[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS: HOUSE AND SENATE
APPROACHES TO BORDER SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER
AND MARITIME SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 23, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Vice Brian Higgins, New York
Chair Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Ron Barber, Arizona
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Dondald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Jason Chaffetz, Utah Beto O'Rourke, Texas
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
Chris Stewart, Utah Steven A. Horsford, Nevada
Richard Hudson, North Carolina Eric Swalwell, California
Steve Daines, Montana
Susan W. Brooks, Indiana
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania
Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Greg Hill, Chief of Staff
Michael Geffroy, Deputy Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER AND MARITIME SECURITY
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Chairwoman
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Loretta Sanchez, California
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Beto O'Rourke, Texas
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii
Chris Stewart, Utah Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (Ex (Ex Officio)
Officio)
Paul L. Anstine, Subcommittee Staff Director
Deborah Jordan, Subcommittee Clerk
Alison Northrop, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Candice S. Miller, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Michigan, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security................................... 1
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security................................... 3
The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security....................................................... 5
WITNESSES
Panel I
Hon. John Cornyn, a United States Senator From the State of
Texas:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Hon. Xavier Becerra, a Representative in Congress From the State
of California:
Oral Statement................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 16
Panel II
Mr. Jayson P. Ahern, Principal, Chertoff Group:
Oral Statement................................................. 19
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Mr. Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow, Council on
Foreign Relations:
Oral Statement................................................. 24
Prepared Statement............................................. 26
Mr. Richard M. Stana, Former Director, Homeland Security and
Justice, Government Accountability Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 34
Prepared Statement............................................. 36
FOR THE RECORD
Hon. John Cornyn, a United States Senator From the State of
Texas:
Letter From the Border Trade Alliance.......................... 12
The Honorable Beto O'Rourke, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas:
Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union................ 42
The Honorable Jeff Duncan, a Representative in Congress From the
State of South Carolina:
Letter From Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Texas............................................... 51
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Border and Maritime Security:
Statement of the American Immigration Lawyers Association...... 67
Statement of the National Immigration Forum.................... 68
Article, Forbes................................................ 71
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS: HOUSE AND SENATE APPROACHES TO BORDER SECURITY
----------
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Candice S. Miller
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Duncan, Marino, Palazzo,
Barletta, Stewart, Jackson Lee, Sanchez, and O'Rourke.
Also present: Representative Vela.
Mrs. Miller. Good morning. The Committee on Homeland
Security and Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security will
come to order. In the interest of time we are going to move
along, although we are waiting for our second witness here and
our Ranking Member, but one of our witnesses, Senator Cornyn,
who we are so appreciative of him appearing before the
subcommittee today. I know he is on a tight timeline, so we
will move right along here. We do have a second panel as well
after our first panel is complete with their testimony.
Our Nation is in the middle of a very robust, I suppose is
one good way to characterize it, a very robust debate on the
best path to reform as we try to reform our broken immigration
system.
Certainly an essential part of that debate is how we secure
the border so that in 10 years or 15 years we are not going to
be having this same debate again and again. We need to reduce
the flow of people coming into this country illegally and those
include those who sneak across the border, across the desert,
and as well those who overstay their visas, something that our
colleague, Mr. Barletta has been a champion on certainly.
So this is more than an immigration issue, it is a National
security issue, and we need to start by securing the Southern
Border but that is not the only border that we have, obviously.
All of our borders, our Northern Border, Southern, of course,
the maritime environment, these are all dynamic places and once
you have secured a section of the border it doesn't mean that
it is secured forever, it can change.
Without a Nation-wide plan, the drug cartels and the
smugglers will continue to seek out the point of less
resistance and then succeed in coming in to our country
illegally and crossing our borders.
The American people overwhelming agree that we need to
secure the border. They have spoken out many, many times about
that. It is something, unfortunately, we failed to do in 1986.
Immigration reform in my mind will not happen without the
public, the American people having a very high degree of
confidence that their Government is committed to enforcing the
Nation's immigration laws and following through on our border
security promises.
A real border security plan has to be able to answer these
simple questions, what does a secure border look like, how do
we get there and most importantly, how do we measure the
progress of getting there?
Spending billions of dollars on border security without a
way to assess progress is really what we have done for the last
20 years without truly understanding how effective the
additional resources have been or measuring them. I am
certainly disappointed that the Senate continued this flawed
approach with their immigration bill--to the tune of $46
billion.
I think without outcome-based metrics, accountability, or a
standard for success with real teeth, the Senate bill is more
of the same; it is a Washington solution that will not deliver
results.
I do think that additional resources certainly will be
needed to achieve situational awareness, operational control of
the border, and to enhance security at our ports of entry. But
just spending additional resources without a strategy to secure
the border or means to hold the Department of Homeland Security
accountable for results creates conditions that I think are
ripe for waste.
Doubling the Border Patrol and tearing down hundreds of
miles of fence just to rebuild it appears tough until you look
deeper and ask the tough questions: Did the Chief of the Border
Patrol say that that is what they needed to get the job done,
or did Senators just come up with those nice round numbers to
get some additional votes for the immigration bill?
Here in the House Homeland Security Committee, we have
taken a radically different approach that addresses security
based on results and certifiable metrics, not on resources
alone.
On a bipartisan basis, we passed a bill that will put us on
the road to achieving real, tangible, and most importantly,
verifiable border security. The Border Security Results Act of
2013 calls on the Department of Homeland Security to finally
develop and to implement a serious plan to secure the border,
to develop metrics, and to gain the situational awareness
needed to understand how the threat at the border evolves.
The strategy and implementation plan required by this
legislation will consist of actual analysis to inform how and
where we apply resources we send to the border. This strategy,
I believe, will eliminate the ad hoc nature of our spending,
and in short, it will answer the question: What does a secure
border actually look like?
Metrics called for in the bill are long overdue, because
the American people as well as the Congress have been
frustrated by this administration, past administrations as
well, and its inability to come to grips with the need to
secure our border and how we do so in a measurable, transparent
way.
Through our bill, the National labs and border stakeholders
will be able to offer needed expertise so that what the
Department of Homeland Security produces actually measures
border security.
We cannot continue to rely on faulty measures like how many
resources we send to the border or the number of people we
apprehend. Instead, border security can only be based on hard
and verifiable facts vetted by the independent experts.
Third-party verification by outside experts is an important
part of our approach to make sure that Congress and the
American people aren't being misled and that promises made are
promises kept.
Every section of this bill was designed to give Congress
and the American people a high degree of confidence--
confidence--that we are on the right path. This bill is about
accountability and real results because the Department of
Homeland Security's border components must be held to account
for success, or failure, progress or not.
This bill is the right way to move forward. We can and we
must secure the border. The American people deserve no less.
At this time, the Chairwoman would recognize our Ranking
Member, the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee for her
opening statement.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, very much.
Obviously I am delighted to see Texas represented in a very
large way in this committee and at the panel in welcoming
Senator Cornyn, my Senator. Thank you so very much, Senator,
for being here and being thoughtful on this very important
issue not only to the Nation but certainly to Texas.
Madam Chairwoman, I want to also, because this is a very
challenging issue, take an opportunity to personally thank you
for the cooperative way in which we have been able to work on
this committee and still more work to be done but on this
committee as it relates to something that many of our Members
have a diverse and different view and are vigorous sometimes in
that view.
Again, I want to acknowledge fellow Texan in Mr. McCaul,
the Chairperson of the full committee for, again, recognizing
that we can do things in a bipartisan manner and really come up
with a product that doesn't just serve Texas, Arizona, and
places such as those States but serves the Nation.
Working very closely with the Ranking Member, Mr. Thompson
who has evidenced an uncanny ability for coming together on
very, if I might say controversial issues and have worked so
closely in a bipartisan way, we are a committee that I think is
a very good example of what is good about the United States
Congress.
Madam Chairwoman, let me apologize for being delayed, I was
in an immigration meeting and I believe that today's hearing is
a crucial piece of this Congress and this House shedding itself
from the National perception that there is a stall, that we
cannot further provide leadership on the concept of
comprehensive immigration reform.
So, I thank you for holding this meeting, and I assume that
it will not get heated but I thank you for holding this, and I
just want to acknowledge what the meeting was about as I read
my statement.
It was about the combined advocacy for comprehensive
immigration reform from the National Association of
Evangelicals, from the American nursery and landscape, the
business community, agricultural community, and certainly from
the law enforcement community.
These are crucial elements who are pushing collectively for
comprehensive immigration reform. So I am very pleased to have
been an original co-sponsor of one of those bills that will
contribute to this process. H.R. 1417, the Border Security
Results Act of 2013, that has been sponsored by again
Chairwoman Miller, myself, the Chairman, Mr. McCaul, and the
Ranking Member of the full committee, Mr. Thompson.
It may come as no surprise that my friend and I work on
issues even though as we should have disagreement. Texans do,
but we come together around very important issues. I was glad
to co-sponsor H.R. 1417 in part to help to foster a bipartisan
legislative initiative.
But more importantly I was delighted to be able to work
across the aisle with staff and Members on this bill that I
believe has generated a forward-thinking, strong, positive
effort at securing the border, both Northern and Southern, as I
have spoken to Chairwoman Miller about the Northern Border, to
come forth with a bill that will help us in comprehensive
immigration reform.
As reported to the House the bill requires that the
Secretary of Homeland Security submit to Congress and the
Government Accountability Office a report that assesses and
describes a state of situational awareness and the operational
control of our borders. It also requires that not later than
180 days after the date of the enactment the Secretary of
Homeland Security submit to Congress our comprehensive strategy
for gaining and maintaining situational awareness and
operational control of high-traffic areas of the border within
2 years and operational control on the entire Southern Border
of the United States within 5 years.
Furthermore, the bill requires the Secretary to submit to
Congress an implementation plan for each of the DHS border
security components to carry out such strategy and for GAO to
review those plans and report to Congress on their findings.
The Secretary determines operational control has been
achieved in accordance with the Act, the Secretary is to
certify that to Congress. It is a roadmap that I think is very
positive and takes in all of the stakeholders that have a
responsibility for securing the border.
Again, we were delighted to also offer several thoughtful
amendments and particularly I was glad that amendments offered
by my colleagues from the border region were adopted, dealing
with the impact on border communities and the economics,
particularly trade.
I appreciate the bipartisan support for my amendment to
address the smuggling of people, drugs, and weapons,
particularly emphasizing human trafficking, as well as civil
liberties and prohibitions against racial profiling.
For example, we must acknowledge that achieving such
control will require new border security resources, and I hope
Mr. Thompson's amendment will be considered going forward that
begins to fund this challenge. H.R. 1417 addresses just a
portion of the challenges facing our Nation with respect to our
broken immigration system.
As I said earlier, I am not going to be shy about the need
for comprehensive immigration reform. I would hope this House
would not spend its time on satellite bills but come together
with a comprehensive approach.
I would hope that beyond anything else that we have the
opportunity to be able to put forward a comprehensive approach,
and I would say to the Chairwoman and I would say to the full
Chairman that I hope that this will be part of that bill.
We have an obligation to bring these people out of the
shadows, and I commend the Senate for its comprehensive
approach but also believe that we can improve on this bill. As
I close let me indicate that the Senate bill which we view as a
positive step still has an unworkable hurdle, $46.3 billion for
border enforcement with 20,000 Border Patrol agents with no
study as to how they will be trained and additional agents may
be necessary, but we need to be able to listen to the
stakeholders.
The question of militarizing the border may be of concern
to many of us but we are ready to go. We are ready to move to
help Arizona and California and New Mexico and Texas and we are
ready to go to make a great difference in what we are doing.
In short, there are pros and cons to the approach taken by
the House and Senate on border security and we can learn from
both. But I must say, Madam Chairwoman as we go forward, the
one issue that must be on the table is that this House would
move forward on comprehensive immigration reform along with the
Senate for the President to sign; it is one of the greatest
civil rights moments and need of this century and of our time.
I look forward to this House being front and center and the
House Homeland Security Committee being part of helping 11
million undocumented persons become citizens. With that, Madam
Chairwoman, I thank you and I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, gentlelady and the Chairwoman now
recognizes the Chairman of the full committee, the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. I thank the Chairwoman Candice Miller for your
hard work and the Ranking Member, fellow Texan, Sheila Jackson
Lee. You have worked on this issue prior to this Congress for
many years to get to the point where we are here today.
I am also glad that while--when the bill initially passed
it got little attention, it is now starting to get the
attention I think it deserves. The LA Times editorial, says ``A
shocker, House gets something right on immigration.''
The Border Security Results Act strikes a fair balance
between border enforcement and fiscal responsibility. I also
want to thank my fellow Texan and mentor, Senator John Cornyn
for being here today. I was honored to serve as his deputy
attorney general for the State of Texas when he was serving as
attorney general. It is great to see my colleague in front here
today.
Securing our border is about much more than illegal
immigration. It is about safeguarding this country from
terrorism, drug cartels, weapons, and human smuggling and
protecting the free flow of legitimate trade.
According to a Washington Post/ABC poll 80 percent of
Americans support stricter border control. For years this
committee has studied this issue and we recently passed a bill
that will revolutionize the way we look at border security
operations. Which is in stark contrast to the border security
approach seen in the Senate bill.
It is my understanding, Madam Chairwoman, that this hearing
today is really designed to contrast and compare what the
Senate passed on border security and what this committee
passed.
As the Senate continues to throw money at our porous
borders we are taking a new fiscally responsible approach. On
the surface the Senate's bill appears to increase border
security by adding more agents, more fencing and more spending.
But it has no real strategy, no metrics and no requirements. It
spends $46 billion on arbitrary resources with no plan, which
is exactly what we have done for years without success.
The Border Security Results Act takes a page from the
private sector and demands a strategy before we okay a project
or its budget, which is a smart, fiscally responsible way to
secure the border. It demands a plan and metrics first using
technology fencing and manpower and with input from the Coast
Guard, Border Patrol, border sheriffs, border governors which
is all presented to the Congress. The requirements in this bill
are specific, unlike the border security plan which passed out
of the Senate. H.R. 1417 requires a 90 percent apprehension
rate at a minimum with visibility of the entire border to
finally see what we are missing.
These requirements are set to a tight but achievable time
line, demanding a plan first followed by detailed
implementation structure and finally proven results, all of
which will be verified by the Government Accountability Office.
The mandated metrics to show the progress of the plan's
implementation will be developed by an independent National lab
with expertise in measuring border security and consultation
with the border governors and experts on the ground. The
deadlines in this bill are also clear. It requires DHS to
achieve operational control of the border and high-traffic
areas in 2 years and 9 months and the entire Southwest Border
within 5 years.
These benchmarks will be checked and validated by the
Government Accountability Office so that the results cannot be
manipulated by the Department or the administration. Also the
major county sheriffs and the Southwest Border sheriffs--who
know the border implicitly and frankly know the border better
than Members of Congress--support this legislation because they
know it will finally tackle border security the right way and
get results. The right way to do this is clear because history
shows us where we have gone wrong.
For decades we have thrown money at the problem as the
Senate did recently without a plan. In the last 10 years we
have spent more than $75 billion on the border and the last
time that GAO checked we had operational control of only 44
percent, and that is a bad return on our investment.
The Senate bill continues this misguided approach,
continuing to throw money at different sectors and sections of
the border that has led to an ad hoc system where holes in the
border are temporarily patched up and the problem is shifted
instead of solved. This is demonstrated by the recent spike
inflow to my home State of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley
resulting from increased security measures in other parts of
the border. The fact is there is no National strategy and
without a National strategy we will never see lasting progress,
and for years the administration has bought lumber for the
house without a blueprint. This has led to wasting billions of
taxpayer dollars.
It is now time for a thoughtful and deliberative approach.
I look forward to hearing from the testimony here today,
particularly my colleague Senator Cornyn on what the Senate did
versus what he sees in comparison to the bill passed out of
this committee, and I know that he will offer unique insights
into that.
With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentleman.
The Chairwoman recognizes the Ranking Member for a UC
request?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
I know that you will introduce our witness Mr. Xavier Becerra
just quickly as I present this UC to be able to acknowledge his
long legacy in human rights and civil rights and his
significant contribution to what we all hope will be
comprehensive immigration reform.
