatoes, and most of all drugs,
because Miami is pretty much one of the capitals of drugs in this
country.
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I have been beaten over the head by voting for
NAFTA, but I guess I will continue to be doing that. But the Tomato
Agreement involves the Mexican tomatoes that enter into this country. I am
told that the number of Customs employees in South Florida has declined,
about 13 percent in recent years. And this combination of a rising need for
Customs and declining Customs resources has very serious and negative
implementations for South Florida. The crime there is escalated by it.
I am glad to hear Mr. Kelly has worked in New
York. Your budget only asks for an overall increase of 1 percent in
employment, and 3 percent in funding. No one on this committee will like
the question I am asking.
I am just wondering why is it that we have
different parts of the country fighting over such a very small piece of
pie. It will end up with a diminution. So my question, my second question
is could you provide this committee with examples of how you would provide
better service with legitimate international cargo and passengers if you
had more resources than you are now asking for, 3 percent and 1
percent?
Mr. KELLY. If I can just address your first
questions, and Commissioner Weise will address the second.
I was heartened today with the drug strategy that
was announced, because it made a major commitment to education, to
prevention. The President talked about a $175 million package to involve
advertising for young people, but the focus of this 5-prong program, I
would say the main piece was education. And I think that is how ultimately
they are going to make a difference. We are never going to arrest our way
out of the drug problem.
Page 204 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
You talk about the inner-city situation. I can
tell you that in some cities in this country, there has been success, New
York being one. And people don't know all the answers as to why things
change in various cities, but we did see and have seen shifting drug
patterns in New York City.
For instance, the use of crack is way down in New
York City. In other cities—crack seems to be like a 5-to-7-year
phenomenon that hits urban areas then leaves, and New York has experienced
that.
There are other cities in this country that are in
the middle of that. Now there are signs that it is going down. There are
some things that the police can do, and New York was fortunate, had a 25
percent increase in manpower to target certain areas, flood certain areas.
So I think there are things that local law enforcement, Federal law
enforcement can do, but there is a larger issue here as far as drug use
that I think education of our young people is going to be the primary way
that we are going to get a handle on the problem of drugs, particularly in
the inner cities.
Mrs. MEEK. I know I don't have much more
time. I wish I could agree with you, and perhaps we will have more of a
chance to dialogue on this in the future.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you, Mrs. Meek.
Mr. Price.
Page 205 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
I would like to welcome our guests today and thank
them for their testimony, and I would like to turn to some of these trade
issues and particularly to focus on the Customs Service monitoring of
peanut imports. If I could just take a minute to outline the situation as I
understand it, and then ask you to comment.
You know, of course, that American peanut growers
were reluctant to support NAFTA and GATT after their experience with the
Canadian free trade agreement some years ago. That agreement did not
restrict peanut exports from Canada, because there is no peanut production
in Canada, but Chinese exporters realized they could penetrate the U.S.
market by transshipping peanuts through Canada.
When NAFTA and GATT negotiations got under way,
domestic peanut growers were insistent on the inclusion of a rule of origin
and ensuring that imported peanuts be subject to the same quality controls
imposed on domestically produced peanuts, that is, USDA marketing order
146.
As I understand it, the Customs Service at that
time committed to ongoing efforts to ensure enforcement of the import
quotas and compliance with the rule of origin and marketing order 146,
which would include 10 visits to agricultural processing sites in Mexico,
continuing audits of the 10 major Mexican agricultural product exporters
and investigations of suspected violators. The service also agreed to
assign some 350 employees, including 100 new employees, to
country-of-origin enforcement under NAFTA.
Page 206 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Last year, however, peanut growers got wind
of at least seven shipments of peanuts that were not inspected and might
have contained peanuts that were grown outside of Mexico. At that time it
became clear that Customs agents were enforcing neither the rule of origin
requirements nor marketing order 146, because regulations had not been
promulgated. I understand the Service undertook what appears to have been a
very productive dialogue with domestic growers and that appropriate
regulations are now in place. I also see that your budget request contains
$5.7 million to bring new technologies into your laboratory and help
enforce the country-of-origin rule, so it sounds like some progress has
been made.
I am concerned about this apparent 3-year period
of noncompliance and would appreciate anything you could tell me about
Customs enforcement of the peanut quotas, rule of origin and marketing
order 146.
Mr. WEISE. Yes, Congressman. We take this
issue very, very seriously. We have tried to focus our resources where they
can do the most good to the American people and identify the primary focus
industries. There are about 8 to 10 industries, one of which is clearly the
agricultural sector, where we really do need focus, whatever resources we
have on those key areas.
I can't really respond to you on the record now,
but I will, about what has happened in the past.
I will tell you, as you have indicated and I
appreciate your comment to this effect, we are working closely with the
peanut industry. We have a number of initiatives, including improving our
ability to do laboratory analysis with them. We are working with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture on the implementation of the quality of standard
order 146 and basically trying to assure that we will not release the
shipment until USDA has looked to see that that order has been complied
with.
Page 207 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
So we perhaps have not done as good a job as we
should have at the start, but we are on the issue now and working very
closely with a wide range of domestic interests. And hopefully you will
keep our feet to the fire to make sure we follow through to the
satisfaction of the people impacted by these regulations.
Mr. PRICE. Could you give me information
about the status of that commitment made in 1993 to make site visits and to
devote at least 350 FTEs to rule-of-origin enforcement?
Mr. WEISE. Specifically with respect to
enforcement, where we have the 350 people, we have fulfilled that
commitment. With regard to the specific number of visits on this particular
commodity, I would like to get that and submit it to you and be more than
happy to sit down with the appropriate staff and discuss it. I don't have
that at my fingertips in terms of how many visits we have made.
Mr. PRICE. Do you have any estimate of the
percentage of peanut shipments you are inspecting?
Mr. WEISE. Again, I will try to get that
for you.
Mr. PRICE. I think it would be helpful to
have that information, both the history of your efforts and the current
enforcement.
[The information follows:]
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PEANUTS
Prior to the House vote on NAFTA, the Customs
Service met with peanut grower representatives to discuss their concerns on
the threat of transshipment of both Chinese and Argentine peanuts and
peanut butter through Mexico. As part of these discussions, the Customs
Service agreed to perform NAFTA verifications as well as examine shipments
of peanuts and peanut butter from Mexico.
In 1995, NAFTA verifications were done by
Regulatory Audit on two exporters of Mexican peanuts. These exporters
accounted for 95% of all shipments of peanuts from Mexico. At that time,
these companies were found to be compliant.
Three NAFTA verifications are scheduled for
March-early April 1997.
There is one open investigation on an exporter for
transshipping peanuts through Mexico and claiming NAFTA.