I am delighted to welcome Chairman Becerra here.
I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Vela be allowed to sit and
question the witness at today's hearing and acknowledge my
other Members who are present here today. I ask unanimous
consent.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection. Other Members of the
committee are reminded that opening statements might be
submitted for the record and as we said we have a very
distinguished first panel here.
Senator John Cornyn is the Ranking Member on the
Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security
under the Senate Judiciary Committee. First elected to the
Senate in 2002, he previously served in Texas as a district
judge, a member of the Texas Supreme Court and as was mentioned
by our Chairman as Texas attorney general very well and very
professionally and honorably, and I certainly would like to
note as well that Senator Cornyn offered the Senate companion
to H.R. 1417.
Mr. Becerra, Representative Becerra, first elected in 1992,
represents portions of Los Angeles and currently serves as
chairman of the House Democratic caucus. He previously served
in the California legislature and as a deputy attorney general
as well with the California Department of Justice. The
committee's full written statements will appear in the record.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Senator Cornyn for his
testimony and again we are so appreciative of your attendance
today, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cornyn. Madam Chairwoman, thank you and to the
Members of the committee and to the Chairman of the full
committee, my friend Congressman McCaul for the opportunity to
be here today and talk to you about the contrast between the
House and the Senate approach to border security.
Since the border is my backyard along with many of the
Members of this panel, we believe we understand it and that the
complexity of the border, it strikes me that so much of what
emanates from Washington tends to treat this in a simplistic
fashion which does not recognize the importance of both
security and legitimate trade and commerce which benefits both
of our countries on both sides of the border.
As you know over the last 30 years the Federal Government
has repeatedly promised the American people that our borders
would be secured, and every time the Federal Government has
failed to keep that promise.
Of course after September 11, 2001, the American people
became understandably more conscious of border insecurity and
multiple studies have shown that even since that time that our
borders have remained porous and were failing to interdict more
than half of the illicit cross-border traffic.
Last month much of the Senate debate on immigration reform
centered around the issue of border security and for good
reason. I simply believe that the American people will not
accept the sort of immigration reform that I know the Ranking
Member has advocated for or any form of immigration reform
unless we regain their confidence and they actually believe we
will keep our promises. That is why I believe the House
approach to border security is so critically important, because
it does guarantee results. It doesn't just throw money at the
problem. It doesn't just make promises that will not be kept,
and we all know they will not be kept. It guarantees border
security results and thereby begins to regain the public's
confidence.
While S. 744 throws more than $46 billion of resources at
the border, as you said it contains no mechanism to ensure that
these resources will be effectively or properly implemented, no
accountability, no guaranteed results, just more hollow
promises emanating from Washington.
The vast majority of the $46 billion would be spent hiring
approximately 18,000 new Border Patrol agents, nearly doubling
the force at a cost of about $40 billion. But without a
coherent strategy or metrics to measure results adding this
many new Border Patrol agents could go down as one of the most
massive wastes of money in the history of the Federal
Government.
Unfortunately S. 744 the Senate bill does not stop there.
The legislation would also require the Department of Homeland
Security to purchase billions of dollars of specific equipment
designated by the Congress with no approved plan or strategy
for deployment.
S. 744 has no accountability mechanism to ensure that the
required equipment is actually integrated to achieve results,
merely that it is deployed. This is a backwards approach that
will virtually ensure that billions of taxpayer dollars and
border security resources are wasted. It locks the Border
Patrol and the Department into more of the same technologies
and tactics of today which simply have not worked. Fortunately
Members of this committee and this panel can get it.
We need smart and sustainable border security, not more of
the same wasteful and unaccountable border security contained
in the Senate bill.
So what would a smart and sustainable border look like? A
smart border must start with a comprehensive, flexible, border
security strategy. A smart border must ensure accountability
for how this strategy would be implemented with objective
metrics that tell us exactly how many border crossers there are
and how much contraband is successfully entering the country.
No more guessing, no more estimating, and no more cooking the
books.
A smart border must obtain full situational awareness
requiring the Department to deploy cutting-edge surveillance
technology capable of monitoring traffic at every segment of
the border. This layered and integrated technology would serve
as a force multiplier for the Border Patrol ensuring they have
the capability to observe all cross-border traffic and are able
to efficiently target their enforcement resources.
But a smart border must also be holistic. It therefore must
feature fast and dynamic ports of entry that increase
legitimate trade and travel while interdicting criminals and
contraband.
According to a 2009 study by the University of California
at San Diego approximately 28 percent of illegal immigrant
traffic enters the United States through our ports of entry.
But the reason to focus on our ports do not end there.
Legitimate cross-border commercial traffic and international
travelers face significant delays due to inadequate
infrastructure and personnel at the land ports of our Southern
Border.
According to Bloomberg U.S.-Mexico truck trade is
constrained by border-crossing delays that cost the U.S.
economy $7.8 billion in 2011 alone. The U.S.-Mexico truck trade
could reach $463 billion by 2020, a 40 percent rise from $322
billion in 2012. Reaching that level would put the annual delay
cost of the U.S. economy at $14.7 billion.
Robust investment, increased physical infrastructure,
tactical resources, personnel, and partnerships at our ports of
entry is imperative. These port of entry investments could grow
our economy, strengthen our security, and vastly improve public
safety. In other words, port of entry improvements are the
linchpin to completing a smart border that is holistic and
sustainable.
Regrettably the Senate bill ignored the acute need for
land-port infrastructure investment, but I hope the House will
fix that and will not make a similar mistake. The targeted
investments across all sectors of a smart border will deter
illegal border traffic and allow our Nation to finally gain
complete operational control of our borders. Operational
control of each and every sector of the border is the only
acceptable outcome and we can only achieve and maintain
operational control of our borders if they are smart,
sustainable, and accountable.
Fortunately there is a solution. Over the last 6 months I
have been proud to work with my friend Chairman McCaul and the
Chairwoman of this subcommittee, Chairwoman Miller, to craft
border security legislation which has enjoyed broad bipartisan
support from the Homeland Security Committee and hopefully
across the House.
The Border Security Results Act of 2013 would require the
Department of Homeland Security to implement a comprehensive
border security strategy to achieves that situational awareness
and operational control and it would guarantee that the
Department of Homeland Security actually achieves these results
and doesn't fudge on the numbers for the first time ever
deploying a set of statistically validated and independently
verified border security metrics.
These metrics will objectively measure progress and tell us
exactly how much illegal traffic is successfully getting across
the border so resources can be deployed efficiently and
effectively. No more gains, no more empty promises, but real
results instead.
For that reason I was proud to serve as the sponsor of the
Senate version of the Border Security Results Act and was proud
to push for adding this approach to S. 744, the Senate-passed
immigration bill, but unfortunately the Senate didn't see the
wisdom of that provision.
As the debate over border security and immigration reform
continues, I do believe that the efforts of this committee and
the full committee and the House will focus on the wisdom of
this approach, and I hope this panel and the full panel will
continue fighting for the Border Security Results Act and the
Smart Border approach.
The American people demand real border security first and
the Border Security Results Act delivers. I stand ready to help
you and offer my full support for your efforts.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cornyn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator John Cornyn
July 23, 2013
I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about one of the most
pressing National security and human rights challenges of our time--
security at our porous borders. As a United States Senator and former
Attorney General of Texas, which shares a 1,200-mile border with
Mexico, I understand the dangerous realities on the ground at the
Southern Border and the long-term importance of gaining control of our
borders.
Over the past 30 years, the Federal Government has repeatedly
promised the American people that they would secure our borders. And
every time, they have failed. While security at our Nation's borders
has improved since the September 11 attacks, multiple studies have
shown that our borders remain porous and that we are failing to
interdict more than half of illicit cross-border traffic. Meanwhile,
international criminal organizations and drug cartels repeatedly
exploit our borders to deliver drugs, contraband, weapons, laundered
money, and human trafficking victims. And, as Chairman McCaul
demonstrated in a report last December, these criminal organizations
are increasingly aligned with international terrorist organizations
like Hezbollah. The threat is at our door, and we must neutralize it.
In other words, it is time for the empty border security promises to
stop, and for the Federal Government to get serious about delivering
border security results.
Last month, much of the Senate debate on immigration reform
centered around this issue, and for good reason: The American people
will simply not accept immigration reform unless it guarantees border
security results. Unfortunately, the Senate-passed immigration bill, S.
744, fails this test completely. While S. 744 throws more than $46
billion of resources at the border, it contains absolutely no mechanism
to ensure that these resources will be effective or properly
implemented. No accountability, no guaranteed results--just more
Washington, D.C. promises.
The vast majority of this $46 billion dollars would be spent hiring
approximately 18,000 new Border Patrol Agents--nearly doubling the
force at a cost of about $40 billion to American taxpayers. But without
a coherent strategy or metrics to ensure results, adding this many new
Border Patrol Agents could go down as one of the most massive wastes of
funds in the history of the Federal Government. But S. 744
unfortunately does not stop there. The legislation would also require
DHS to purchase billions of dollars of specific equipment--with no
approved plan or strategy for deployment. And S. 744 has no
accountability mechanism to ensure that the required equipment is
actually integrated to achieve results. This is a backwards approach
that would virtually ensure that billions of taxpayer dollars and
border security resources are wasted. It locks Border Patrol and DHS
into more of the same technologies and tactics of today--which simply
have not worked. Fortunately, the members of this panel get it: We need
smart and sustainable border security--not more of the same wasteful
and unaccountable border security in S. 744.
So what would a smart and sustainable border look like? A smart
border must start with a comprehensive, flexible border security
strategy. A smart border must ensure accountability for this strategy
through objective metrics that tell us exactly how many illegal border
crossers and how much contraband is successfully entering our country.
No more guessing, no more estimating, no more cooking the books.
A smart border must achieve full situational awareness--requiring
the Department of Homeland Security to deploy cutting-edge surveillance
technology capable of monitoring traffic at every segment of our
borders. This layered and integrated technology would serve as a force
multiplier for the Border Patrol, ensuring that they have capability to
observe all illicit cross-border traffic and are able to efficiently
target their enforcement resources.
But a smart border must also be holistic. It therefore must feature
fast and dynamic ports of entry that increase legitimate trade and
travel, while interdicting criminals and contraband. According to a
2009 study by the University of California at San Diego, approximately
28 percent of illegal immigrant traffic enters the United States
through our front door--at ports of entry. But the reasons to focus on
our ports do not end there. Legitimate cross-border commercial traffic
and international travelers face significant delays due to inadequate
infrastructure and personnel at the land ports on the Southern Border.
According to a Bloomberg Government study, U.S.-Mexico truck trade is
constrained by border crossing delays that cost the U.S. economy $7.8
billion in 2011. U.S.-Mexico truck trade could reach $463 billion by
2020, a 44 percent rise from $322 billion in 2012. Reaching that level
would put the annual delay cost to the U.S. economy at $14.7 billion.
Robust investment to increase physical infrastructure, tactical
resources, personnel, and partnerships at our ports of entry is
therefore imperative. These port of entry investments would grow our
economy, strengthen our security, and vastly improve public safety. In
other words, port of entry improvements are the linchpin to completing
a smart border that is holistic and sustainable. Regrettably, the
Senate bill ignored the acute need for land port infrastructure
investment. I hope the House will not make a similar mistake.
With targeted investments across all sectors, a smart border will
deter illegal border traffic and allow our Nation to finally gain
complete operational control of our borders, which should include an
apprehension rate of at least 90% for illegal border crossers.
Operational control of each and every sector of our borders is the only
acceptable outcome, and we can only achieve and maintain operational
control if our borders are smart, sustainable, and accountable.
Fortunately, there is a solution. Over the past 6 months, I have
been proud to work with Chairman McCaul and Chairwoman Miller to craft
border security legislation that would finally put our Nation on the
path to smart and secure borders. The ``Border Security Results Act of
2013'' would require DHS to implement a comprehensive border security
strategy that achieves situational awareness and operational control of
our borders. And it would guarantee that DHS actually achieves these
results and does not fudge the numbers by, for the first time ever,
deploying a set of statistically validated and independently verified
border security metrics. These metrics will objectively measure
progress and tell us exactly how much illegal traffic is successfully
crossing our borders. No more games, no more empty promises, real
results.
For that reason, I am proud to serve as the sponsor of the Senate
version of the Border Security Results Act, and was proud to push for
adding this approach to S. 744, the Senate-passed immigration reform
bill. Unfortunately, the Senate rejected this approach. As the debate
over border security and immigration reform continues, I hope that
members of this panel will continue fighting for the Border Security
Results Act and the ``smart border'' approach. The American people
demand real border security first, and the Border Security Results Act
delivers. I stand ready to help you and offer my full support.
Senator Cornyn. Madam Chairwoman and in conclusion I would
just ask consent to make part of the record following my
remarks a letter from the Border Trade Alliance that supports
the efforts of this subcommittee and the full committee and the
Border Security Results Act.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection that will be entered into
the record.
[The information follows:]
Letter From the Border Trade Alliance
July 22, 2013.
Hon. Candice Miller,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, 311 Cannon
House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.
Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, 2160
Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.
Dear Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Jackson Lee: The Border
Trade Alliance is pleased that the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime
Security is holding a hearing on the contrasting approaches to border
security by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The debate
over immigration reform offers not only an opportunity to improve
greatly our nation's immigration system, but also to enhance security
along our northern and southern borders while strengthening our
nation's economy through greater trade efficiency.
Since our founding in 1986, the Border Trade Alliance has been
committed to advancing public policy solutions that enhance the
environment for commerce across the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico
borders. As a result of our over 25 years in cross-border affairs, we
have observed the impact of our country's broken immigration system on
our northern and southern borders. We share your belief and that of
most of your colleagues that border security must be a central
component of any immigration reform effort. While the legislation
recently produced by the Senate offers a good starting point, we
believe that under your leadership the House can pass a bill that both
increases border security and improves conditions at our borders,
specifically at our ports of entry, for legitimate trade and travel.
The BTA respectfully requests that you consider these guideposts as
your chamber commences debate on immigration reform:
Canada and Mexico are our largest trading partners. Our
relationship with them is an economic asset.--The BTA believes we
should use this opportunity to improve smartly border security while
looking for ways to increase our economic ties to our neighbors.
Recognizing our borders for their economic potential, especially our
border with Mexico, can help spur that country's economic growth and
stem the tide of illegal immigration. Close relationships between the
U.S. government and the governments of Canada and Mexico can also aid
efforts to better understand who and what is coming across our shared
borders into the U.S.
Our lagging border infrastructure hurts our economy and threatens
our security.--Customs and Border Protection estimates that it would
cost $6 billion to bring our land border ports of entry, which average
40 years of age, up to the standards necessary to process today's flows
of trade and travel efficiently and securely. A recent analysis by
Bloomberg Government estimates that while recent focus has been placed
on securing the vast areas between our ports, delays at the ports cost
the U.S. economy $7.8 billion in 2011. Recalling the maxim that cargo
at rest is cargo at risk, these delays come with a security price as
well, as loads are exposed to potential theft and sabotage. Any
immigration reform bill should also include a plan to modernize our
ports, which have come to be unfortunately characterized for their
congestion and miles-long traffic backups.
The private sector and local governments can aid in improving our
ports of entry.--The trade community is well aware that, absent a
sudden windfall of financial resources, a major federal investment in
our country's outmoded ports is unlikely. However, there are private
sector and local governmental partners who have available resources
ready to supplement federal dollars to help improve the efficiency and
security of our ports of entry. Unfortunately, these partners have been
stymied over murky regulations governing the General Services
Administration's and CBP's ability to accept financing from third
parties. A House immigration reform bill should seek innovative ways to
improve our nation's land border ports by working with outside
partners.
We would urge you to consider S. 178 by Sen. John Cornyn and
companion House legislation, H.R. 1108, by Homeland Security Chairman
Rep. Michael McCaul and Rep. Henry Cuellar. The Cross Border Trade
Enhancement Act of 2013 authorizes the Department of Homeland Security
and the GSA to enter into agreements with third parties to finance
increased staff levels and the construction or maintenance of
infrastructure. We believe this bill provides an excellent starting
point for crafting a creative method for increasing the involvement of
the private sector and local governments in the future of our land
ports.
Staffing resources are needed, but we must be wise in their
deployment.--The Senate's immigration overhaul seeks to double the size
of the Border Patrol to approximately 40,000 agents. While there are
some Border Patrol sectors that need additional resources, the Senate's
action only highlights the yawning gap between resources granted to
securing the borders and those devoted to securing our ports, where the
Senate bill allocates CBP a paltry 3,500 new officers. More CBP
officers are in near constant need at our ports, where they perform an
important dual role of processing legitimate freight and travelers that
improve our economy, while also interdicting potential illegal
immigrants, smugglers and others who would seek to do our nation harm.
The BTA is encouraged that this very necessary debate over
immigration and border security is underway, but we do not want to lose
this opportunity to make needed reforms along our borders that would
both improve our security and our economy. Please count on the BTA as a
resource to your subcommittee as you begin to craft an immigration
reform bill.
Sincerely,
Jesse J. Hereford,
Chairman.
Noe Garcia, III,
President.
Mrs. Miller. Senator, we appreciate very much your
attendance today. We appreciate your thoughtful comments. We
appreciate your support of our bill certainly, and I look
forward to continuing to work with you toward our goal of
border security in achieving that for this Congress and the
American people certainly. We understand the time constraints
that you are under if you need to excuse yourself please feel
free to do so.
You are welcome to stay of course, but we do understand and
thanks again.
At this time the Chairwoman recognizes Representative
Becerra. Again, we appreciate your time to come to the
committee and testify as well on the differences between the
House's approach and the Senate approach.
The Chairwoman recognizes Representative Becerra.
STATEMENT OF XAVIER BECERRA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Becerra. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and to Chairman
McCaul as well and to Ranking Member Jackson Lee. I say thank
you along with all the Members of the committee, thank you for
letting me be here today to testify along with Senator Cornyn.
As Senator Cornyn said there are ways that we can do this
to make the system work for everyone, whether it is at the
border or at the workplace. We are dealing every day with the
lives of American people and those who come to this country to
live the American Dream.
As this chamber considers a comprehensive reform to our
Nation's immigration laws for the first time in almost 30
years, the public support for doing so has never been stronger.
The American people overwhelmingly support the creation of a
functioning immigration system that reflects the values of
America, principally, the values of fairness and competition,
and the ability to get things done.
It ensures that those that are caught up in a broken system
will have the chance to find a path out. Those who have been
productive members of the society can come out of the shadows
and work towards the full responsibilities of citizenship.
We remember, first of all, that we are a Nation of laws and
that we are a Nation of immigrants. Balancing these two
important pillars, the U.S. Congress can once again prove that
when confronted with challenges, we can be a pragmatic and
forward-thinking body that resolves any issue the American
people set before us.
The architecture for immigration reform in our system must
be comprehensive. It must be responsive to the ever-changing
dynamics of the world's economy, to migration patterns, to
innovation and technology, to ensure that America's
competitiveness and enduring stature in the world, as well as
in protecting this Nation against evolving threats continues to
be our paramount priority.
Simply fixing one aspect of our immigration system ensures
that we fall short of making our country stronger economically
and safer from external threats. Therefore, our task here
should be to fix the whole immigration system, not merely one
or two broken parts.
A true immigration reform solution is about more than
piecemeal fixes, and improving border security is more than
examining the sum of its parts. Border security is more than
enforcement, manpower, assets, infrastructure and technology,
or resources at our borders. Border security depends on a
number of factors including bi-national relationships, trade
agreements, foreign aid, and of course, people.
Achieving border security today requires us to look beyond
the obvious, to look beyond fences and boots on the ground, and
even our own borders. In the 20th Century and today, border
security and immigration to the United States have been
inextricably tied, with each impacting the other in various
ways over time, but always one with the other.
Border security and immigration reform are not an either/or
proposition. As we build a better, smarter, more accountable
and efficient border security system and a strategy as well, we
cannot ignore its ties to the way in which our immigration laws
address permanent and temporary visas, the reunification of
families, our Nation's labor market and employment needs and
interior enforcement mechanisms. To focus on border security
without focusing on immigration reform is akin to fixing the
brakes on a car without fixing the engine. You need both to get
where you are going.
Although we have not modernized our immigration laws for
almost 30 years, in that time, our laws have advanced historic
and wide-reaching border and interior enforcement measures. The
U.S. Government today spends more on immigration enforcement--
some $18 billion a year--than it does on all other criminal
Federal law enforcement combined. That is more than the total
spending for the FBI, the DEA, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals,
and ATF together.
Today, net unauthorized immigration from the Southern
Border is at a 40-year low. We have met or exceeded the border
security benchmarks of previous immigration reform proposals so
that today we have over 21,000 Border Patrol agents, over
21,000 Customs and Border Protection officers, hundreds of
video surveillance systems, at least nine unmanned aerial
vehicles and more fencing, barriers, towers, technology and
other assets than at any time ever before in our Nation's
history.
While security and enforcement between our Southern Borders
and their ports of entry has dramatically improved, the
security at those ports has faltered. Unauthorized entries are
now less likely to occur between our southern land ports of
entry and more likely to occur through those very ports of
entry, or as a result of legal entries at airports of entry
that result in visa overstays.
However, devoting the bulk of resources on apprehending
desert crossers has limited much-needed resources to prevent
trafficking of humans, narcotics, currency, and counterfeit
goods through our ports of entry. The greatest border security
threat we face today come from Transnational Criminal
Organizations, not economic migrants crossing the desert.
Spending on border enforcement between the ports of entry
has created an imbalance in resources at ports of entry to the
detriment of our economy. Six million U.S. jobs depend on $500
billion in yearly cross-border trade with Mexico; 37 of our 50
States rely on Canada as their largest export market.
Insufficient resources at ports mean excessive delays for
commuters, tourists, and merchants and $6 billion in lost
economic output. Increased border enforcement has had
extraordinary impact on local communities along our borders.
Nearly two out of three Americans live within 100 miles of a
land or coastal border. That is some 200 million people. More
enforcement on its own will not solve our immigration problems.
What we need is better, smarter, and more effective border
enforcement, combined with broad, broader immigration law
reforms.
S. 744 was evidence that reaching a bipartisan solution on
comprehensive immigration reform is entirely within our
capabilities. I was pleased to see balanced reforms relating to
permanent and temporary visa programs, family-based and
employment-based immigration, a worker verification system with
strong due process provisions, and a workable path to
citizenship. However, the border security provisions were put
on steroids and are evidence that more is not a substitute for
better.
Building a smarter, more accountable and efficient system
is imperative. Border security proposals must be agile and
adaptable to real-time intelligence and on-the-ground needs, to
changing technologies, operational capabilities and resources,
to analytical and cognitive criteria, and to stronger
transparency and accountability and oversight measures,
something that I think the House bill that came through this
committee or is working its way through the House to this
committee is something that we can take a close look at.
The use of metrics and performance measures in assessing
and determining whether or not our borders are secure are
important elements of an overall picture of security and
effectiveness. Metrics can and should be instructive; however,
it is unclear whether they are dispositive. Reliance on static
or fixed metrics alone as absolute evidence of security
achieved is illusory.
Data cannot always capture or measure the impact of factors
which contribute to a complete picture of border security such
as economic fluctuations, quality of life, intelligence
gathering, and other cognitive reasoning. Real-time enforcement
requires agility, flexibility, and responsiveness to an ever-
changing landscape of threats and risk assessments.
We have seen the ways in which inflexibility in lawmaking
can lead to perverse incentives and unwanted or hazardous
results for security and law enforcement, despite our best
intentions and planning.
So, Madam Chairwoman, as we consider in the House what we
do on immigration reform, I think we want to make sure that
what we are doing is being smart, we are being transparent, and
we are using the best evidence from the best minds of those on
the ground to help us move forward with a fix of our border
security and the entire immigration system.
Because I think most of us understand that if we get this
done this year, it won't just be for the good of our National
security. It will be for the good of our economy and it will
finally set us on a course of being a country that is, as we
said before, a Nation of laws but also a Nation of immigrants.
So I thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to
come before you today, and I look forward to working with all
of my colleagues on trying to get to yes in doing a
comprehensive fix on our broken immigration system.
[The prepared statement of Representative Becerra follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Xavier Becerra
July 23, 2013
Good morning and thank you, Chairwoman Miller, and Ranking Member
Jackson Lee for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee
today on approaches to border security. With the recent passage of a
comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform bill by the U.S.
Senate, this hearing is timely.
As this chamber considers a comprehensive reform of our Nation's
immigration laws for the first time in almost 30 years, the public
support for doing so has never been stronger. The American people
overwhelmingly support the creation of a functioning immigration system
that reflects our American values of fairness, and ensures that those
caught up in a broken system over the last several decades, who have
been productive members of our society can come out of the shadows and
work towards the full responsibilities of citizenship.
We are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants. Balancing these
two important pillars, the U.S. Congress can once again prove that when
confronted with challenges, we can be a pragmatic and forward-thinking
body that resolves any issue the American people set before us and
which reflects our best interests and values as Americans.
As Congress moves forward, the architecture of the immigration
system must be one that is comprehensive and built to last. Therefore,
it must be responsive to the ever-changing dynamics of the world's
economy, migration patterns, innovation, and technology to ensure
America's competitiveness and enduring status in the world, as well as
protecting this Nation against evolving threats. Simply fixing one
aspect of our immigration system ensures that we will fall short of
making our country stronger economically and safer from external
threats. Therefore, our task should be to fix the whole immigration
system, not merely one or two parts.
Just as a true immigration reform solution is comprehensive and
about more than piecemeal fixes, improving border security is more than
examining the sum of its parts. It is more than enforcement, manpower,
assets, infrastructure, and technology at our borders. Border security
depends on a number of factors including bi-national relationships,
trade agreements, foreign aid, commercial goods and, of course, people.
Achieving border security today requires us to look beyond the obvious,
to look beyond fences, boots on the ground, and even our own borders,
in order to accomplish lasting and better border security.
For the better part of the 20th Century and today, border security
and immigration to the United States have been inextricably tied, with
each impacting the other in various ways over time, but always one with
the other. Border security and immigration reform are not an ``either/
or'' proposition.
As we build a better, smarter, more accountable and efficient
border security strategy and system, we cannot ignore its ties to the
way in which our immigration laws address permanent and temporary
visas, the reunification of families, our Nation's labor market and
employment needs and interior enforcement mechanisms. To focus on one
without focusing on the other is akin to fixing the brakes on a car
without fixing the engine: You need both to get where you're going.
And although we have not modernized our immigration laws for almost
30 years, in that time, our laws have advanced historic and wide-
reaching border and interior enforcement measures. The U.S. Government
today spends more on immigration enforcement--$18 billion a year--than
it does on all other criminal Federal law enforcement combined. That is
almost a quarter more than total spending for the FBI, DEA, Secret
Service, U.S. Marshals, and ATF.
This surge in resources spent at the border continues today with
diminishing returns. Lawmakers continue to pour increasing resources to
prevent unauthorized immigration even though net unauthorized
immigration from the Southern Border is at a 40-year low. We have met
or exceeded the border security ``benchmarks'' of previous immigration
reform proposals so that today we have a force of over 21,000 Border
Patrol agents, over 21,000 Customs and Border Protection Officers,
hundreds of video surveillance systems, at least 9 unmanned aerial
vehicles and more fencing, barriers, towers, technology and other
assets than at any time ever before in our Nation's history.
While security and enforcement in the desert between our southern
land ports of entry has dramatically improved, the same cannot be said
for security at those ports of entry where millions of goods and people
cross every day. As border enforcement has increased over the last
several decades, unauthorized entries and contraband are now less
likely to occur between our Southern Border ports of entry and more
likely to occur through our land ports of entry, or as the result of
legal entries at air ports of entry that result in visa overstays.
However, focusing the bulk of resources on apprehending
unauthorized desert crossers has come at the cost of resources to
prevent trafficking of humans, narcotics, currency, and counterfeit
goods through our ports of entry. The greatest border security threats
we face today come from Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs),
not economic migrants crossing the desert.
In addition, spending on border enforcement between the ports of
entry has created an imbalance in resources at ports of entry to the
detriment of our economy. Today, 6 million U.S. jobs depend on the $500
billion in yearly cross-border trade between the United States and
Mexico. Currently, 37 of our 50 States rely on Canada as their largest
export market. Insufficient resources at ports of entry result in
excessive delays for commuters, tourists, and merchants and
approximately $6 billion in lost economic output.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the extraordinary
impact that increased border enforcement has had on local communities
along all our borders. Nearly 2 out of 3 Americans live, and nine of
the top ten largest metropolitan areas are located, within 100 miles of
a land or coastal border (approximately 197.4 million people).
At the Southern Border, the rapid ramp-up in border enforcement
over the last 2 decades has resulted in the division of cross-border
communities, in security measures that have ignored the culture, voice,
and input of border residents, increased cases of Border Patrol and CBP
abuse and corruption, civil rights violations, in more migrant deaths,
and a militarized border.
Given the muscular enforcement landscape at the Southern Border,
the evolution of modern threats, our current economic and security
needs, and the impact of enforcement on border communities, it begs the
question of why we are still focused on yester-year responses to the
exclusion of modern common-sense security measures. More enforcement on
its own will not solve our immigration problems; just as no laws can
negate the laws of supply and demand, or the human drive to survive.
What we need is better, smarter, and more effective border enforcement
combined with broader immigration law reforms that strengthen our
economy and Nation.
The Senate's recent passage of S. 744 the ``Border Security,
Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,'' was evidence
that reaching a bipartisan solution on a comprehensive immigration
reform bill is entirely within our capabilities as legislators. I was
pleased to see balanced reforms related to permanent and temporary visa
programs, improvements to family-based and employment-based
immigration, a worker verification system with strong due process
provisions and a workable path to citizenship. However, the border
security provisions were a tone-deaf response to the realities of our
current state of border security and evidence that ``more'' is not a
substitute for ``better.''
I look forward to hearing testimony from today's witnesses on S.
744, the Senate's comprehensive fix to our broken immigration system
and H.R. 1417 the Border Security Results Act of 2013. We need a debate
that takes into consideration previous border security efforts, and in
the words of Chairwoman Miller ``what a secure border looks like, how
we get there and how to accurately measure progress and results.'' I
hope that as we seek to define border security that we acknowledge that
any legislative measure cannot be a one-size-fits all policy and must
reflect the diversity and complexity of our borders.
Building a smarter, more accountable, and efficient way to enforce
and better secure our border is imperative. Any border security
proposal must be agile and adaptable to: Real-time intelligence, on-
the-ground needs, changing technologies, operational capabilities and
resources, analytical and cognitive criteria, and strong transparency,
accountability, and oversight measures.
The use of metrics and performance measures in assessing and
determining whether or not our borders are secure are important
elements of an overall picture of security and effectiveness. Metrics
can and should be instructive; however, it is unclear whether they are
dispositive. Reliance on static or fixed metrics alone as absolute
evidence of security achieved is illusory.
It ignores an ever-changing border landscape and does not properly
account for its effect on international and domestic economies,
quality-of-life in border communities, the true security of
communities, the frequency and severity of local criminal activity,
changes in international land, air, and sea travel and commercial
operation volumes, and other measures, outcomes, and cognitive
reasoning that cannot always be truly captured by data.
In addition, real-time law enforcement requires agility,
flexibility, and responsiveness to an ever-changing landscape of
threats and risk-assessments. To hamstring our law enforcement to an
inflexible metric ignores the nature of law enforcement. We have seen
the ways in which inflexibility in lawmaking can lead to perverse
incentives and unwanted or hazardous results for security and law
enforcement, despite our best intentions and planning.
Legislative proposals which seek to tie border enforcement to the
fate of those who would come forward and register for any legalization
program are of great concern to me. To strive towards achieving the
highest level of security and effectiveness at our borders is rational
and reflects our mutual desires as Americans to achieve the best when
it comes to securing our Nation. But the idea that we would condition
the fate of 11 million people--who meet all of the rigorous
legalization requirements that we ask of them--on a trigger linked to
achieving a fixed border security metric is irrational.