There have been no shipments of peanut butter from
Mexico.
Customs has developed, with the assistance of
industry, a problem-solving initiative regarding the transshipment of
peanuts. This initiative was begun in January.
The Office of Laboratories and Scientific Services
has been working with industry and our officers in foreign locations to
obtain samples of peanuts in order to develop the baseline required to
perform trace-element testing in order to determine the true country of
origin.
Page 209 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
This baseline has been developed and this
initiative began in January. Our officers have been obtaining samples from
imported peanut shipments for the testing and country of origin
determinations.
Mr. PRICE. The main figure in the budget
relevant to this, as I understand it, and one of the main increase in your
request, has to do with the lab modernization. Could you explain the
breakdown of that $5.7 million? What are those expenditures going to be
used for and how, precisely, is this related to country-of-origin
enforcement?
Mr. WEISE. Again, I will provide a detailed
analysis of that. Apparently, staff has been asked; and we are working on
that and will get it to you as quickly as we possibly can.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
Mr. PRICE. Am I correct in assuming that
the bulk of that $5.7 million pertains to country-of-origin
enforcement?
Mr. WEISE. A significant
portion—again, I don't have the breakdown, but a significant portion
relates specifically to our ability to carry out the country-of-origin
enforcement.
Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mrs. MEEK. Mr. Chairman, will you please go
back to Mr. Weise so I can get some answers to the latter part of my
question——
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Meek, yes. Ms. Northup is
next, but it is true that you did not—the second part of your
question did not get answered by Mr. Weise; and I would like him to address
the staffing issue. Then we will go to Ms. Northup.
Mr. WEISE. Thank you. I was just given the
data with regard to the staffing. There is no question that we have had to
make some difficult choices in terms of allocation of our resources over
the last number of years.
As budgets are getting tighter, obviously, we are
all working together to try to get the fiscal deficit in order. We have
reduced some of the resources in the narcotics area in south Florida over
the course of the last decade or so. It hasn't been a very sharp decline.
It has been sort of a gradual decline. And we have been—as resources
have been becoming available, as the threat has risen so much on the
Southwest border, we have been putting a lot more new resources there.
One of the things that will help as far as the
passenger clearances, is that we have a mechanism under the COBRA
reimbursement, the user fees, that we are able to maintain a high level of
the resources even in Miami and virtually all of our airports through that
COBRA account, where we can not only fund overtime but fund actual
additional inspectors when the work is commensurate with it.
Page 211 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
I think, hopefully, you will find in talking
to your people in Miami that at the airports we are pretty well staffed
because of this ability to have reimbursement through the COBRA account. We
are less able to do it in some of the smuggling arenas as well as the cargo
arena.
We will be—with this budget that is before
the committee be able to invest 119 additional positions in south Florida,
and we will move as swiftly as we possibly can if the committee and the
Congress approve the appropriation request that is before them to get those
119 positions down there.
We certainly will constantly attempt to work with
you, Ms. Meek, on trying to ensure that we are investing our resources as
effectively as we possibly can; but, clearly, we do not have the capacity
to give all the various areas of the country the resources that they would
always like. But we are trying to be held accountable that we are making
wise business decisions in terms of prioritizing the demands on our
resources.
Mrs. MEEK. If I may respond.
Mr. KOLBE. Very quickly, if you might.
Mrs. MEEK. I just want to call your
attention specifically to the floral importers and the tomatoes that has
caused us quite of bit of problems, and I wanted to have you understand
that and address that today.
Mr. WEISE. Okay, I am very familiar with
the tomato agreement and very familiar with floral imports into south
Florida, but I am not sure on the floral imports what specifically you want
me to comment on.
Page 212 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mrs. MEEK. The inspection.
Mr. WEISE. The inspection process and the
delays caused by it?
Mrs. MEEK. Yes.
Mr. WEISE. Okay. One of the problems we
face, as you know, in south Florida is smuggling cocaine in flower imports
from Colombia became a popular method of smuggling. We have worked very
closely with the floral industry to try to ensure that we can do our job of
ensuring that drugs are not entering this country without unduly impacting
their business interests, and what we have done is entered into a
partnership where they have taken it upon themselves to do a lot more of
the investigation and the inspecting and the x-raying of the flowers as
they go into their shipment, as it is loaded onto the plane.
We work very closely with them to ensure that they
have sufficient quality controls, and we still do random and spot checking
on that, but we are now able to allow most flower imports to come through
Florida more quickly than we were able to in the past. We still have to be
cognizant of the threat of smuggling in flowers.
The tomato agreement is an agreement the United
States entered into with Mexico. We are not policy makers in Customs. We
have the responsibility of enforcing that agreement, and we are trying to
do the best job that we can to carry out the spirit and the intent of the
tomato agreement.
Page 213 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you.
Mrs. Northup.
Mrs. NORTHUP. I would like to get back to
our relationship with Mexico and ask you some specific questions about what
your relationship is with the overall administration in their effort to
deal with Mexico on the drug questions.
I think it is pretty clear that we have done a lot
on this side of the border to help Mexico, to be a partner with Mexico, to
deal with the fact that they have a lot of drugs that are coming into this
country, and I could not agree more that we have to reduce the demand.
Luckily, I am on a different committee where we are talking about what
those appropriations are to reduce the demand, but I want to talk to you
about reducing the supply, which is the other side of the equation.
Unless Mexico wants to be a partner with us, all
of our efforts, it seems to me, get to be—have a declining amount of
significance. They have—I understand when we were training some of
their people in drug enforcement, and we had to stop that, when they no
longer allowed our agents and officials to carry a gun when they were on
the other side of the border. They have failed to extradite and to actually
arrest people, notwithstanding the fact that we have incurred the cost and
the effort to identify the agents on their side and asked them to extradite
those people into this country. So it seems like the real effective
measures, the way they could show us concretely that they are going to
cooperate, they have failed to take those actions.
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It is hard when you are talking about
numbers—well, you know, is it more? Is it less? That is hard to know.
But it is clear that their actions, they failed to take the exact steps
they could take to be a cooperative partner. What does that say in terms of
whether or not we cooperate with them in terms of NAFTA or, you know, even
if we go on and allow still the free trade to flow, there is—we could
do it through a waiver process. Are you involved in those discussions with
the administration?
Mr. KELLY. We are involved to the extent
that we provide information from our bureaus. We are talking specifically
now about the certification process.
Mrs. NORTHUP. I am talking about
recertification, right.
Mr. KELLY. We provide information to the
State Department, which is the lead agency that compiles this information;
and, of course, it is given to the President for a decision with a
recommendation. We don't have all—the totality of the information;
but as far as Treasury's operations are concerned, we have seen cooperation
in the area of money laundering where we have criminalized money
laundering. We are in the process of helping them, installing a suspicious
transaction reporting system with some computerization.