Any legalization program will ask the undocumented to come out of
the shadows, undergo background checks, pay taxes, and learn our
language. It will require them to demonstrate personal responsibility.
To punish them from adjusting their status based on bureaucratic
malfunctions or short-comings over which they had no control--even when
they have met their personal responsibilities--is not consistent with
our values of justice and fair dealing. To return to the car analogy I
used earlier, to penalize the safe driver for the manufacturer's defect
or failure makes no sense.
We need to fix all the parts of our broken immigration system, but
what kind of border security measures do we need? We need measures: (1)
That are responsive to a morphing security environment; (2) that
promote the robust economic engine of cross-border trade; (3) that
restore parity to our commercial and security operations by investing
in ports of entry; (4) that add manpower where we need it, such as
Customs and Border Protection Officers at land, air, and sea ports or
Homeland Security Investigators for worksite and visa overstay
enforcement; (5) that address the most urgent security threats such as
those posed by transnational organized crime; (6) that consult with
border communities in developing local and sector-specific solutions;
(7) that are transparent and fiscally accountable; (8) that promote a
culture of ethics and integrity; and (9) that protect civil and
Constitutional rights.
In conclusion, I thank this subcommittee for its work on the
important issues related to the security of all our Nation's borders.
Today's hearing is more critical than ever and as Members of Congress
we must rise to meet the challenge and the opportunity that the
American people have placed before us. I am optimistic that we can get
to a bipartisan solution on a comprehensive fix to our broken
immigration system that includes a path to citizenship for the 11
million undocumented individuals within our borders. I look forward to
working with this committee as we move forward towards a solution that
respects our values and history as a Nation of immigrants and a Nation
of laws.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much, Representative. We
certainly appreciate your testimony and your thoughtful
comments as well. I appreciate your time here and your
attendance.
Mr. Becerra. Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. At this time, this panel is dismissed, and the
clerk will prepare the witness table for our second panel,
which we will take a 1-minute recess here.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Miller. The committee will come back to order. Our
second panel, Mr. Jayson Ahern is retired as the acting
commissioner of the United States Customs and Border
Protection, CBP, after service to the country for 33 years.
While acting commissioner, Mr. Ahern was responsible for the
daily operations of CBP's 58,000 employee workforce as well as
managing an operating budget of over $11 billion.
Mr. Edward Alden is the Bernard L. Schwartz senior felllow
at the Council on Foreign Relations specializing in U.S.
economic competiveness, immigration and visa policy, and on
U.S. trade and international economic policy. Mr. Alden, along
with two of his colleagues, recently authored a publication
titled, ``Managing Illegal Immigration to the United States.''
Mr. Richard Stana--who has been in front of this committee
many times--we welcome him back. He retired in 2011 of December
as director of homeland security and justice issues at the U.S.
GAO. For the 14 years prior to his retirement, he directed
GAO's work relating to immigration and border security issues.
An interesting note, he also testified before Congress 65
times. I am not sure what that is indicative of, but we
certainly appreciate that. You certainly are a wealth of
information; currently, a faculty member at the Graduate School
USA.
The witnesses' full written statements will appear in the
record. The Chairwoman recognizes Mr. Ahern for his testimony.
We certainly thank all the witnesses again for your attendance.
STATEMENT OF JAYSON P. AHERN, PRINCIPAL, CHERTOFF GROUP
Mr. Ahern. Great. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I
know Chairman McCaul who likely will be back, also Ranking
Member Jackson Lee. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify today, albeit in a different capacity from the many
times I was before this committee while serving in many careers
in Government.
The efforts of this committee are critically important in
advancing the dialogue of how we can improve the level of
security at our borders, is just one key component of a
critical National strategy, and also one that really does
enhance the mission of securing and protecting the homeland.
But I think it is important to state for the record that while
I am here in my personal capacity today, that I am a principal
of the Chertoff Group, a global risk management and security
firm.
Before addressing some of the specific approaches to
achieving a higher level of border security, I would like to
offer my perspective on this matter. It is from the view that
when we need to look at securing our borders, we need to take a
look at the air, land, and sea very critically and in a much
more comprehensive way.
Too often, the focus has just on the southwest land border
and more specifically between authorized ports of entry. There
is not always sufficient attention on the ports themselves.
This subcommittee is well aware of the current environment and
the challenges facing U.S. Customs and Border Protection today,
and as you all know, the agency is responsible for patrolling
over 7,000 miles of land border and 95,000 miles of coastal
border.
At our Nation's ports of entry, CBP interacts with 350
million travelers in an annual basis and also $2.3 trillion in
cargo. But, comingled in with that legitimate travel and trade,
there is a significant amount of criminal activity that gets
discovered every day and more emerges as we continue to
strengthen our posture between ports of entry.
In the last year, CBP Officers arrested 7,700 critically
violent individuals for serious criminal activity coming
across. Also there was 145,000 individuals who were determined
to be inadmissible trying to gain entry through the ports of
entry. I think in my view, those numbers need to be included in
the overall calculus when you take a look at between the ports
of entry during that same period of time, there was 365,000
apprehensions by the Border Patrol.
To achieve the level of control that we have today, our
Government has actually deployed historic levels of increased
personnel, as well as infrastructure, and some technology. As
was stated by the previous panel, 21,000 Border Patrol agents
today are accountable for protecting both the Northern and the
Southern Borders.
In 2003, there was just over 10,000, and I would certainly
posit that the benefit has been realized by the additional
personnel. However, as we take a look, we need to take a look
at the other two legs of that three-legged stool.
Infrastructure, putting the fence, 651 miles of fence on the
border has actually diminished the threat and greatly mitigated
what was previously a very open and porous border where we had
significant amounts of drive-throughs coming across. It
actually resulted in serious incursions on the border, that
also resulted in death of our personnel that were trying to
perform their law enforcement duty. That has been a positive
change.
CBPs situational awareness has also been improved due to
historic levels of technology that has been deployed. Unmanned
Aircraft Systems are now patrolling our borders routinely and
are complemented by other ground and truck and other mobile
surveillance systems that actually increase the capability of
our front-line personnel to detect and identify more threats as
they approach the border, but also increase the probability of
their apprehension.
While there is certainly more that needs to be done, I
think it is important to reflect back on the positive things
that have occurred. But we need to also take a look at the
ever-changing threat landscape and be prepared not only to
where the threat is today but anticipate where it will shift in
the coming months and years to come.
As we craft strategies or legislation, we need to be
looking and forecasting where that threat would be in the
period of time that is in our future versus reflecting back on
what the current threats are today.
As we take a look at the critical points of responses,
doubling the size of the Border Patrol that was suggested in
one of the versions of the Senate bill, from my experience, I
will be happy to talk about more of this during some of the
questions. Before we look at just arbitrarily doubling the size
of the Border Patrol, I think we need to thoughtfully consider
how the current level of personnel is being utilized and
deployed correctly against today's threat, and has there been
utilization of the resource we have today, versus just asking
for more or putting more into legislation.
Again, it is moving those resources against the threat
versus, you know, where just domains be it land or sea or air.
I think there also needs to be a further analysis done based on
some of the very thoughtful resource allocation models that
have been put together.
But what are the actual law enforcement positions that are
needed? It seems to be oftentimes very fashionable to just say
let's just double the size of the Border Patrol. But I can tell
you from experience, there was not enough resources put into
DHS and CBP specifically for pilots to fly the aircraft or boat
commanders to be able to man the boats that actually are out
there in the maritime domain, for the threat we are now seeing
on the Pacific Coast, particularly as we have seen that ship.
So just we need to thoughtfully consider what positions are
needed going forward as well as CBP officers at the ports of
entry; as we have seen this funneling at the port it is
important to consider what actually is needed for addressing
the ever-changing threat.
Miles of fence, we can talk about that, how the mile-by-
mile analysis was done before we just add more and I certainly
would be happy to talk about some of the strategies there about
tearing down existing fence and putting new fence in place, but
also in metrics.
I would be happy to talk about that a little bit further as
well to make sure that we really understand what we are asking
for here. The metric of looking at, ``What is the apprehension
rate?''--I have spent across four decades of time beginning in
my career in the 1970s and we have looked at this whether it
would be for apprehensions or for drug interdiction, what
actually have caught against the universe and what actually is
coming through.
I think there has been new improved methodology and there
have been many individuals inside and outside of Government
looking at this. But I think other third-party indicators,
other smuggling metrics, things of that nature, as well as
economic indicators are a key that need to be looked at going
forward.
I think one last thing and I know that I am at my time, as
we look at what actually causes the illegal flow of people
coming across the border, it is crime 101--opportunity,
opportunity to work in the United States for many of the
economic migrants is what is that magnet.
I think as we take a look at any comprehensive border
strategy, we need to take a look at that and mandating a
program like E-Verify that would actually go ahead and require
people to go ahead and enroll their eligibility to work in the
United States, in my experience, would go ahead and diminish
the flow that we actually see at the border so that our front-
line personnel can go ahead and focus much more on
transnational criminal organizations.
So I will stop at that point and I look forward to taking
any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ahern follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jayson P. Ahern
July 23, 2013
I want to thank Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson, Chairman
Miller, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and other distinguished Members of
the committee and subcommittee for inviting me to testify before this
committee again, albeit in a different capacity from the many times I
came before you while serving in Government. The effort of this
committee is critically important in advancing the dialogue on how we
can continue to improve the level of security of our borders as just
one critical component of a comprehensive strategy and one that
enhances the protection of our homeland. I want to state clearly that I
am submitting this statement for the record in my personal capacity,
although, for the record, I am a principal of The Chertoff Group, a
global security and risk management firm that provides strategic
advisory services on a wide range of security matters, including border
security.
Before addressing some of the specific approaches to achieving a
higher level of border security, I would like to offer how I view this
matter. It is from the perspective that we need to look at how to
secure to our borders more holistically. Too often the focus is just on
the Southwest land border and more specifically between authorized
Ports of Entry (POE) but there not always is sufficient attention
focused on the ports themselves. This subcommittee is well aware of the
current environment and challenges facing U.S. Customs and Border
Protection. As you know, the agency is responsible daily for patrolling
and providing security for over 7,000 miles of land borders and 95,000
miles of coastal shoreline. At our Nation's Ports of Entry, CBP
interacts with 350 million travelers entering the United States, along
with screening $2.3 trillion in cargo; but, comingled in with that
legitimate travel and trade, there is a significant amount of criminal
activity that gets discovered every day and more emerges as we continue
to strengthen our posture between POEs. In the last year, CBP Officers
arrested 7,700 people wanted for violent crimes along the border and
prevented 145,000 inadmissible aliens from entering the United States.
Let me just pause on that for a moment, and offer that is a number that
we need to monitor more closely as we determine levels of control or
security of our borders. Further, in my view it also needs to be
included in the calculus as we measure effectiveness and not just focus
on apprehensions by CBP between the POEs, which during the same period
was just under 365,000.
To achieve the level of control that we have today, and since the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security, our Government has
deployed historic levels of increased personnel, infrastructure, and
technology. Border Patrol personnel are at the highest level in
history. Currently, over 21,000 Border Patrol Agents are accountable
for protecting both the Northern and Southern Borders. In 2003, there
was just over 10,000 agents, and, I would posit, the benefit has been
realized by this much-needed increase in personnel. For infrastructure,
CBP personnel are supported by 651 miles of fencing that has greatly
mitigated the threat of vehicle drive-throughs that once happened with
great frequency in very porous parts of the Southwest Border. Tactical
roads have been constructed and complemented with high-intensity
lighting so that our agents are able to extend patrols to remote areas
and do so in a more effective fashion than before and thereby
increasing officer safety. CBPs situational awareness has also been
greatly improved due to historic levels of technology successfully
deployed. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) now routinely patrol our
border and are complemented by a wide range of other ground, truck, or
tower-mounted sensors so that CBP personnel are more adept at being to
detect and identify more threats as they approach our border and also,
increase the probability apprehension of people looking to enter
illegally or those smuggling contraband across our borders.
Although the border is more secure than it has ever been in recent
history, none of us are satisfied, as we recognize that there is much
more that needs to be done in order to achieve a comprehensive border
security plan. We need to address the changing threat landscape and be
prepared not only for where the threat is today, but anticipate where
it will shift in the coming months and years. It goes without saying
that our adversaries are constantly adapting and adjusting to our
strategies so the U.S. Government needs to be as flexible and
convertible in our response to the ever-changing patterns of smuggling.
As the House and the Senate consider approaches to border security, I
would respectfully advise that this point needs to be carefully
considered as we make the wisest investment decisions we possibly can
with the shrinking budget dollars available. It is not about mandating
response requirements based on today's threat, but more about a risk
environment that is always changing.
For example, the most recent Senate bill authorized doubling the
current number of Border Patrol Agents. From my experience, a more
prudent first step would be to evaluate how the current deployment of
personnel is being utilized, and determine, through a review of well-
established resource allocation models, how to reassign agents to where
the threat has moved versus what appears to be arbitrary increases.
Further, while in the end there will likely be the need for some
marginal increases in Border Patrol Agents, other critical law
enforcement positions need to be thoughtfully considered such as: CBP
Officers to address the increased threat at the POEs, pilots to fly
planes and personnel to captain the boats to address the shifting
threat into the maritime domain. Another reason to study personnel
needs very closely is that resources are an expensive and a long-term
commitment. Finally, it would be my recommendation that as personnel
needs are identified, and as Congress considers resources for border
security, the Executive branch of government be given the latitude to
make the determination of where personnel are to be stationed and also
determine which types of positions are most needed to respond most
effectively to a shifting threat environment.
The Senate bill also provides for the construction of additional
fencing. As with resources, here too is another area where thoughtful
consideration is required to fully determine what is actually needed.
In preparation for the ``Secure Fencing Act of 2006,'' a meticulous
mile-by-mile survey was conducted to ascertain whether adding fencing
would be a useful addition to the security landscape and, an analysis
of alternatives (more personnel or technology) included to determine
how best to address the threat. Tactical fence effectively deters,
stops, or slows the ability of unauthorized entry across the border and
the result of the study in 2006 was a subsequent proposal to build 651
miles of fence. Before allowing additional fencing to be built, it
makes sense to follow that same mile-by-mile analysis today to ensure
that it is the best use of resources or consider more investment in
technology that is perhaps more transportable and able to be relocated
against our shifting threat.
At this time, legislation has also been proposed that supports the
inclusion of a metric to gauge visibility and control of the border by
quantifying apprehensions into a percentage demonstrating
effectiveness. The proposed formula suggests that border security
success can be measured by the number of apprehensions divided by the
total number of illegal crossings into the United States. As I can
attest, across the 4 decades I spent in Government, there have been
numerous studies inside and outside of Government commissioned to try
and determine the ``flow'' or ``getaway'' rates, all of which have not
succeeded. At least to this point in time, there is no proven
methodology to definitively know how many illegal migrants successfully
entered the United States. Regardless, the aforementioned apprehensions
will still be a critical measure but other metrics need to be
considered such as: Intelligence indicators, displacing current
patterns of smuggling, local border crime rates, and other relevant
third-party measures. However, while this is being debated we should
stipulate that while more needs to be done to increase security at our
borders, it should not be a barrier to producing a comprehensive bill.
Another important aspect of border security may not be as obvious
and in this case, it is important to address what motivates illegal
immigration. Many illegal migrants come to the United States to find
employment and there is currently no system in place to deter their
hiring. A successful immigration bill must include a mandatory E-Verify
program. Not only would this decrease the flow of people coming to the
United States illegally, it would also allow border agents to focus on
more serious criminal and smuggling organizations. In addition, it will
drive more effective employment eligibility compliance by employers and
help ICE concentrate its finite resources on those who deliberately
disregard the law. If a mandatory program is implemented, it should be
done in a thoughtful manner with an emphasis on accuracy and real-time
updating. If implemented correctly, it will help target investigations,
deter illegal employment at the employer and employee level and, I
submit, will reduce the illegal flow of economic migrants.
Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute my personal views
on such an important topic. I look forward to answering your questions
at this time.
Mrs. Miller. Well, I thank the gentleman for his testimony.
We look forward to the question period.
At this time, the Chairwoman recognizes Mr. Alden for his
testimony.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD ALDEN, BERNARD L. SCHWARTZ SENIOR FELLOW,
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Alden. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman and the
distinguished Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity
to testify.
My testimony today is drawn largely from research that we
have done over the past year with two distinguished economists,
Bryan Roberts and John Whitley, for the recent Council on
Foreign Relations paper you mentioned, ``Managing Illegal
Immigration: How Effective is Enforcement?''
Dr. Whitley is a senior fellow at the Institute for Defense
Analyses and was the former director of the Office of Program
Analysis and Evaluation at DHS.
Dr. Roberts, who is with me here today, is senior economist
at Econometrica, formerly assistant director of borders and
immigration at PA&E.
I am the author of the 2008 book, ``The Closing of the
American Border,'' which examined U.S. efforts to strengthen
border security in the aftermath of 9/11, and I was also the
project director for the 2009 CFR, Independent Task Force on
U.S. Immigration Policy.
I have four points.
First, U.S. border enforcement has become increasingly
effective, and there is little question that entering the
United States illegally across the land borders is far more
difficult and dangerous than ever before. The U.S. Government
is now 2 decades into an ambitious border build-up that is
clearly producing results in terms of deterring illegal entry
and apprehending a greater percentage of those who try.
Second, the current challenge is one of improving
effectiveness rather than simply increasing resources. For many
years the U.S. Border Patrol was badly under-resourced, but
that is no longer the case. While additional resources may
indeed be needed, the focus should be on producing results
rather than simply increasing inputs.
Third, the metrics for assessing progress need to be
improved. DHS has made a significant strategic error in failing
to develop, share, and publicize better performance measures
for border security. Congress has an opportunity to rectify
that error.
Finally, the U.S. Government has many tools for
discouraging illegal immigration. Better workplace enforcement,
tracking of visa overstays, and larger and more flexible legal
entry programs for lower skilled immigrants are all likely to
do more to reduce future illegal inflows than additional
investments in border enforcement.
Illegal entry has fallen sharply over the past decade and
the U.S. Border Patrol has become better at apprehending those
who try to enter. Our research used several methodologies for
calculating apprehension rates for illegal border crossers
between the ports of entry and the number of successfully
illegal entries.
Each of these methods showed a significant increase in the
probability of apprehension over the past decade and a
significant decline in the number of illegal entries. While the
trends are positive, it is difficult to assess the precise
contribution of border enforcement to reducing illegal inflows.
The deep U.S. recession and the slow recovery would have
reduced illegal migration regardless of increased enforcement.
The most recent research suggests that the great recession,
improvements in the Mexican economy, and border enforcement
intensification each accounted for about one-third of the
decrease.
How much more can be done through border enforcement?
As I said, the Border Patrol was underfunded for many years
and was incapable of responding to the surge in illegal
migration that we saw beginning in the mid-1960s. In response
to rising complaints from border States, mainly California and
Texas, we saw that change in the mid-1990s and there have
indeed, as we have discussed, been big increases in the number
of agents and appropriations for border enforcement.
S. 744 would authorize another near doubling of Border
Patrol agents, hundreds of miles of new pedestrian fencing, and
much greater surveillance capabilities at a cost of some $46
billion.
While additional surveillance would be welcome, this huge
addition of resources is not one envisioned by current Border
Patrol strategic plans. Inputs are also a poor proxy for
effectiveness. More Government spending is not a measure of
accomplishment. The Government Performance and Results Act and
it is in the Modernization Act of that act in 2010 seeks to
make Federal agencies more accountable for results, in part
through reporting performance measures.
The failure by DHS to provide those performance measures
has made it extremely difficult for Congress to assess progress
towards key border security goals and to set realistic
performance goals for the future.
Congress needs to work with the Border Patrol, with Customs
and Border Protection officials to improve data collection and
performance reporting and to strengthen enforcement outcomes.
H.R. 1417 has a number of positive measures including
requirements that DHS implement a comprehensive set of metrics
for measuring security, at and in between ports of entry,
including effectiveness rates for illegal migration and drug
seizures. The legislation also calls for external evaluation of
metrics and progress.
Finally, to conclude, border enforcement--and this
reinforces Commissioner Ahern's points--border enforcement
cannot be looked at in isolation. The decision to migrate
illegally is a result of many factors including the likelihood
of finding employment at a higher wage, greater security,
reunification with family, and the lack of legal immigration or
temporary work alternatives.
Stronger border enforcement is only one of many factors
that may deter a migrant from attempting illegal entry and
probably not the most significant one. Larger legal programs
would likely reduce illegal immigration and so, too,
discouraging employers from hiring unauthorized workers would
reduce the incentive to migrate illegally.
Any decision to increase border enforcement should be
weighed against other alternatives for reducing illegal
immigration. In a major 2009 study, for instance, Stanford's
Lawrence Wein and his colleagues suggested that additional
workplace enforcement was likely at this point to be about
twice as effective as additional border enforcement in
deterring future illegal migration.
I thank you and I would be happy to respond to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward Alden
July 23, 2013
I want to thank Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and
the distinguished Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to
testify today on this very important topic.
The testimony that follows is drawn largely from research I have
been conducting over the past year with two distinguished economists,
Bryan Roberts and John Whitley, for a recent Council on Foreign
Relations paper entitled Managing Illegal Immigration to the United
States: How Effective is Enforcement? Dr. Whitley is a senior fellow at
the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the former director of the
Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) at the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), where he led the resource allocation process
and the measurement, reporting, and improvement of performance. Dr.
Roberts is senior economist at Econometrica, the current president of
the National Economists Club, and formerly assistant director of
Borders and Immigration in PA&E at DHS. I am the author of the 2008
book The Closing of the American Border, which examined U.S. efforts to
strengthen border security in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, and I was the project director for the 2009 Council on Foreign
Relations Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, which was
co-chaired by former White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and former
Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
I will make four points in my testimony.
First, U.S. border enforcement has become increasingly effective,
and there is little question that entering the United States illegally
across the land borders has become far more difficult and dangerous
than ever before. The U.S. Government is now 2 decades into an
ambitious border build-up that clearly is producing results in terms of
deterring illegal entry and apprehending a greater percentage of those
who try.
Second, the current challenge is one of improving effectiveness
rather than simply increasing resources. For many years the U.S. Border
Patrol was badly under-resourced, but that is no longer the case. While
additional resources may be needed, the focus should be on producing
results rather than simply increasing inputs.
Third, the metrics for assessing progress in border enforcement are
under-developed and need to be improved. The Department of Homeland
Security made a significant strategic error over the past several years
in failing to develop, share, and publicize better performance measures
for border security. Congress has an opportunity to rectify that error
and put the border control mission on a more solid foundation for the
future.
Finally, the U.S. Government has many tools for discouraging
illegal immigration, and border enforcement needs to be seen as just
one among many. Better workplace enforcement, more effective tracking
of visa overstays, as well as larger and more flexible legal entry
programs for lower skilled immigrants are all likely to show greater
returns in reducing illegal inflows than are large additional
investments in border enforcement.
Border security is always going to be a subjective question. There
is no such thing as perfect security, and the question for policymakers
is always going to be a difficult one of trading off costs and
benefits. And in the border environment, there are many different
security issues--illegal crossings by economic migrants, drug
smuggling, gang violence, the sanctity of property, and the danger of
infiltration by terrorists or serious criminals.
Our research has focused on the issue of illegal entry by migrants,
and this remains the primary focus of the debate over border security.
Many in Congress and among the public are concerned that a
comprehensive immigration reform bill will be followed, as it was after
the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), by another surge in
illegal migration to the United States.\1\ As a consequence, Congress
is currently searching for ways to ensure continued progress on border
security, as reflected in the approaches taken by the Senate in S. 744,
the recently passed Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and
Immigration Modernization Act, and by this committee in H.R. 1417, the
Border Security Results Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Edward Alden, ``Winning the Next Immigration Battle: Amnesty,
Patrols, and the Future of U.S. Borders,'' ForeignAffairs.com, February
11, 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
progress on border enforcement
Illegal entry to the United States has fallen sharply over the past
decade, and the U.S. Border Patrol has become more effective in
apprehending those who try to enter illegally. Our research used
several methodologies for calculating apprehension rates for illegal
crossers between the ports of entry and the number of successful
illegal entries. Each of the methods shows a significant increase in
the probability of apprehension over the past decade, and a significant
decline in the number of illegal entries. A recent paper by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS), based in part on data shared with
CRS by the Department of Homeland Security, showed similar results.\2\
The CRS said that ``illegal inflows likely were lower in 2007-2012 than
at any other point in the last three decades.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Marc R. Rosenblum, ``Border Security: Immigration Enforcement
Between Ports of Entry,'' Congressional Research Service, May 3, 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The declining numbers of those attempting illegal entry has allowed
the Border Patrol to deal more effectively with those it apprehends.
Until quite recently, most Mexican nationals were voluntarily returned
to Mexico, and Border Patrol records based on fingerprint
identifications showed that many simply tried again to enter. At an
apprehension rate of 50 or 60 percent, multiple entry attempts by a
single individual would likely prove successful. An individual who
faced a one in two chance of arrest, for instance, would have an 88
percent chance of succeeding if he or she made three attempts. The odds
of successful entry on multiple attempts only go down sharply when
apprehension rates are 70 percent or higher.
In an effort to deter such repeated attempts, the Border Patrol in
recent years has greatly expanded its ``Consequence Delivery System,''
so that most of those apprehended in the vicinity of the border face a
penalty more severe than simply voluntary return. These consequences
include expedited removal (which imposes a 5-year ban on any legal re-
entry to the United States and criminal charges if the individual is
caught again entering illegally); criminal charges and jail time, most
notably through Operation Streamline; and remote repatriation, in which
Mexicans arrested near the border are either flown back to their home
towns in Mexico or are returned in distant border regions (i.e.,
someone arrested in Arizona is returned to Mexico across the border in
Texas).
According to data released by DHS to the CRS, voluntary returns
have fallen from 77 percent of all enforcement outcomes in fiscal year
2005 (956,470 out of 1,238,554 apprehensions) to just 14 percent in
fiscal year 2012 (76,664 out of 529,393).\3\ The consequence programs
appear to have had a significant impact in reducing multiple entry
attempts. In fiscal year 2012, more than 27 percent of those returned
voluntarily were arrested a second time; in comparison, re-arrests for
those who faced a consequence ranged from just 3.8 percent to 23.8
percent, suggesting that these individuals were deterred from
subsequent illegal entry attempts.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Ibid. The number of ``enforcement outcomes'' exceeds the number
of annual apprehensions because some aliens face more than one outcome,
such as formal removal along with lateral repatriation. In addition,
certain aliences apprehended in one fiscal year do not complete their
case processing until the following years.
\4\ Of the different consequences, formal removal after a notice to
appear in court was the most effective in reducing multiple attempts,
with just a 3.8% recidivism rate in fiscal year 2012. This may be a
reflection of the fact that most of those so removed are from countries
other than Mexico, and would face a long return trip to the border to
make a subsequent attempt. Criminal charges were also associated with
recidivism rates of 10% or less. The least effective consequence was
lateral repatriation to another sector of the border, which produced a
23.8% recidivism rate in 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the trends are unquestionably positive, it is difficult to
assess the precise contribution of border enforcement to reducing
illegal inflows. Researchers have long known that illegal immigration
is far more responsive than legal immigration to the state of the
economy and to employment opportunities.\5\ Legal migrants--who often
wait many years for their green cards--are likely to come to the United
States whenever the opportunity finally presents itself, regardless of
economic conditions. Unauthorized migrants, however, tend to follow job
opportunities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ See Gordon H. Hanson, The Economic Logic of Illegal
Immigration, Council on Foreign Relations Special Report No. 26, March
2007.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The collapse of the U.S. housing market, the spike in unemployment
during the 2008-0909 recession and the slow recovery since would all
have reduced illegal migration to the United States regardless of U.S.
enforcement measures. In addition, somewhat better growth in the
Mexican economy, which recovered more strongly from the recession than
did the United States, has also increased employment opportunities in
Mexico, which remains the largest source of illegal migration to the
United States. The population of young men aged 15-24, the cohort that
is most likely to migrate illegally, has also leveled off in Mexico and
Central America as birthrates have fallen. Disentangling the effects of
enforcement from these broader economic forces is challenging.
Recent research, however, indicates that the enforcement build-up
has had an impact in deterring illegal migration. A 2012 study by a
team of experts assembled by the National Research Council, for
example, concluded that ``studies of migration tend to find evidence of
small but significant deterrent effects of border enforcement.''\6\
Empirical analysis of law enforcement specifically for unauthorized
migrants is lacking, but empirical studies of law enforcement more
broadly show significant deterrent effects on illegal behavior.\7\ To
determine whether a potential migrant is deterred from illegal entry,
data are needed both on potential migrants who decided to migrate and
those who decided not to, and on the various factors potentially
influencing their decision. Such analysis is challenging to carry out
in terms of data availability and technical issues. The most recent
research on deterrence has been conducted by Scott Borger, Gordon
Hanson, and Bryan Roberts, who use data from the Mexican national
household survey for 2002 to 2010.\8\ They identified individuals who
migrated from Mexico and those who did not, developed measures of
economic prospects in the United States and in Mexico, assessed U.S.
border enforcement and the ease of migrating legally, and estimated the
degree to which these factors affected whether an individual decided to
migrate illegally in this period. Preliminary results suggest that the
Great Recession, improvements in the Mexican economy, and border
enforcement intensification were all significant influences on the
downturn in illegal immigration since 2003, and that each of these
factors may have accounted for roughly one-third of the decrease. These
results suggest that enforcement in recent years has had a more
significant effect than previous research had concluded.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Alicia Carriquiry and Malay Majmundar, eds., Options for
Estimating Illegal Entries at the U.S.-Mexico Border, National Academy
of Sciences, 2012.
\7\ See Steven Levitt and Thomas Miles, ``Empirical Study of
Criminal Punishment,'' in Mitchell A. Polinsky and Steven Shavell eds.,
Handbook of Law and Economics, Vol. 1, 2007.
\8\ See Scott Borger, Gordon Hanson, and Bryan Roberts, ``The
Decision to Emigrate from Mexico,'' presentation at 2012 Society of
Government Economists annual conference, Washington, DC, 2012.
\9\ The research has not yet been finalized due to the authors
losing access to internal DHS apprehension record data in mid-2012.
Researchers need data from individual apprehension records maintained
by DHS in order to properly analyze illegal immigration into the United
States. DHS has publicly disseminated all data needed by researchers
from these records except the ``fingerprint identification number,''
which is the number assigned to records for the same individual as
determined from examination of fingerprints. The fingerprint
identification number is what permits recidivism analysis to be carried
out. As this number is an arbitrary designation and cannot be used to
identify an individual, reasons for not disseminating this information
to the researcher community are unclear. For additional discussion on
the need for DHS to provide more extensive access to administrative
record data, see Carriquiry and Majmundar, Options for Estimating
Illegal Entries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
are more border enforcement resources needed?
There is no question that the U.S. Border Patrol was underfunded
for many decades, and that the lack of resources made it very difficult
to take effective actions when illegal migration to the United States
began rising sharply in the mid-1960s. Little was done to redress this
problem until the mid-1990s, when growing complaints from border States
such as California and Texas finally forced Federal action. The
response since then, however, has been dramatic. Border Patrol manpower
more than doubled in the late 1990s and then again in the late 2000s to
the current level of just over 21,000 agents. Fencing grew somewhat in
the 1990s and then dramatically starting in 2006. Currently 651 miles
of the 1,969-mile Southwest Border are fenced. The Border Patrol also
makes use of many types of infrastructure and equipment, including
sensors, night vision equipment, camera towers, patrol vehicles, river
patrol boats, manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, and horses. After
decades of underfunding, the Border Patrol now enjoys access to
resources that better correspond to the demands of its missions.
Appropriations for the Border Patrol have increased by roughly 750
percent since 1989, to a current level of $3.7 billion.