We are concerned about the fact that, yes, agents
are not allowed to be armed in Mexico, our agents. We are also concerned
about——
Mrs. NORTHUP. So we are no longer helping
to train them, is that right?
Page 215 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KELLY. To the best of my knowledge,
no.
We are also concerned about the fact that our
pilots, Customs pilots are not able to be armed in the area. These things
have been put on the table with the Mexican government. They are in the
process of being discussed. But as far as the totality of information that
is involved in the certification process, I am simply not privy to it.
Mrs. NORTHUP. Well, the problem is, you can
put everything into place, but when you have official corruption to the
extent and level you have in Mexico, it is not being carried out.
I think that actually they have extradited three.
There are 150 people they have that they have refused to extradite. That is
a concrete, measurable action.
When you have official corruption at the levels
they do with respect to drugs, unless we can help carry out policies on the
other side of the border, in effect they are not doing everything that
recertification requires. And I am just—you know, I am concerned that
we have an agency that is out there every day on the front line trying to
solve this problem and where we need—the question is, are we going to
have the political support to see this through?
I am interested in knowing what your agency has to
do with carrying out or discussing the actions at the highest level. If you
are down here in your slot and you are working every day, that doesn't
necessarily bring on the political support you need to be effective.
Page 216 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KELLY. Well, as far as certification is
concerned, you raise some legitimate issues. This issue of corruption and
violence and some of the authorities that we want as far as immunity for
our people who are operating in Mexico, all of these things are in the
equation; and I am not privy to where this decision will ultimately go.
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Northup, I might just
suggest that these are questions you might want to repeat for General
McCaffrey.
Mrs. NORTHUP. I will.
Mr. KOLBE. On the second round, let me
defer to Mr. Hoyer. I know you have got another appointment.
Mr. HOYER. I am going to be here through
your time. Thank you.
Hard Line and Gateway, Southwest border, south
Florida, Caribbean, you have a new initiative. You were asking $23.4
million for south Florida. How does that compare, to or supplement Gateway?
Tell us about that.
Mr. WEISE. It complements the two
operations. As we started hardening the Southwest border, what we
saw—and we have to be careful of drawing any causal link,—but
we saw in south Florida a doubling of our seizures of cocaine over the
previous year as we have tried to clamp down in various areas.
Page 217 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
In Puerto Rico we have Operation Gateway,
because Puerto Rico is part of the Customs area of the United States. Once
you get the narcotics into Puerto Rico, it is like getting it into a State
in the mainland United States.
So those are the areas we had to clamp down. As we
clamped down, we noted that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the
smuggling has never left south Florida. A lot of people were frustrated by
hearing it had moved to the southwestern United States. It has always been
fairly rampant, but it is even larger now, that dramatic
increase——
Mr. HOYER. Chairman, let me just interrupt
for a second, to note that this is one of the reasons this committee put
HIDTA in Puerto Rico.
Mr. WEISE. Exactly. We call this our
southern tier strategy. It links Hard Line with Gateway, and covers the
southern tier from San Diego to San Juan. We want that to be one hardened
area, so that we can manipulate, have flexibility, move our resources as
quickly as we possibly can to be able to be responsive to where the threat
is coming and try to have that as locked down, as hardened as we possibly
can, throughout the entire southern tier. So they are very much linked and
very complementary.
Mr. HOYER. I would like to hear how our
officers are faring in terms of their own safety. Obviously, Hard
Line—you mentioned some things we have done in terms of the obstacle
courses like here at the Capitol so you can't go straight through. Tell me
about officer safety. Has it been enhanced?
Mr. WEISE. Yes, indeed it has. And I guess
we should ask them if they disagree with anything. I say to shake their
head violently. Otherwise we will call them to the table, whatever you
prefer.
Page 218 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
But one of the things we did with the expenditures
from Hard Line was provide bulletproof vests for virtually every inspector
along that border.
Another thing is we put in increased lighting.
Because part of Operation Hard Line was to move more into what we call the
preprimary area, before you get to the inspection booth. We have enhanced
the lighting in that area to meet concerns about officer safety in a number
of different locations.
Unfortunately, we have another
experiment—you have the bollards here in the Capitol that seem to
work quite well for you with the amount of times they go up and down. We
experimented in El Paso with pneumatic and hydraulic bollards, so the
vehicle could not move forward until the bollard went down. Unfortunately,
we impaled a number of innocent vehicles.
Mr. HOYER. We have had a senator or two and
representative or two that have had that same experience.
Mr. KOLBE. But they learned. It hasn't
happened in the last several years.
Mr. WEISE. But we take officer safety very,
very seriously; and we are working for an environment in which they can
excel and can be as safe as they possibly can. Just having a reduction in
the instances of port runners has had a tremendously positive effect on
officer safety when we eliminated that as a mode of smuggling. It has
helped tremendously.
Page 219 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
CUSTOMS RESOURCES
Mr. HOYER. The last question relates to
Mrs. Meek's question. You have FTE cuts. Those are basically vacant
positions.
Mr. WEISE. Yes, for the most part.
Mr. HOYER. They are vacant, because you
don't have the resources to fill them.
Mr. WEISE. That is correct.
Mr. HOYER. So they are a cut of no
people.
Mr. WEISE. That is correct.
Mr. HOYER. What is the relationship
between—and I should perhaps know—resources in terms of people,
Mr. Commissioner, available and your operational infrastructure, your
infrastructure? Are we shifting any priority? Will you consciously be
spending money on infrastructure capital expenses as opposed to people
expenses?
Mr. WEISE. The significant portion of our
budget is people. That is the heart and soul of our budget. That really is
where most of our expenditures are.
We know if we are going to be able to face the
challenge of a tremendously increasing workload—no matter how you
measure it, passengers, entries, commercial entries or the threat of drugs,
the threat is going up, the volume of work is going up, and the dollars are
not likely to go up commensurate with that. So we know we have to invest in
technology. We know we have to find new ways and new approaches to do the
job more efficiently and more effectively.
Page 220 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
AUTOMATIC LICENSE PLATE READERS
One of the examples of that, on the Southwest
border and Northern border as well, are automatic license plate readers
which are going to be helpful in doing a more effective job. It doesn't
require the inspector to key the license plate number in each time the
vehicle pulls in. That not only reduces the time for the inspector but
allows him—instead of going through the exercise for each car that
pulls up keying it in, he can from the beginning, as that is being done
automatically, begin to make eye contact with the driver, begin to look at
some of the enforcement issues.
That is going to be helpful to us in the long run,
and that is the kind of thing that we are trying to complement our
resources and investment and people with technology so we can help them do
the job more effectively and safer.
I can get you the detailed breakdown between the
people and the equipment.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
Mr. HOYER. Thank you.
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Meek, do you have another
question?
Mrs. MEEK. Yes, sir. I don't think the
Commissioner—at least, maybe I did not communicate it well, but I
don't think you understood what I meant in terms of the flowers and the
tomatoes.
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DUMPING OF FLOWERS
I will just take the flowers as an example. I am
very concerned about the dumping that happens in south Florida with the
flowers. For example, you have a levy that you placed on, according to what
my people tell me, on importing goods that come into south Florida from
places that have been guilty of dumping before.
Mrs. MEEK. In 1986 Commerce found out that
carnations, imported carnations, were being dumped; and because the
government found this out, the government had to determine the amount of
dumping each year for each import transition.
Now, in south Florida, it is my understanding,
there are 50,000 to 60,000 flower import transportations a year. So you
place a levy on that, those transportations, and so what happens? You have
the deposit with Customs, the importer does, at the time the carnations are
imported to cover the potential anti-dumping tariff that Commerce has.
After the correct amount of anti-dumping tariff is calculated for each
carnation transaction, the excess funds are returned to the importer.
Now, I am told that in south Florida, importers of
carnations have been waiting for many years to get this excess amount
deposit returned, because Customs does not have enough resources to
calculate just how much each refund should be.
Would you clarify that or explain when they will
get their money or if they will ever get it?
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Mr. WEISE. Congresswoman, the only thing I
can commit to you, I was not aware of that as an issue. I promise you I
will look into that immediately and get back to you with a response. I was
not aware that we are being dilatory in collecting the dumping duties on
those flowers. I will look into that immediately and get back to you on
it.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
INTERNAL AFFIARS STAFF
Mr. KOLBE. Let me, if I might, go back to
where I left off on the corruption issue, just pick that up in here. Let me
just ask you about your internal affairs operation, that you have, and I
will follow up on this with Mr. Kelly on the Office of Professional
Responsibility. Tell me a little bit about how you staff and how you pick
people for that. Do you think it is sufficiently independent and divorced
from the Customs Service as a whole so that it can act in an independent
fashion?
Mr. WEISE. I do Mr. Kelly and I spoke, and
I welcome a full review of someone who has a strong history in an internal
affairs operation to take a comprehensive look at our operation and make
recommendations.
Page 223 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
But I have given an awful lot of thought to
this. Early on, when I first became Commissioner, there was an issue as to
whether or not we ought to change the way the internal affairs office has
historically been staffed and that is by, bringing in experienced
investigators from the Office of Investigations or whether we ought to
change that policy and practice and move to setting up a completely
independent, autonomous entity that would be staffed by people from the
outside. I gave that an awful lot of thought when I first became
Commissioner and ultimately decided that this was the right approach for
the following reasons:
One, it seems to me that because of the
sophistication that is necessary in order to do a full, thorough
investigation of someone who has allegedly been corrupt, particularly
someone who is a law enforcement officer themselves, they may well be
rather sophisticated. We need to have experienced investigators who have
demonstrated on the job that they have the kind of experience to really get
the job done and get the job done well.
There is a disparity in terms of the journeyman
grade level. A journeyman investigator in the Office of Internal Affairs is
a GS–13; whereas one in the Office of Investigations is a
GS–12.
What we have done over the course of the last 3
years is to work very hard to ensure that there is enough incentive to go
into the Office of Internal Affairs, not only with the additional grade and
the pay that one can get, but to try to professionalize the operation so
that one could decide this would be the kind of career that they would wish
to pursue.
My sense is that the internal affairs office is
autonomous and independent notwithstanding the fact that it is staffed with
people who had spent earlier portions of their career in another office
like the Office of Investigations. I have not seen any evidence that would
lead me to believe that they have been anything less than completely
impartial as they have reviewed the matters that have been placed before
them.
Page 224 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. But they are taken from within
the ranks of the agents?
Mr. WEISE. Yes.
Mr. KOLBE. They are. I would be interested
in knowing a little bit about the criteria an officer has to meet in order
to become an internal affairs agent.
[The information follows:]
CRITERIA FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS AGENTS
A criminal investigator must be at or eligible for
the senior level (GS–13) to be considered for a Internal Affairs (IA)
position. The IA candidate must have a strong investigative background, a
background free of serious integrity violations, and the approval of
current management within the chain of command.
Mr. WEISE. I would be more than happy to
spell out all the detailed criteria; but suffice it to say, for purposes of
right at this moment, that we want them to be the best of our best, the
most experienced, the ones with a track record of doing outstanding
investigations in their prior experience.
Mr. KOLBE. The best of the best. They have
been around for a while, and they would know the people that they are
investigating; right?
Page 225 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. WEISE. There has from time to time come
up—that situation has arisen, but generally what we try to do is
there would be a recusal if anybody has been asked to investigate someone
that they had any direct involvement with, and so we try to minimize the
likelihood of any situation like that developing.
Often these people, when they get the promotion to
go into the Office of Internal Affairs, they don't do it in the same city
in which they have been operating. They move from one location to another
so that there is less likely to be that situation that you have talked
about.
Mr. KOLBE. That raises just a small
question. Your internal affairs are in how many different locations? Do you
have them in every location where you have Customs?
Mr. WEISE. No. We have how many
offices?
Mr. KOLBE. How many Offices of Internal
Affairs do you have?
Mr. WEISE. Twenty different Offices of
Internal Affairs. Do we have six—is it six or seven? We have five
major offices that have 16 suboffices. So there are 21 separate Offices of
Internal Affairs.
Mr. KOLBE. Last year, last September I
think it was, the GAO issued a report about recommendations; and I think
they had 51 recommendations. Thirty of them I think you implemented, and I
think 19 are still unimplemented. Is that an accurate assessment?
Page 226 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. WEISE. It is not accurate to say they
are completely unimplemented. What that report indicated is that 31 have
been completely implemented and 19 are either not fully implemented or
unimplemented. I would be glad to provide for the record the specific
status of those.
Some of those have been partially implemented. For
example, up to five recommendations that related to this recommended the
frequency with which one would do a full inspection of a particular
operation. It recommended that we do it every 2 years. For budgetary
reasons, we do it every 4 years.
There are other issues like that that I would like
to provide a detailed response to for the record, that we have implemented
partially and in our judgment implemented the full spirit of what the
recommendation was while being as cost-effective as we could be in carrying
out that implementation.
Mr. KOLBE. In a follow-up, would you give
me some indication of those you have found to be the most effective and,
also, if there are any you intend not to implement at all because you have
rejected them as being ineffective or for whatever reason it was not
possible to implement them?