S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration
Modernization Act, would authorize roughly another doubling of border
enforcement resources over the next decade. The bill authorizes the
expenditure of an additional $46.3 billion over the next 10 years, with
$30 billion to be spent on adding an additional 19,200 Border Patrol
agents, and the rest spent primarily on additional pedestrian fencing
and border surveillance technology. The bill specifies those technology
acquisitions on a sector-by-sector basis, though it permits the
Secretary of Homeland Security to reallocate personnel, infrastructure,
and technology to achieve effective control of the Southern Border, and
permits the acquisition of alternative technologies deemed equally
effective.
This huge addition of resources is not one envisioned by current
Border Patrol strategic plans. While the strategy developed in 2004 was
a resource-based one that focused on achieving ``operational control''
of the border through increases in agents and technology, the most
recent May 2012 strategy has switched from resource acquisition and
deployment to strategic allocation of resources to allow for rapid
responses to emerging threats. Additional surveillance assets are an
important part of carrying out this strategy, but big increases in
manpower are likely not necessary.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ See the description in Rosenblum, Marc R., ``Border Security:
Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of Entry.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inputs are also a poor proxy for effectiveness. The primary
outcomes for law enforcement activity are the rates at which laws under
their jurisdiction are broken--the goal of law enforcement, in other
words, is to reduce the crime rate. Additional resources are often
needed to achieve that goal, but the addition of resources is not in
itself a measure of accomplishment. The use of data to drive law
enforcement strategy and execution has become standard in many local
police departments. New York City pioneered the effort in 1994 with its
crime statistics database, CompStat, which requires precinct commanders
to report statistics for all crimes on a weekly basis, with the clear
goal of bringing down crime rates.\11\ The results are compared with
crime statistics over previous periods, and that data is shared in real
time with the public. The Department of Homeland Security and other
agencies with responsibility for immigration enforcement, such as the
Department of Justice and the State Department, need the same kind of
data-driven revolution in which the focus shifts from inputs to
results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ For a more detailed discussion, see John Whitley, ``Five
Methods for Measuring Unobserved Events: A Case Study of Federal Law
Enforcement,'' IBM Center for Business and Government, 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The focus on inputs rather than outcomes is not a problem unique to
immigration enforcement. In K-12 education, for instance, the United
States spends as much on education as most other advanced countries and
more than many, but its relative performance has been slipping for
decades.\12\ In education, the measures of success for many years were
input-based ones like the student-teacher ratio, rather than
performance-based measures like the achievement levels of students.
John Bridgeland and Peter Orszag, who held senior regulatory posts in
the Bush and Obama administrations respectively, wrote recently that a
rough calculation shows that ``less than $1 out of every $100 of
Government spending is backed by even the most basic evidence that the
money is being spent wisely.'' Far too little research is conducted,
they argue, to evaluate the effectiveness of Government programs, and
whether expenditures are actually achieving the desired goals. They
conclude that ``the first (and easiest) step is simply collecting more
information on what works and what doesn't.''\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See Rebecca Strauss, Remedial Education: Federal Education
Policy Progress Report and Scorecard, Council on Foreign Relations,
June 2013.
\13\ John Bridgeland and Peter Orszag, ``Can Government Play
Moneyball?'' Atlantic, July/August 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), and its recent
reissue as the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, seeks to make Federal
agencies more accountable for results, in part through reporting
performance measures, which are quantified results related to inputs,
outputs, and outcomes. Inputs are the resources that agencies expend in
their operations and are the easiest to measure. Outputs are immediate
results of agency programs and are also frequently relatively easy to
measure and report. Outcomes are related to the ultimate goals of what
agency programs are trying to achieve. Agencies are required by law to
report performance measures to the public and do so in annual
performance and accountability reports.
performance measures
In order to assess the effectiveness of border enforcement
measures, the U.S. Government needs to collect and share better data,
with Congress, the public, and the external research community. While
illegal immigration is complex and difficult to manage, the basic
framework in which illegal immigration occurs can be simply illustrated
in the diagram below.
figure 1. illegal immigration framework
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Visitors and immigrants are permitted to enter the United States
legally at ports of entry, including airports, seaports, and land ports
on the borders with Mexico and Canada. What the diagram shows is that
unauthorized immigrants can enter in one of three ways: Through the
ports of entry, by presenting false documents or evading the screening
process (i.e., in the trunk of a car); crossing illegally between the
ports of entry; or by arriving on a legal visa and then overstaying
that visa or otherwise violating its terms to remain in the United
States illegally. Unauthorized immigrants can similarly depart in one
of three ways: They can leave voluntarily; they can be arrested and
removed; or they can adjust to legal status.\14\ If more unauthorized
immigrants arrive than depart, then the stock of illegal immigrants
grows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Individuals could also die in the United States while in
unauthorized status.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In order to enforce the laws and manage illegal migration
successfully, the United States Government needs to know what is going
on in each of these boxes. Ideally, the Government should be measuring
and reporting numbers for each. The following table, however--in which
the items under ``Outcome'' correspond to each of the nine boxes in the
diagram--show what was actually reported by DHS in its most recent
Annual Performance Report.
TABLE 1.--PERFORMANCE REPORTING AT DHS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Year 2011
Outcome Performance Annual Performance
Measures Report\1\
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Illegal entry between ports..... number of none.
attempted illegal
entries.
number of partial.
apprehensions.
apprehension rate. none.
number of none.
successful
entried.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Illegal entry at ports.......... number of illegal none.
entried.
number of none.
apprehensions \2\.
apprehension rate. none.
number of none.
successful
illegal entries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visa overstay................... number of new visa none.
overstayers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Illegal immigrants resident in number of illegal none.
the United States. immigrants
resident in the
United States.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Voluntary departure............. number of illegal none.
immigrants
leaving of their
own accord.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Law enforcement removal......... number of illegal partial.
migrants removed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deaths and adjustments.......... number of illegal none.
immigrants who
dies or becam
legal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal immigration............... number of new H2A none.
and H2B visas
issued \2\.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This column indicates whether the performance measures was reported
by DHS in its fiscal year 2011-2013 Annual Performance Report.
\2\ Although not reported in the DHS Annual Performance Report, some
data on these measures are available from other sources.
Source: Authors' calculations based on DHS's fiscal year 2011-2013
Annual Perfomance Report.
The failure of the Department to provide the necessary performance
measures has made it extremely difficult for Congress to assess
progress towards key border security goals, and to set realistic
performance benchmarks for the future. To take just two examples, in
May 2011 DHS announced that it was developing a ``Border Conditions
Index'' (BCI) that would assess the state of security in different
regions of the border using measures such as illegal flows, wait times
at ports of entry, and crime and public safety in the border region.
But as this subcommittee was recently told by DHS, the Department has
still not finalized the index and has offered no time table for its
release. Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has
promised Congress since 2011 to produce and publish a country-by-
country list of the number of visa overstays, based on US-VISIT entry
records and airline passenger departure records. Visa overstays are
thought historically to account for as much as 40 percent of the
unauthorized population in the United States. Research by demographer
Robert Warren suggests that the number of new overstays has dropped
sharply over the past decade.\15\ But DHS has yet to release any of its
own data on this critical issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Robert Warren and John Robert Warren, ``A Review of the
Declining Numbers of Visa Overstays in the U.S. from 2000 to 2009,''
Center for Migration Studies, 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some encouraging signs of progress, however. CBP and the
Border Patrol have shown a growing commitment to improving data
collection and disseminating the results. The Government Accountability
Office in December 2012 published a detailed report based on data
collected by Border Patrol Agents in the field from 2006 to 2011.\16\
These data include apprehensions, estimated ``got-aways'' (crossers
known or suspected to have evaded apprehension and entered the United
States), and estimated ``turn-backs'' (crossers who returned to Mexican
territory before being apprehended). Estimates of got-aways and turn-
backs are based on direct visual observation by agents in the field,
visual observation through cameras, physical evidence of movement
(collection of which is known as ``sign cutting''), and information
from local residents believed to be credible. Methods used to collect
known-flow data are not standardized across Border Patrol sectors, and
results for sectors cannot be compared, but the Border Patrol has been
working to standardize collection methods.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Government Accountability Office, Border Patrol: Key Elements
of New Strategic Plan Not Yet in Place to Inform Border Security Status
and Resource Needs, GAO-13-25, December 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GAO report based on Border Patrol data shows significant
progress on a sector-by-sector basis over the past 5 years. In the San
Diego sector, for instance, the number of ``got-aways'' fell from
52,216 in 2006 to just 4,553 in 2011; in the Tucson sector in Arizona,
got-aways fell from more than 207,000 in 2006 to just 25,376 in 2011.
In the sectors that see the largest number of crossings, the
``effectiveness rate'' (the percentage of illegal crossers who are
either apprehended or turned back) is quite high--91 percent in the San
Diego sector, 87 percent in the Tucson sector, and 84 percent in the
Laredo sector. The Rio Grande Valley sector in southern Texas, which
has seen an influx of unauthorized migrants from Central America
transiting through Mexico, had the lowest effectiveness rate at 71
percent. Border Patrol chief Michael Fisher testified to this
subcommittee in February that his goal is to achieve 90 percent
effectiveness in all high-traffic corridors along the Southwest Border.
The Border Patrol is also planning to using aerial and ground
surveillance technologies to produce random, statistically valid
samples of illegal entries along the border, including in remote,
lightly-trafficked corridors where Border Patrol agents are less likely
to observe unauthorized traffic. These samples should improve
significantly the accuracy of estimates of successful illegal entries.
On visa overstays, DHS has made significant progress in matching
overseas air arrivals to departures. Airlines are required to share all
data on departing U.S. passengers, and DHS on a daily basis matches
these departure records with arrival information recorded through the
US-VISIT system. If records cannot be matched for an individual whose
visa has expired, that individual is designated as an ``unvetted
potential overstay,'' and US-VISIT assigns an adjudicator to check
other databases to determine whether the person has departed. Until
recently this has been challenging because of name match difficulties
arising when an individual uses multiple passports, and because there
was no automatic link to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) databases to determine if an individual had sought to adjust
status and remain lawfully in the United States. DHS is now generating
on a daily basis a list of potential overstays, and is vetting all
those individuals. Confirmed overstays will face revocation of their
visas or prohibitions on non-visa travel, and will be placed on
enforcement look-out lists.
Tracking land border exits remains an enormous challenge, but the
United States and Canada have been working as part of the Beyond the
Border initiative to share information on land border departures, which
would allow DHS to identify an individual who, for example, arrived by
air in New York but departed over the land border to Canada. The
initial phase of testing produced very positive results in terms of
matching records.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Department of Homeland Security/Canada Border Services Agency,
``Entry/Exit Information System Phase I Joint Canada-United States
Report,'' May 8, 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congress needs to work with the Border Patrol and CBP to improve
data collection and performance reporting, with the goal of continuing
to improve enforcement outcomes. H.R. 1417 has a number of positive
measures in this regard, including requirements that the Secretary of
Homeland Security implement a comprehensive set of metrics for
measuring the effectiveness of security at and between ports of entry,
including effectiveness rates for illegal migration and drug seizures.
The legislation also calls for external evaluation of metrics and
progress by the Government Accountability Office, the Comptroller
General and outside research organizations. The U.S. Government should
measure and report the full range enforcement outcomes in a timely
fashion, and share those measures as broadly as possible.
a comprehensive approach
Border enforcement cannot be looked at in isolation. The decision
that an individual makes to migrate illegally is the result of many
factors, including the likelihood of finding employment at a higher
wage, greater security, reunification with family, and existence or
lack of legal immigration or temporary work alternatives. Stronger
border enforcement--which makes illegal crossings more dangerous and
costly--is only one of many factors that may deter a migrant from
attempting illegal entry.
Consider the following thought experiment. If the United States
were to remove all quotas on legal immigration, the problem of illegal
immigration would disappear overnight. By definition, anyone with the
wherewithal to board a plane or take a bus and arrive in the United
States would be a legal resident. There would be no need for any form
of immigration enforcement. Consider the converse. If the United States
were to eliminate all legal immigration, the problem of illegal
immigration would become orders of magnitude larger. The Government
would need a far bigger immigration enforcement effort simply to keep
down the number of unauthorized migrants. Neither of these extremes is
plausible, of course, but they underscore the interconnected nature of
any effort at reforming U.S. immigration laws. Larger legal programs,
particularly for unskilled workers who have few legal alternatives for
coming to the United States, would likely reduce illegal immigration.
So too, more effective means to discourage employers from hiring
unauthorized workers would reduce the incentive to migrate illegally.
One of the many lessons from the failure of the 1986 IRCA was that the
absence of effective worksite enforcement and a legal immigration path
for most unskilled Mexicans and Central Americans were probably
significant contributors to the surge in unauthorized migration in the
1990s. IRCA was in some ways the least optimal policy conceivable for
deterring illegal migration. It coupled weak enforcement at the
workplace and at the border with strict quotas on unskilled workers
that allowed few legal options for migration.
Thus any decision to increase border enforcement should ideally be
weighed against other alternatives for reducing illegal immigration.
Unfortunately, good cost-benefit measures are not currently available,
which makes it difficult for policy-makers to make optimal choices. It
is likely, for example, that the payoff from an additional dollar spent
on workplace enforcement at this point in time would be be larger than
the payoff from an additional dollar spent on border enforcement. The
Border Patrol is currently apprehending 50 percent or more of would-be
illegal crossers, and the number of illegal entry attempts has fallen
sharply; in some sectors, the average Border Patrol Agents is making
only a handful of arrests per year. In comparison, just 7 percent of
U.S. employers are currently enrolled in the E-Verify system to check
the legal status of new hires, and only 385 employers were fined in
fiscal year 2011 for hiring violations.\18\ The deterrence gains from
better workplace enforcement are thus likely to be greater than the
deterrence gains from still more border enforcement. In a major 2009
study, Stanford's Lawrence Wein and his colleagues suggested that
additional workplace enforcement was likely to be about twice as
effective as additional border enforcement in deterring future illegal
migration.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ See Andorra Bruno, Immigration-Related Worksite Enforcement:
Performance Measures, Congressional Research Service, May 10, 2012.
\19\ Lawrence M. Wein, Yifan Liu, and Arik Motskin, ``Analyzing the
Homeland Security of the U.S.-Mexico Border,'' Risk Analysis, vol. 29,
no. 5, 2009, pp. 699-713.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Larger legal immigration or temporary work programs, especially for
lower-skilled workers who currently have fewer legal migration options,
are also likely to dissuade illegal migration. In the 1950s, for
example, the decision by the Eisenhower administration to double to
400,000 the quota for Mexican workers under the bracero temporary
worker program appears to have had a significant impact in keeping
illegal immigration low for more than a decade. Following the
elimination of that program in 1965, illegal immigration immediately
began to climb and remained at high levels until the second half of the
2000s.
Making better judgments about the effectiveness of different
measures in reducing illegal migration is especially important when
budgetary resources are scarce, which is likely to be the situation
confronting DHS and other Government agencies for many years. For the
first decade of its existence, Congress threw so much money at DHS that
it was rarely forced to weigh costs against benefits and make difficult
decisions on resource deployment. That is no longer the case.
None of these is, of course, mutually exclusive. Congress may
choose an ``all of the above'' strategy. But it is important to
underscore that the impact of border enforcement on illegal migration
cannot be considered in isolation, and that border enforcement is only
one of many tools available to policymakers to reduce illegal
immigration.
Thank you, and I would be happy to respond to your questions.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentleman for his testimony.
At this time, the Chairwoman recognizes and again welcomes
back Mr. Stana for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD M. STANA, FORMER DIRECTOR, HOMELAND
SECURITY AND JUSTICE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Stana. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Miller. It is good
to be back before the subcommittee today to discuss my views
and perspectives on this specific border security area.
As you mentioned, I have retired from GAO and I need to say
my views expressed today are my own and I am not here
representing the GAO.
Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. Government has poured
billions of dollars into various border security measures in an
attempt to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and contraband
into our country.
On a typical day last year, CBP apprehended over 1,000
illegal immigrants and refused entry to 1,000 other travelers,
seized about 12,000 pounds of drugs and seized over $0.25
million of undeclared or illicit currency. Yet, entries of
illegal immigrants are still substantial and in some instances,
pose a risk to National security and cross-border trafficking
of illegal contraband continues to be problematic.
The lessons learned from previous experience can help
inform future legislative and agency actions and I would like
to share some observations and perspectives in a few areas.
Let's start with defining goals for border control and
establishing performance measures which are keys to ensuring
that border security efforts are effectively managed. DHS has
yet to establish measurable goals that would help it gauge
success and make appropriate operational and investment
decisions.
The Border Patrol uses changes in the number of
apprehensions and turn backs as an interim measure along with
other measures for illegal entrants and contraband, but these
serve to measure activity levels rather than success toward a
goal.
Some legislative proposals define border security as a 90
percent effectiveness rate defined as the sum of alien
apprehensions and turn-backs divided by total illegal entries.
The challenge here is how to reliably estimate the total
illegal entry of people and contraband when current Government
data and methods of measurement for unknowns lack the desired
precision and integrity.
Hopefully, data and estimation techniques will improve over
time and the total illegal entry figures will become more and
more reliable.
Now, let's turn to staffing issues. Several lessons can be
learned from past ramp-ups that could be considered in the
current debate. First, it is important to have a sound and
supportable basis for hiring any new Border Patrol agents
because expanding the force is costly and time-consuming. DHS
needs to know the extent that deploying large numbers of
additional agents would mitigate threats and vulnerabilities
versus other options.
Second, an adequate number of experienced supervisors is
needed to train large numbers of recruits at the Academy and
with on-the-job training in the sectors. In past ramp-ups, an
insufficient agent-to-supervisor ratio increased the risk of
training shortfalls and the risk of not detecting potential
corruption and unsuitability for the job.
Similar issues would confront the hiring and training of
additional CBP officers at the ports of entry. CBP was recently
several thousand officers short of the prescribed staffing
levels due to recruitment and retention issues, and CBP was not
able to ensure that its officers received the required on-the-
job training.
With respect to technology, in the last 20 years CBP
deployed billions of dollars worth of technology both at and
between the Southwest Border ports of entry. In both
environments, the results achieved have been mixed due to
issues with the capabilities of the technology, how it was
selected and deployed, its reliability and how it was used by
the officers and agents.
In overseeing technology acquisitions, DHS needs to ensure
that the underlying assumptions and requirements for technology
are transparent and sound. The metrics for indicating its
contribution and success are in place. The intersection of
technology and staffing inputs, that is the force multiplier
effect we have heard about, is factored in and flexibility in
deployment is provided should illegal migration patterns
change.
Turning to infrastructure, nearly $3 billion was spent to
construct about 700 miles of pedestrian and/or vehicle fencing
along the Southwest Border and millions more are spent annually
for maintenance and repair.
Although the fencing appears to have been useful, DHS
hasn't evaluated the impact of this investment and whether the
cost of additional fencing would yield a suitable return versus
other possible investments.
Among the factors that need to be considered are the extent
to which additional fencing would mitigate threats and
vulnerabilities, the cost-effectiveness of various fencing
design, terrain environmental concern, and whether any required
land acquisition cost would change the cost-benefit analysis.
In closing, while the subject of today's hearing is on
border security, these and other issues need to be assessed in
the context of a holistic framework if immigration control and
reform efforts are to yield an efficient, effective,
economical, and sustainable result.
In this regard, estimates show that roughly 40 percent to
50 percent of the illegal immigrant population is made up of
people who entered the United States legally and overstayed
their visa. Many illegal immigrants are drawn to the United
States for work and eventually find jobs with employers who
have come to rely on this labor pool with little likelihood of
incurring fines and sanctions.
To what extent might the broader illegal immigration
problem be addressed by devoting more resources to interior
enforcement and an E-Verify system rather than substantially
increasing staffing and other resources at the border.
Achieving an appropriate balance between border and
interior enforcement could help create a credible framework for
deterring those considering illegal entry and overstay.
I would be happy to answer any questions the Members may
have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stana follows:]
Prepared Statement of Richard M. Stana
July 23, 2013
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and Members of the
subcommittee: I am pleased to be back before the subcommittee today to
discuss my observations and perspectives on selected border security
issues. In my previous appearances before the subcommittee I discussed
GAO products under my supervision as director for homeland security and
justice issues. I retired from GAO about 18 months ago and although
some of the information I cite is drawn from GAO products, I am not
speaking on behalf of GAO and the observations and perspectives I
present are my own.
The immigration system is highly complex, with lots of moving parts
that are necessarily connected and interrelated. Today I will focus my
remarks on only one facet of this complex system--that of immigration
enforcement--and within that facet, only on border security measures.
Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. Government has poured billions of
dollars into various border security measures in an attempt to stem the
flow of illegal immigration and contraband into our country. These
efforts started with initiatives in the El Paso and San Diego sectors
where about 60 percent of apprehensions were made, then spread to other
sectors to address the shifts in illegal flows. The good news is that
as a result of these measures, millions of illegal travelers have been
turned away; millions of other travelers were apprehended on a variety
of charges, some serious; millions of pounds of illegal drugs were
apprehended; and millions of dollars in currency was seized. The bad
news is that even though apprehensions today are about one-third of the
950,000 apprehensions made in 2002, illegal entries of immigrants are
still substantial and in some instances pose a risk to National
security; travelers have shifted to dangerous terrains to attempt a
crossing, resulting in injury or death to untold numbers of people; and
cross-border trafficking of illegal contraband continues to be
problematic.
Various proposals that are now being considered by Congress contain
provisions that are aimed at better securing our Nation's borders. The
proposals differ in scope, emphasis, and levels of prescriptive
actions, which include the creation of goals and performance measures
as well as enhancements in enforcement staffing levels, technology, and
infrastructure which are expected to be part of the solution. Whether
Congress decides to specify certain measures or actions or decides to
leave such decisions to DHS, lessons learned from previous experience
can help inform legislative and agency actions regarding these issues.
I'd like to share some observations and perspectives about these
issues.
Let me start with goals and performance measurement. Defining goals
for border control and establishing performance measures for assessing
related efforts are among the key steps in ensuring that border
security efforts are effectively managed. The Secure Fence Act of 2006
defined border security as the ``prevention of all unlawful entries
into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful
aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.''
Every Secretary of Homeland Security has expressed the view that this
was an unreachable goal. Before 2011, the Border Patrol used a security
performance measure of border miles under operational control to assess
security between the ports of entry. This measure was intended to
reflect the Border Patrol's ability to deter or detect and apprehend
illegal entries at the border or after they occur. Since 2011, the
Border Patrol has used changes in the number of apprehensions between
the ports of entry on the Southwest Border as an interim measure for
border security. It also uses other data to inform this measure,
including the percentage of estimated known illegal entrants who are
apprehended, the percentage of estimated known illegal entrants who are
apprehended more than once (repeat offenders), and the number of
seizures of drugs and other contraband. DHS is still considering how
best to define and measure border security. Some legislative proposals
define border security as a 90 percent ``effectiveness rate'' defined
as the sum of alien apprehensions and turn-backs divided by total
illegal entries. This measure recognizes that a zero tolerance rate is
unrealistic, but the challenge is how to reliably estimate the total
illegal entries when current Government data and methods of measurement
for the ``unknowns'' lack the necessary precision and integrity.
Devising a way to validly assess progress toward meeting program goals
is necessary if DHS is to make appropriate operational and investment
decisions. Such performance measurement would also help the Congress
decide whether the outcomes are acceptable and the next steps in the
immigration reform arena can be taken. Hopefully, data and estimation
techniques will improve over time and the total illegal entries figure
will become more reliable.
Now I'd like to discuss three types of resources necessary to
enhancing border security--staffing, technology, and infrastructure.
Let me start with staffing. Recent immigration reform proposals call
for hefty increases in Border Patrol staffing, which continues a trend
started about 20 years ago. In fact, the Border Patrol's 21,000-agent
force is double the number on board in 2006, and the roughly 3,000
agents now assigned to the Tucson sector alone is about equal to the
number that guarded our Southwestern and Northern Borders combined in
1994. Several lessons can be learned from past ramp-ups in staffing
that could be considered in the current debate. First, it is important
to have a sound and supportable basis for the number of new agents to
be hired and deployed to the border because expanding the force is
costly and time-consuming. CBP estimated in 2010 that the cost of
recruiting, hiring, training, equipping, and deploying one Border
Patrol agent was about $170,000. The time between the first interview
and agent deployment can be 6 months or more, and it takes several
recruits to eventually fill one agent opening because many candidates
are found to be not suitable for the job or drop out before being fully
trained and deployed. Ramping up the staff would also require
additional facilities at the Academy to train the agents and at the
Border Patrol sectors to accommodate their work activities. Further,
determining the extent to which deploying additional staff will
mitigate threats and vulnerabilities along the border, and the expected
benefits to be derived from the added costs of another ramp-up, are
important. Second, an adequate number of experienced agents is needed
to train large numbers of recruits at the Academy and to continue with
on-the-job training and supervision once new agents are assigned to the
sectors. In some past ramp-ups, an insufficient agent-to-supervisor
ratio increased the risk of on-the-job training shortfalls and the risk
that the Border Patrol supervisors would not be in a position to detect
potential corruption and the mishandling of illegal aliens by new
agents. Similar issues would confront the hiring and training of
additional CBP officers at the ports of entry. CBP was recently several
thousand officers short of the staffing levels prescribed by its
staffing models due to recruitment and retention issues, and CBP was
not able to ensure that its officers received required on-the-job
training. It is important to maintain an appropriate balance between
resources at and between the ports so any shifts in illegal activity
could be addressed.
Turning to technology, in the last 20 years CBP introduced
technology acquisitions valued in the billions of dollars as part of a
stepped-up enforcement strategy. At the ports of entry, X-rays, portal
monitors, and backscatter machines, as well as US-VISIT and pass card
readers, have enhanced the ability of CBP officers to detect the
illegal entry of individuals and contraband and have helped to balance
law enforcement and travel facilitation demands. Between the ports,
cameras, radar systems, sensors, X-rays, and drones have enhanced the
Border Patrol's ability to detect and deter illegal crossings and
contraband trafficking. But in both environments, the results achieved
by technology deployments have been mixed due to issues with the
capabilities of the technology, how it was selected and deployed, its
reliability, and how it was used by officers and agents. In the past,
DHS's technology acquisition policies have not always been adhered to,
the basis for technology selection and deployment has not always been
adequately supported, and the limitations of some technology identified
in real-world testing called to question its suitability and cost-
effectiveness. Consideration should be given to how the requirements
for technology are generated, the extent to which new technology will
mitigate threats and vulnerabilities, what metrics would indicate their
expected contribution toward stemming illegal crossings and
trafficking, where technology and staffing inputs intersect and the
extent to which technology can be a ``force multiplier,'' and what
flexibility in deployment might be provided should illegal migration
patterns change.
Next, let's discuss infrastructure. Nearly $3 billion was spent to
construct about 700 miles of fencing along the Southwest Border, most
of which was single-layered fencing built between Imperial Beach, CA,
and El Paso, TX. In addition to construction costs, the Border Patrol
incurs maintenance costs to repair fencing breaches. In 2011 alone
there were over 4,000 breaches of the fence that cost about $7.2
million to fix, or about $1,800 per breach. CBP built varying types of
fencing at various locations to stop pedestrians, vehicles, or both
from crossing the border. The extent to which fencing stopped or
deterred border crossers is not entirely clear, but it appears to have
been useful. Fencing may have slowed down crossers so that Border
Patrol had more time for enforcement actions, and it may have helped
shift illegal traffic to non-fenced locations, potentially allowing the
Border Patrol to target its enforcement actions. However, DHS has yet
to evaluate the contribution of border fencing and other infrastructure
toward stemming the flow of pedestrians and contraband, as GAO
recommended several years ago. Without such an evaluation, DHS is not
in a position to address the impact of this investment and whether the
cost of additional fencing would yield a suitable return vis-a-vis
other possible investments across the border or at a particular
location. Legislative proposals are now under consideration to build
more fencing, either in new locations or by adding layers to existing
fencing. Among the factors that need to be considered with these
proposals are the extent to which additional fencing will mitigate
threats and vulnerabilities, the costs and effectiveness of fencing
designs in stemming pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the suitability
of the terrain for fence construction, environmental concerns, and the
extent to which any required land acquisition costs would change a
cost/benefit analysis.
In closing, while the subject of today's hearing is on border
security, it is important to look at this facet of immigration
enforcement in conjunction with the many other moving parts of the
total immigration system. Border security issues need to be assessed in
the context of a holistic framework if our efforts to push the
immigration reform ``reset button'' are to yield an efficient,
effective, economical, and sustainable result. For example, estimates
show that roughly 40-50 percent of the illegal immigrant population is
made up of people who entered the United States legally and overstayed
their visa. Addressing visa overstays is considered an interior
immigration enforcement matter and mostly a responsibility of ICE, not
CBP. Yet, owing to higher priorities, ICE devotes relatively few
resources to address this issue. To what extent might the broader
illegal immigrant problem be addressed by devoting more resources to
interior enforcement rather than substantially increasing the size of
the Border Patrol? As a second example, illegal immigrants who pass
through border defenses are drawn to the United States to find
employment. Many eventually find jobs with employers who have come to
rely on this labor pool with little likelihood of incurring fines and
sanctions provided by law, again owing to ICE resource constraints and
priorities. To what extent could additional resources applied to
worksite enforcement address illegal immigration as opposed to
additional resources applied to the Border Patrol? Achieving an
appropriate balance between border and interior enforcement resources
could help create a credible framework for deterring those considering
illegal entry and overstay.
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Jackson Lee, and Members of the
subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much. We certainly, again,
appreciate all of the testimony, very interesting.
One of the things in my mind that I think about border
security and there is a lot of testimony about illegal
migration, et cetera, what the dynamics of decision making that
all entails and why they try to come across the border
illegally.
Of course, we are all very aware of, the numbers vary, but
11 million to 12 million, however many illegals that are in the
Nation. But I will tell you, thinking about border security
which is really one of the enumerated responsibilities of the
United States Congress as well, is bigger in my mind than just
stopping illegals from coming here to get a job in the
agricultural fields or service industry or whatever.
Really, if you think about drug interdiction alone, that is
probably--I mean, I am married to a judge. It is probably in
the Detroit area, responsible for the huge majority of crime
that is happening in our Nation, as well as destroying lives.
But the cost to society and to lives lost and opportunities
lost, et cetera, you can't even put a dollar amount on it I
think as well as--also, stopping those who mean us harm, those
that want to cross our borders, whether it is the Southern
Border or the Northern Border.
I talk about Northern Border security a lot more than some
people want to talk about here. I know we are all focused on
what is happening at the Southern Border. But if you look at
the TIDEs list and see, you know, quantify how many hits is
happening in the Northern Border, it really is quite eye-
opening.
So for all these reasons, I think it is very, very
important that border security happen and I understand that the
debate about comprehensive immigration reform--I am one that
believes in border security first.
I think if the Congress and both the House and the Senate
were actually able to pass a border security bill, hopefully
this one or something that looks very close to this then I
think, you know, you would have room to discuss all the other
portions of this.
But I guess I would first start as we are really focusing
on the differences between the House Bill and the Senate bill
and all of you mentioned this, and Mr. Ahern in particular
about the surge. Mr. Alden you mentioned about the surge that
the Senate bill calls for. Over 19,000--19,200 new Border
Patrol Agents without a lot of thought given to first of all
how we are currently utilizing the existing workforce, how they
are bring deployed, measuring their effectiveness, cost-
effectiveness and effectiveness in securing the border.
Then when you have that kind of a surge, what kind of
infrastructure is even in place to go out and recruit and hire?
One of the things the Senate bill is calling for is a polygraph
test for everybody, I mean, just the mechanics of getting all
these folks hired on, suited up and ready to deploy, as well.
I was noticing that in fact, Chairman McCaul was mentioning
about this L.A. Times Op-Ed today but they were mentioning
there a so-called border surge proposal would simply throw a
phenomenal amount of money at border enforcement without
achieving control of the border. I guess my question is
particularly to Mr. Ahern and Mr. Alden, do you agree with this
assessment and what is your thought about this huge surge and
how it might play out and as well since you invited the
question Mr. Ahern, the existing workforce and how that is
being deployed as well.