Mr. WEISE. Yes. I will give you a detailed
response on every one of the 19 that have not been fully implemented.
[The information follows:]
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"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
Mr. KOLBE. I am on record as having said
that I think one of the problems with Customs is the fact that you hire and
train and place people locally. I know from my own communities along the
border that that seems to be an invitation for trouble when you—in
small communities, when you have somebody that is hired there and they have
family on both sides of the border, as you know. It is an invitation for
some kind of trouble, it seems to me.
I know that rotating Customs inspectors is a
costly proposition, but how serious—how much attention are you giving
to that issue and do you think that is something we are going to have to do
more of?
I mean, we recruit people into the military, and
they may end up close to home, but that is not really a primary
consideration of where we assign them and place them. But it seems to be
the primary consideration in the hiring of Customs agents. Would you
comment on that?
Mr. WEISE. Congressman, this is an issue
that has surfaced over many years. You know, we have already alluded to the
cost factor. In order to implement a full rotational policy it would cost
roughly $60 million. I look at it as the head of an organization with very
scarce resources, and we have to again do a cost-benefit analysis.
Clearly, without doing a full examination of the
issue, it would seem natural that the kinds of relationships that you
talked about may lead one to conclude that there may be a higher risk of
integrity problems. I don't think that ever has been fully proven. But the
bottom line on this is that this issue—I have once again asked for a
full review of this. The staff is taking a look at it.
Page 228 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
But the thing I want to come back to is that there
have been reports in the press that this is now under advisement, and
certainly I have asked the staff to take a look at it, and already you have
seen kind of a demoralizing reaction by a lot of the people in the field.
The fact that I am even looking at it somehow has cast an aspersion on the
entire workforce along the Southwest border.
I want to continue to come back to the statement I
made earlier. I believe that the integrity of the Customs workforce is a
very solid one, that there are again individual isolated incidents of
corruption, and this is one of the issues that we ought to take a serious
look at. But we should look at it with our eyes open, looking at all the
implications of it from a cost standpoint, as well as how much of an
effective tool would that be for the dollars that we would need to spend
and what would we need to forego to have those dollars available, when we
could use them to deal directly with some of the—the drug
problem?
So my bottom line is, I haven't closed my mind to
it. We are taking a look at it. But I remain to be convinced that that is
worth the cost in terms of the results that we would get. Because I
continue to believe that the corruption problem is very small, not very
large.
Mr. KOLBE. Well, I guess that goes to the
heart of the issue then. I certainly hope you are right. But if you believe
that the corruption problem is isolated and small, then steps to deal with
the problem don't seem that important. Do they?
Mr. WEISE. Well, the frustration that we
face is, notwithstanding my belief and the various entities that have come
in and looked at it, that have reconfirmed that as a fact, there continue
to be portrayals in national magazines and in the press to the contrary.
This has a destabilizing, demoralizing effect, so we can't just ignore
it.
Page 229 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
We need to continue to work diligently to make
sure that we are looking at every avenue on how we can make the
situation—reach the point that the fact and the perception is such
that we have a workforce with a high degree of integrity. That is my
feeling, but we need to work harder to make sure that that is the
perception of everyone that is involved in this issue.
Mr. KOLBE. I don't think you answered my
earlier question on that. Why do you think the national media has singled
out Customs for this?
Mr. WEISE. Well, the answer I gave you is
not a satisfactory answer because I really don't know the answer to that
question. Nothing is frustrating me more.
I have seen reports with the same old information
going back a long way with nothing new, but yet they keep getting repeated
over and over and over again without any apparent new factual basis for the
reports.
We had an instance, for example, where a senior
official of the Customs Service was maligned in an article that said that
he had accepted a bribe. Subsequent to the printing of that article, the
individual who made the accusation against the customs individual was
subject to a lie detector test on the part of the FBI that was doing the
investigation; they found that the individual failed the lie detector test
miserably. He later admitted to making up the entire story and was actually
arrested for providing false information.
The subsequent article that came out on that made
this individual out to be a hero or something. You know, it didn't come to
the defense of the Customs officer who had been falsely accused.
Page 230 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
I can't understand why the press is reporting this
issue in this way. Nothing has baffled me more.
Mr. KOLBE. I have a couple of areas of
questioning, including coming back to the Office of Professional
Responsibility.
Mr. Price, we have all had a second go around on
questions. Do you have a couple of other questions?
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Mr. PRICE. I would like to raise the matter
of child pornography detection. You list as one of your major
accomplishments in the past fiscal year a renewed emphasis on child
pornography investigations and the establishment of the International Child
Pornography Investigation and Coordination Center. This has led, you
conclude, to an astounding increase in the detection, apprehension and
conviction of international violators.
I wonder if you could fill that out a bit. What
are some of the indicators of this success and what are the implications
for your future plans and for this budget request? How is it reflected? How
is your experience reflected in this budget request?
Mr. WEISE. Well, Congressman, this is an
area where it is a bit of a stretch of the traditional jurisdiction of the
Customs Service. When one thinks of child pornography, they don't readily
think about Customs and our association with that issue. But it is one that
I am very proud of because we have found that much of this child
pornography is being transported across our borders, and that is
originating overseas and coming into the United States.
Page 231 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
We began to take an interest in this, and clearly
I can tell you we don't devote nearly as many resources to this issue as we
would like. As a matter of fact, we have three full-time people in an
operation at headquarters that do this on a full-time basis.
But in terms of the satisfaction of the people who
have been involved in these cases—and these three individuals are
kind of a full-time clearinghouse and work with a number of different
organizations to get this information, but what we find is a great deal of
receptivity. When leads are generated those three send them out to the
field, and there is great follow-up and a lot of satisfaction when you
bring the perpetrators of this kind of crime to justice. But we have also
developed a good deal of expertise, and other organizations, such as the
FBI and others, come to some of the people in Customs who have developed an
expertise.
I would be more than happy to provide for you for
the record the details on the number of increase of cases, but I am just
looking quickly. Dedication of additional resources in the establishment of
this effort has resulted in increased arrests, searches and seizures by
Customs agents in fiscal year 1996 to this effect: Total searches up to
227, that is an increase of 220 percent; seizures 255, which is an increase
of 67 percent; and arrests 120, which is an increase of 186 percent.
[This information follows:]
U.S. CUSTOMS CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM
Customs enforces the Child Protection Act and
investigates the trafficking of child pornography into and throughout the
U.S.
Page 232 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Child pornography is a priority for Customs that
has national impact.
In FY 1995 and 1996, Customs worked 612 and 809
child pornography cases respectively.
Customs agents in San Diego arrested an arrival
from Mexico for possesson of child pornography which resulted in the
seizure of 250 commercial video tapes.
A mail parcel was intercepted in New York by
Customs agents which resulted in the seizure of over 1,500 videos and
magazines of child pornography.
There are currently 5 major child pornography
operations ongoing. Three of them involve the Internet.
Statistics in all areas of child pornography
enforcement were up in FY 1996; searches involving computers, total
searches, arrests, and man hours were up over 150 percent.
Customs has established the International Child
Pornography Investigation and Coordination Center (ICPICC) which is staffed
by special agent experts in child pornography. The ICPICC assists the field
with cases and coordinates Customs international efforts to combat child
pornography.
All leads developed from tips, undercover and
other investigative work are referred to the appropriate office for action
and follows through.
Page 233 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
But we still are constrained. Because if you have
a domestic child pornography issue, it is not within the jurisdiction of
the Customs Service to get involved in that. So we work closely with other
law enforcement organizations, particularly the FBI, on this very important
matter. But we don't have the full jurisdiction on this matter. But the
jurisdiction we have, where it is being brought across our borders, we take
this issue very seriously.
Mr. PRICE. And those increases are covering
what time period?
Mr. WEISE. That is in fiscal year 1996,
compared to 1995.
Mr. PRICE. Compared to the previous
year?
Mr. WEISE. Yes.
Mr. PRICE. Well, how do—those three
FTEs, they are all included in this international child pornography
investigation and coordination center?
Mr. WEISE. That is correct.
Mr. PRICE. That is
located——
Mr. WEISE. We call it part of headquarters;
but it is located out in Reston, Virginia.
Page 234 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. PRICE. How does a case typically get
generated?
Mr. WEISE. There are a number of ways.
Primarily, because we have begun—not begun but over the years have
developed a reputation for our involvement and interest in these kinds of
areas, that more often than not they come from a law enforcement official,
domestically or abroad, that comes upon information and then they provide
it to us.
We take a look at the information provided to us,
try to do an assessment as to whether it involves our jurisdiction of
being—involving any kind of importation. If so, we put it out to our
respective field offices to further pursue this. If not, we work very
closely and provide it to the FBI or other appropriate law enforcement,
State, local or Federal law enforcement organizations, to pursue it.
I think primarily these cases have grown out of
some publicity about some of the positive cases that we have made, and
there has been a recognition amongst the law enforcement community that we
have some level of expertise in this area.
Mr. PRICE. You have expertise; but, as you
stress, you do not have—you have shared jurisdiction.
Mr. WEISE. Yes.
Mr. PRICE. And shared responsibility. Does
this experience lead you to believe that you could profitably expand this
operation in any way? Is it reflected in this budget request? What are the
implications for our deliberations of this success story, as you describe
it, the kind of constructive role this small group has been able to
play?
Page 235 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. WEISE. Yes. Well, the budget that is
before you, Congressman, does not seek to expand this at this point in
time.
One of the things that I think people lose sight
of is the breadth of issues that the Customs Service is involved in. I
think often people consider—when they think of Customs, what comes to
mind is the inspector in uniform at the airport that is accepting the
baggage to check when they are returning to this country. But we like to
help people, particularly the people who are involved in shaping our
budgets, to understand that there is a much wider area of issues that we
are not only involved in but providing some success with, in this case,
limited expenditure of resources.
We are not at this stage asking to beef that up
because we are working very closely with the FBI. Our office in Virginia
works closely with headquarters and the unit in the FBI that does these
sorts of cases, and we are developing a good, solid exchange of information
to try to make sure that domestic cases don't go unprosecuted. We try to do
our best to investigate thoroughly and prosecute any case that has an
international tint to it.
Mr. PRICE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Meek, do you have another
question?
Mrs. MEEK. No.
Mr. KOLBE. We have gone past the time we
have allotted for this. Can you stand still for two more questions from
me?
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Mr. KELLY. Sure.
Mr. KOLBE. One on the Office of
Professional Responsibility. We created this office—this subcommittee
created it last year—with a $1.5 million appropriation. The purpose
was to ensure that the Treasury's law enforcement bureaus had adequate
oversight of the internal operations. Similar—I think it is safe to
say, similar to what the Justice Department has in its own Office of
Professional Responsibility. At least that is how we envisioned it.
At the same time, Secretary Kelly, you have
indicated that you are going to increase—plan to increase your staff
from 34 to 74 FTEs, and it appears that the plan that you submitted would
use these funds to do that.
Now, since that is your area of responsibility,
there is nothing inherently wrong with using the money within your
organization to do just that; but, as we look at your plan, it doesn't
appear to us that it really is doing what we had intended because it is
more liaison with the bureaus and very little in terms of direct
investigative responsibilities for these people that you had indicated that
you would bring on. And I understand you are currently revising the
proposed organizational structure for the Office of Professional
Responsibility. Is that correct? And, if so, do you intend to submit a
revised plan to the subcommittee?
Mr. KELLY. Yes.
Just let me correct something, Mr. Chairman. The
FTE is—provided by the appropriation is 13 people. We had an increase
of 13, not the numbers that you said that were greater.
Page 237 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. No, but I think you, in
discussions with the committee, had indicated you had a plan eventually to
increase the FTEs in your offices.
Mr. KELLY. We had a plan, but obviously it
wasn't funded and it wasn't approved by main Treasury. So we are looking to
use this component to increase our staff.
I believe that the immediate plan does do what the
committee directed, and that is to pay particular attention to the internal
investigative components or processes of the bureaus. As Commissioner Weise
spoke about, as a temporary measure we brought someone on to take a look at
the issues of the staffing and training and resources for internal
investigations in Customs. What we would like to do with—a part of
this OPR piece is to have someone permanently on board to do that, to look
at training, to look at the crosscutting issues that go across the
bureaus.
If you look at that organization chart, down in
the lower left hand corner, those are the positions that we are looking to
bring on board. Where you see bureau liaisons——
Mr. KOLBE. Right.
Mr. KELLY [continuing]. What I envision
that to be is, in essence, almost a special interest desk, not unlike what
you have—maybe it is a bad analogy but similar to the State
Department. There are so many issues that involve the bureaus that we
simply don't have enough information to adequately make policy to deal with
other agencies as far as—agencies outside the Treasury, as far as the
capabilities of Treasury enforcement entities and also to advocate for our
bureaus. We are expected to advocate both internally for bureau programs
and externally to OMB and other entities.
Page 238 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
I see those positions as, in essence, gatherers of
information. And if you look down there, the group below that, that would
be, in essence, an inspection function. We are very cognizant of the role
of the Inspector General. We are not looking to do direct investigations on
our own. We are looking to ensure, as best we can, that we are performing
oversight and ensuring that the bureaus themselves are properly staffed in
critical areas.
Mr. KOLBE. Well, I think your comments then
confirm exactly the concerns this subcommittee or this committee has had.
Advocating for the agencies, gathering information is clearly not what we
had thought of as the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Do you think that is consistent with what we had
established?
Mr. KELLY. If you read the report language,
I think it is consistent.
Mr. KOLBE. Well——
Mr. KELLY. But it is also something, I
believe, that we need to properly perform our oversight function, that
information. The premise——
Mr. KOLBE. You used the word ''advocating''
though.
Mr. KELLY. Sir?
Page 239 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. You used the word
''advocating.''
Mr. KELLY. Well, advocate in the sense that
we need knowledge both to perform oversight but also, where it is
necessary, to bring arguments or bring positions to the fore.
Mr. KOLBE. Well, as I—I have read the
report language and the recommendation language, and I don't think it is
consistent. This is something you and I are going to have to thrash out,
obviously. But we will have some more discussions about that with the
Minority Members as well, the Ranking Minority Member.
But then, based on what you have just said, it
doesn't sound like you are going to revise the organization.
Mr. KELLY. Well, we revised the
organization.
Mr. KOLBE. That organization?
Mr. KELLY. That is a revision.
Mr. KOLBE. This is the revision?
Mr. KELLY. What we have not done is the
position description submission of those.
Page 240 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. We have to see that then
before we have further discussions.
Let me just ask you this then—maybe this
will help clarify it for me. With regard to the allegations of
corruption—let me make it clear I am saying allegations of
corruption—in Customs along the Southwest border, how would you see
this office dealing with that or having anything to do with that?
Mr. KELLY. Yeah. First, I would use the
office to do an examination of the capability of the internal investigative
organization, say, in Customs, which is what, as I say, through a
consultant we are doing now. But I see that as a permanent position.
I don't see ourselves doing investigations. In
fact, we are—as you state in your report language, we are not like
the Justice Department, which has lots of attorneys in a criminal division
and the civil rights division. We don't—the Office of Professional
Responsibility in Justice looks only at attorneys and misconduct of
attorneys. It doesn't do broad-based investigations and, indeed, in the
report language it talks about the—to be sensitive to the IG's role.
So I would not look to do investigations.
However, one of the concerns that was voiced in
the report is that we didn't have a body of people to do in-depth
investigations. Waco, good old boys, required bringing people on board.
So in the event that a major investigation of that
sort was needed, then you would have, in essence, what I see as the OPR
component, able to do those types of investigations.
Page 241 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. KOLBE. It doesn't appear then, from
your description or this chart, that you would have anything that would be
devoted really to the issue of the Southwest border. I mean, they are
liaisoning with each of the agencies; but you wouldn't take a portion of
this and really focus it on where a particular problem might be in the law
enforcement area?
Mr. KELLY. Well, we could. We would do that
perhaps through this internal investigative inspector that we would have.
But it doesn't envision a geographical focus at this point in time.
Mr. KOLBE. Two other questions. I said I
had two, and I have thought of one other, I will make them very quick.
You know, your statement makes the point that
Customs is the front line of the war on drugs, and I think that is true.
But you look at the funding, and it doesn't reflect that.
I mean, when you look at what Justice gets, it
is—in every case if you look over the last 3 years it has doubled, in
almost every line item it has doubled what we have given to Customs. And
over the last year, in this budget, you are up 5 or 7 percent. Well, INS is
up, under the goals, by 21 percent, 11 percent, 13 percent, 15 percent;
double that amount.
How do you explain this? I mean, if Customs is at
the front line, are you losing in the fight within OMB? Maybe Mr. Kelly is
the one to discuss this; but, Mr. Weise, let me ask you: Are you losing the
fight with OMB to get more of the resources directed here? I am not sure
you can answer that question.
Page 242 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Segment 1 Of 2
Mr. WEISE. I am thinking real hard,
Congressman.
We have tried to act responsibly in putting forth
budgets. We know that there are efforts under way, a commitment between the
administration and the Congress, to try to reduce the fiscal deficit; and
we have tried to act responsibly. We have tried to, in effect, take a look
at our organization and find out where we could create greater efficiencies
within our organization that would motivate us to completely restructure,
reorganize ourselves, look at more technology, look at ways we could do a
more effective job even with static or marginally increasing resources. We
feel that we have done a credible job at that.
We have not been, frankly, putting forth requests
for large expansions of our workforce because we have been cognizant of the
environment, the budgetary environment in which we are operating.
Clearly——
Mr. KOLBE. But this Congress and now this
administration has made a very clear commitment to law enforcement and
particularly the drug interdiction effort.
Mr. WEISE. Well, it has been fairly clear
that, you know, in the political environment, both in the Congress and in
the administration, the issue of illegal immigration has been a very, very
hot issue; and so I can't begrudge—the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, as the Border Patrol has been beefed up significantly. They are
primarily responsible, for the Southwest border, between the ports of
entry. There is a vast expanse of 2,000 miles that needs to be
addressed.
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It would have been nice to have us go right
along with them, but we have tried to act responsibly and do the best we
can with the resources we are provided. We think we have had responsible
budgets, and we are trying to do the best we can.
Mr. KOLBE. How many new agents will you add
in this coming fiscal year with this budget?
Mr. WEISE. Well, in the current year,
fiscal year, we have 657 positions that we are in the process of putting
on, from the fiscal year 1997. From this one, it is 119 additional
ones.
[CLERK'S NOTE.—Agency later submitted
''some of which are agents'' for ''from the fiscal year 1997.'']
Mr. KOLBE. 119?
Mr. WEISE. 119. Those are inspectors.
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Meek.
Mrs. MEEK. I just want to agree with you on
the question you are asking. I guess you will call me the tomato lady after
this hearing is over, but I have a strong interest because the United
States signed the suspension agreement with Mexico, if you remember. We had
quite a bit of trouble throughout the years with the department of Commerce
and Secretary Kantor trying to be sure that the suspension agreement was
done properly.
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Now, Customs, they come in—you have a
station in Arizona—I can't pronounce it—Nogales.
Mr. KOLBE. Nogales.
Mrs. MEEK. Nogales. That sounds southern to
me. Well, Nogales.
Mr. KOLBE. I forget that city down in south
Florida, is Me-am-mi?
Mrs. MEEK. The natives call it Miami.
But, anyway—I forgot our Chairman was from
Arizona.
Mr. KOLBE. I grew up 50 miles from
Nogales.
Mrs. MEEK. I see.
The key to the suspension agreement being
successful is Customs, and I am interested in what kind of inspector
staffing you have there.
I do have an ulterior motive. I told you the
tomato farmers beat up on me. So I am concerned about what kind of staffing
you have there, what kind of training they have. Do they understand the
suspension agreement? If you could tell me in a short answer.
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Mr. WEISE. In terms of the number of staff,
I would like to submit that to you for the record.
Mrs. MEEK. Yes.
[The information follows:]
INSPECTORS TRAINING—TOMATO SUSPENSION AGREEMENT
Training has been given to the inspectors on the
tomato suspension agreement. They have been verifying weights and have
verified the presence of a declaration and grading certificate with each
tomato signatory shipment. Criteria have been developed for those known
non-signatory shippers and intensive examinations are completed on the few
here in Nogales.
Mr. WEISE. We have worked very closely with
the Commerce Department to try to ensure that we fully understand the
obligations and the responsibilities that we have to enforce that
agreement. We have sat down with the industry and our people to make sure
that they do have a grasp of what is expected of them.
To be candid with you, we would have preferred
earlier in the process to have been called in for consultation; and we
tried—we got wind of this kind of very late and said, look, we are
the organization that has to implement this. We would like to make sure
that we are a part of the solution. And we did have some opportunity at the
11th hour to try to see if we could get the administratibility of this
agreement taken into account, and it was kind of late to make much in the
way of modification of the agreement.
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But, notwithstanding that, it is an administration
commitment; and we are the organization responsible for enforcing it; and
we are going to do the best job we possibly can to work with the domestic
industry to ensure we carry it out fully in the long term.
Mrs. MEEK. Thank you.
Mr. KOLBE. Mrs. Meek, I don't know that I
am going to call you the tomato lady; but I know you are going to give me
real heartburn if you keep talking about these tomatoes. We have a very
different view coming from Arizona about this issue, and the administration
has given me real heartburn on this issue, but I won't get into that area
here.
My final question, really more of a comment than
anything else, is to just raise a red flag on this whole issue of the
technology and the automation. I made some reference to this in my opening
comments.
But it seems to me that you have got bits and
pieces that are coming together here in your Customs modernization, the
conformed compliance act of 1993, the NAFTA act. You have got whole issues
about border—the development and acquisition of border port
inspection, your automated targeting systems, your nonintrusive x-ray
inspection technologies. What I see here is you are buying a piece here,
you are buying a piece there, you are starting this and starting that.
I don't see anybody that is taking an overall look
at the architecture, which is exactly what happened to the Internal Revenue
Service. There was nobody in there saying, how does all of this go together
here and how does all of this fit, instead of just buying this and buying
that and putting this kind of piece there?
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You have an investment review
board——
Mr. WEISE. Right.
Mr. KOLBE [continuing]. That has been
established. I think it is, at least in part, supposed to do this.
Mr. WEISE. Yes.
Mr. KOLBE. I don't know that it really does
the architecture of this thing, but it is certainly supposed to look at
this whole thing, and it has been created, as I understand it. But you
still at this point haven't—there are no policies or procedures in
place for it to use at this point. Would you just comment on that?
Mr. WEISE. Mr. Chairman, I would love to
have the opportunity to sit down with you and your staff and talk a little
bit about this, and certainly perhaps Thursday we can at least begin the
process and maybe do a follow-up meeting.
We are aware of the concerns that have been raised
as to how it all fits together. We obviously, in looking back, see that we
maybe have made some slight mistakes along the way. But we have an outside
consultant now that is taking a complete look at all of the architecture
issues and will complete its analysis by June of this year. That input, as
well as the input of GAO that is taking a hard look at what we are doing, I
think has been very positive and very constructive. Certainly there are
mistakes, but they are not mistakes nearly of the magnitude that have been
made by the organization you alluded to, and I think that we are not far
off the mark.
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One of the things that I brought to this position
from my prior experience is the essential nature of making sure that we
don't rush headlong into implementing programs, that we are not fully
cooperating with the entities in the private sector that need to interface
with us in automation. We can document to you, we have had extensive,
numerous consultations with virtually every potential stakeholder or anyone
that interacts with us on these systems; and that has been a slow, long,
deliberative process to make sure that we are taking these issues into
account and that we are doing it right the first time.
I acknowledge, before the investment review board
had been put in place, we did have a process board of directors in terms of
the trade compliance process which in effect acted as that coordinating
body. So I would like to have the opportunity to sort of spell out the
steps we have taken. I don't think it is anything that you or the committee
need to be alarmed about in terms of where we are taking this.
I feel very comfortable that we have given it that
kind of a look. It hasn't been done in quite the way of having the
investment review board in place, you know, several years ago. But we will
work very closely with you and your staff every step of the way and show
you the steps we are taking.
Mr. KOLBE. Just let the record show that
this subcommittee has raised this issue and that, if we have another
catastrophic failure as we did with the IRS, I am going to have you back
here for some other questions.
Mr. WEISE. Understood.
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RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. KOLBE. On that point, I am puzzled by
why there is a 72 percent cut in your research budget. Has all technology
been developed that there is to be developed?
Mr. WEISE. No.
Mr. KOLBE. It sounds drastic. It is down to
$500,000.
Mr. WEISE. My recollection of
that—Mr. Mintz, can you kind of come up here and respond to that?
Mr. KOLBE. This is related to drugs, I
think. But doesn't this include the technology, the technology that we are
talking about or is this just drug research?
Mr. WEISE. This is Ray Mintz, the head of
our Office of Technology.
Mr. KOLBE. Would you come forward so your
comments can be heard here?
Mr. MINTZ. I guess I can't speak to the
exact change in the budget, but I would point out that a lot of our
research for nonintrusive inspection technology at this point is being done
for us by the Department of Defense. So that our requirements for research
are somewhat lessened, and we will go ahead and acquire that technology
based on their development effort.
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That is the best answer I can give to your
question at this point.
Mr. KOLBE. I might want to take a look at
some of the specifics about how that is being done.
Mr. MINTZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. KOLBE. Is it subcontracting with
DOD?
Mr. MINTZ. The Department of Defense uses
their funding, awards the contracts. We work very closely with them, often
as the technical representative on the contract in a partnership
arrangement.
Mr. KOLBE. Thank you very much.
Mr. MINTZ. You are welcome, sir.
Mr. KOLBE. Since I am the last one here,
obviously there are no more questions.
I want to thank our witnesses today for their
testimony. I want to thank the agents who came from the field today to give
us the testimony that they did and our thanks to the work that you do every
day for our country out there. We appreciate it very much.
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Secretary Kelly, Commissioner Weise, thank
you very much for being with us today.
This subcommittee is adjourned.
[Questions for the record and selected budget
justification materials follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional
material here."