Mr. Ahern. Correct and thank you for that. I think that
clearly before just arbitrary numbers get thrown out there
needs to be analysis of how the personnel are currently being
utilized. I mean, the threat as I stated also is ever-changing,
as we have seen more go into the different domains, we need to
take a look at the risk assessment and the analysis of that
versus how we want to deploy our resources against that threat
going forward. That needs to be Step No. 1 in my view.
I think the other thing that we need to take a look at is,
is there the current flexibility needed to move the resources
today against the threat? I recall very specifically in my
past, and I have been gone for 3\1/2\ years now that there are
mandatory minimums that needed to be maintained on the Southern
Border. Not very wise if you take a look at a shift to the
maritime domain or to the Northern Border and really did tie
the hands of an agency head at that point to really redeploy
the resources as threats ever changed. Also when there are
mandates in very specific categories and position like Border
Patrol Agents.
Again, a head of an organization, if he sees the threat
changing into ports of entry, the ability to have those
positions being able to reallocate into where there might be
the greatest opportunity or need for the enforcement and then
the serious criminal activity that is occurring but also at the
same time maintaining that balance of legitimate travel and
trade. That flexibility was not provided.
I think going forward those things need to be considered. I
would be happy to talk in further detail if you would like also
about the triaging process, the hiring process, the recruiting
process, the training process that went into and we actually
did go through that doubling that occurred during the time when
I was still in Government.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. I would agree with Mr. Ahern. I would just add
that I think the Senate bill in many ways sort-of goes about it
backwards. I mean, if you think of the sort-of appropriate
roles of the Congress and of the agencies that are responsible
for carrying out the mandates, what you want is for the
Congress to in effect answer your question that you posed in
your opening statement, which is: What does a secure border
mean? How secure do we want the border to be? Set general goals
and benchmarks and you say to the Border Patrol you say to the
Customs and Border Protection, this is what we want you to
achieve.
Then they are the professionals. They are the ones who have
to come back and say, ``Well, okay, if that is the level of
security you want, this is what we need to get there. This is
the technology we need. This is the manpower. This is the
support we need.'' They will likely come back with a number and
say, ``This is what it is going to cost.'' Then, again, it is
for Congress, for the people's representatives to say, ``Well,
is that worth it? Is it worth spending that money? Are there
better ways to spend that money?''
That should be the dynamic. The Senate bill instead just
says, ``We are going to give you these resources. We are going
to give you this technology and go do something with it.'' That
is not the right order. You really need to be listening to the
professionals in terms of what they need to carry out their
mission.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Stana. Again, we appreciate your coming
back. I think you were with GAO. I know you are not now but
when there was the report that was issued about the operation,
the percentage of operational control on both our borders.
Mr. Stana. Right.
Mrs. Miller. Southern Border 44 percent, the Northern
Border 2 to 4 percent, I forget exactly but essentially very
little.
Mr. Stana. Yes. It was very small.
Mrs. Miller. Way down in the single digit numerals and yet
we spent about $75 billion in the last 10 years on border
security. Of course, this is one of the issues that this
subcommittee and our full committee has been trying to get out
of the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Napolitano
or whoever her successor will be now is even using the term
``operational control'' has been under a great amount of
debate. It has been noted by the Secretary that this was an
antiquated term, et cetera. But there has to be some term and
some assessment of what operational control, situational
awareness, et cetera is happening.
Now, when you say--I guess, I would just ask you from a
cost standpoint, what is your thought, your assessment on
spending $75 billion on border security and here is the Senate
bill talking about spending another $46 billion, how does that
strike you as far as cost-effectiveness and actually achieving
operational control of a larger percentage of the border?
Mr. Stana. Yes. Well, first with respect to operational
control, I know they dropped that metric. I never thought it
was that bad of a metric. It suffers from some of the same
challenges that current things that they are thinking about.
But at least it was a metric and it is something you could
manage toward but that left in 2011, I think, and it was never
replaced.
With any resource input the question you always have to ask
is first, what did you do with what you had? Second, what would
you do if I gave you more, simply put. Time and again when we
have looked at these vast resource inputs whether it is
personnel, fencing, or technology, we are always looking for a
business case often didn't find one, always looking for the
roadmap in terms of application of certain types of technology
vis-a-vis people and so on. It was always in somebody's head.
It was never anything that was transparent and reviewable. So
those are problems.
With respect to people, Mr. Ahern mentioned the problems
with recruiting that number of people. I think it took maybe
eight or nine recruits to get one Border Patrol Agent deployed
because so many wash out. With the lie detector test alone I
think the wash-out rate in some classes was like 60 percent.
So, you know, if you are talking about doubling the size of the
Border Patrol there ought to be a very good sound rationale for
any increase--$75 billion is a lot of money.
I looked in the bill and the lay-down, for example, of the
technology piece where they specified what was going to go to,
I didn't see the rationale for why when it was part of the
proposal that was being put forth as part of the SBI program.
Similarly, the air and marine portion, I never understood the
basis for the deployments that were specified.
So, I think a starting point is understanding the business
case and then getting into evaluating the cost benefits of the
different inputs. I haven't seen it.
Mrs. Miller. I appreciate that very much.
The Chairwoman now recognizes other Members. In accordance
with our committee rules and practice, we will be recognizing
Members who were present at the start of the hearing by
seniority and on the subcommittee.
The Chairwoman recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
O'Rourke.
Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Before I begin
with my questions, I would ask unanimous consent to submit for
the record a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union
and additionally 50 State-by-State maps* that show how
interconnected our economy is in the United States with that of
Mexico.
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* The maps have been retained in committee files.
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Mrs. Miller. Without objection, and I do have my map that
you provided me for Michigan, so I appreciate that.
[The information follows:]
Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union
July 23, 2013
i. introduction
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a Nation-wide, non-
partisan organization of more than a half-million members, countless
additional activists and supporters, and 53 affiliates Nation-wide
dedicated to preserving and defending the fundamental rights of
individuals under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The
ACLU's Washington Legislative Office (WLO) conducts legislative and
administrative advocacy to advance the organization's goal to protect
immigrants' rights, including supporting a roadmap to citizenship for
aspiring Americans. The Immigrants' Rights Project (IRP) of the ACLU
engages in a Nation-wide program of litigation, advocacy, and public
education to enforce and protect the Constitutional and civil rights of
immigrants. The ACLU of New Mexico's Regional Center for Border Rights
(RCBR) addresses civil and human rights violations arising from border-
related immigration policies. RCBR works in conjunction with ACLU
affiliates in California, Arizona, and Texas, as well as immigrants'
rights advocates throughout the border region.
The ACLU submits this statement to the Subcommittee on Border and
Maritime Security of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on
Homeland Security for its hearing: ``Study in Contrasts: House and
Senate Approaches to Border Security.'' As our prior submission for
this subcommittee's February hearing titled ``What Does a Secure Border
Look Like?'' did, this statement aims to provide the subcommittee with
an appraisal of the civil liberties implications of border security.
For elaboration on how current border enforcement policies affect
mixed-status families along the border, we also respectfully refer the
subcommittee to the record of the April 10, 2013 Congressional Ad-Hoc
Hearing: ``Lines That Divide US: Failure to Preserve Family Unity in
the Context of Immigration Enforcement at the Border.''\1\
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\1\ See, e.g., Written Statement of Vicki B. Gaubeca, Director,
ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights (April 10, 2013),
available at http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/
vicki_gaubeca_written_statement-final.pdf.
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Since the subcommittee's February hearing, the Senate's passage of
S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration
Modernization Act, has provided a stark template of how not to tackle
border security. The Senate chose to dismiss the House's careful
approach based on H.R. 1417, the Border Security Results Act of 2013,
an approach described by Subcommittee Chairman Candice Miller (R-MI) as
requiring ``a strategy and an implementation plan to be produced before
additional resources are expended.''\2\ The last-minute addition to S.
744 of an amendment sponsored by Senators Corker (R-Tenn.) and Hoeven
(R-ND), known as the border ``surge,'' added an estimated $38 billion
in resource spending on border security to the $8.3 billion already
contained in the bill that went to the Senate floor.\3\
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\2\ See statement of July 19, 2013, available at http://
homeland.house.gov/press-release/week-ahead-house-homeland-security-
committee-july-22-26-2013.
\3\ Congressional Budget Office, Letter to Senator Patrick J. Leahy
(July 3, 2013), 3, available at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/
cbofiles/attachments/s744aspassed.pdf.
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While the ACLU supported S. 744 because of its overall impact on
civil liberties, particularly its roadmap to citizenship for what the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates to be 8 million aspiring
Americans,\4\ we made clear that the ``surge'' was anathema to sensible
border security policy because it would cause massive deterioration in
the civil and human rights of migrants and border residents.\5\ The
ACLU continues to support expansive immigration reform that provides a
welcoming pathway of citizenship to the millions of aspiring citizens
who contribute daily to their American communities, including for many
raising their U.S. citizen children and supporting their U.S. citizen
family members. Border security must not stand in the way of these
aspirations.
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\4\ Congressional Budget Office, Cost Estimate re: S. 744. (June
18, 2013), available at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/
cbofiles/attachments/s744.pdf.
\5\ Laura W. Murphy, ``Our Stance on the Immigration Reform Bill:
Support for Many Civil Liberties Provisions and Opposition to New
Border Measures.'' (June 24, 2013), available at http://www.aclu.org/
blog/immigrants-rights/our-stance-immigration-reform-bill-support-many-
civil-liberties-provisions.
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The data-driven, bipartisan approach of H.R. 1417 should not be
undermined by transforming its provisions into a ``trigger'' preventing
aspiring citizens from earning legal status, or used as an excuse to
avoid commitment to a pathway for citizenship. H.R. 1417 is flawed,
however, in assuming a need to achieve a 90 percent ``illegal border
crossing effectiveness rate'' across the Southwest Border. Such
benchmarks must only be contemplated upon completion of a thorough
study of border needs, including documentation and mitigation of the
civil liberties costs associated with pursuing such a goal through
expanded resources like drones and other means of surveillance. The
extent of Congress' focus on border security is truly misplaced at a
time when border enforcement is at an all-time high and continues to
have a detrimental impact on border communities. That being said, H.R.
1417 is an improvement over proposals which seek to increase border
resources based on no concrete analysis.
Border security resources should be guided by principles of fiscal
responsibility, accountability and oversight, and attention to the true
needs of border communities currently suffering from a wasteful,
militarized enforcement regime. Experts, including those from the
Department of Homeland Security, agree that the border is more secure
than ever.\6\ Border security benchmarks of prior proposed or enacted
legislation (in 2006, 2007, and 2010) have already been met or
exceeded.\7\ Congress should proceed unimpeded by border security
obstacles to the vital task of providing a roadmap to citizenship for
aspiring Americans in a way that advances our Constitution's principles
and American values of family unity and due process.
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\6\ Testimony of DHS Secretary Napolitano to the Senate Judiciary
Committee (Feb. 13, 2013), available at http://
www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/2-13-13NapolitanoTestimony.pdf.
\7\ Chen, Greg and Kim, Su. ``Border Security: Moving Beyond Past
Benchmarks,'' American Immigration Lawyers Association, (Jan. 30,
2013). Available at: http://www.aila.org/content/
default.aspx?bc=2566743061.
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ii. the senate's border security approach in s. 744 is fundamentally
flawed. the house should not adopt these excessive, wasteful border
enforcement provisions.
Quality of life in border communities is guaranteed to suffer
should the Corker-Hoeven provisions become law. As amended, S. 744 now
requires tens of billions of dollars in personnel and equipment
deployment at the border, including drones and other surveillance to
monitor not only the Southwest Border itself, but also areas extending
100 miles in, exposing American lands, dwellings, and citizens to
unreasonable searches and surveillance without the legal protections
enjoyed by the rest of the country. The U.S. Government has expanded
the powers of Federal authorities to survey and enter private property,
board buses and trains, and maintain vehicle checkpoints far from any
land or sea border by creating ``Constitution-Light'' or
``Constitution-Free'' zones adjacent to land and sea borders. In these
zones, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel claim they have
surveillance, stop, and search authority that would be unconstitutional
in other parts of the country, despite the fact that two-thirds of the
American population resides within 100 miles of these borders.\8\
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\8\ See ACLU Vote Recommendation Supporting Leahy Amendment 1410 to
S. 744 (June 20, 2013), available at http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/
aclu_vote_recommendation_re_- leahy_1410_to_s_744_final_6_20_13.pdf.
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The border ``surge'' would increase the number of Southwest Border
Patrol Agents by 19,200 to a total exceeding 38,000--or one for every
270 feet of the Southwest Border. As Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), said on
the Senate floor, the Nation does not need another 20,000 Border Patrol
Agents: ``What we need is a coherent, smart strategy.''\9\ The border
``surge'' would also require the completion of 700 miles of border
fencing, widely recognized by most lawmakers as a failed and costly
enterprise, and spend $3.2 billion on equipment and technology like
that used by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as advanced
surveillance systems, manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, drones,
radar, and much more.\10\ It would forever change and militarize border
communities like El Paso and San Diego, which are among the safest
cities in America.\11\ Senator John McCain commented: ``We'll be the
most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall.''\12\ In
fact, this was an understatement: The wall between the United States
and Mexico would become seven times longer than the Berlin Wall, with
four times as many personnel.\13\
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\9\ Remarks of Sen. Coburn (June 20, 2013), available at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz3c2gcAOgQ.
\10\ See What's Included in ``border surge'' immigration amendment,
CNN, June 21, 2013, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/21/
whats-included-in-border-surge-immigration-amendment/; see also [sic].
\11\ See Julian Aguilar, El Paso Again Tops List of Safest U.S.
Cities, The Texas Tribune, Feb. 5, 2013, available at http://
www.texastribune.org/2013/02/05/el-paso-again-ranked-countrys-safest-
city/; see also 2 U.S.-Mexico Border Cities Boast Lowest Crime Rates,
New Data Shows, Huffington Post, Feb. 8, 2013, http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/08/2-us-mexico-border-
cities_n_2647897.html
\12\ David Sherfinski, McCain: We'll have ``most militarized border
since the fall of the Berlin Wall,'' Washington Times, June 25, 2013,
available at http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/
jun/25/mccain-well-have-most-militarized-border-fall-berl/.
\13\ New Border Requirements May Not Save Immigration Bill, CBS
Miami, June 25, 2013, available at http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/06/
25/new-border-requirements-may-not-save-immigration-bill/.
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Border spending has already grown exponentially over the last
decade, resulting in widespread and abusive militarization of border
communities. Last year, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal
Rogers (R-KY), presciently warned about the irrationality of Southwest
Border security spending: ``It is a sort of a mini industrial complex
syndrome that has set in there. And we're going to have to guard
against it every step of the way.''\14\ Border spending has skyrocketed
over the last decade, far out of proportion to security demands.
Between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2012, the budget for CBP
increased by 94 percent to $11.65 billion, a leap of $5.65 billion;
this followed a 20 percent post-9/11 increase of $1 billion.\15\ By way
of comparison, this jump in funding is more than quadruple the growth
rate of NASA's budget and is almost ten times that of the National
Institutes of Health. U.S. taxpayers now spend more on border and
immigration enforcement agencies ($18 billion) than on the FBI, DEA,
ATF, U.S. Marshals, and Secret Service-combined.\16\
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\14\ Ted Robbins, ``U.S. Grows an Industrial Complex Along the
Border.'' NPR (Sept. 12, 2012), available at http://www.npr.org/2012/
09/12/160758471/u-s-grows-an-industrial-complex-along-the-border.
\15\ Michele Mittelstadt et al., ``Through the Prism of National
Security: Major Immigration Policy and Program Changes in the Decade
since 9/11.'' (Migration Policy Institute, Aug. 2011), 3, available at
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/FS23_Post-9-11policy.pdf.
\16\ Meissner, Doris, Kerwin, Donald M., Chishti, Muzaffar and
Bergeron, Claire. Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The
Rise of a Formidable Machinery, Migration Policy Institute, January
2013. Available at: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/
enforcementpillars.pdf.
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Because of ``zero-tolerance'' initiatives like Operation
Streamline,\17\ which is part of CBP's Consequence Delivery System, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now refers more cases for Federal
prosecution than the Department of Justice's (DOJ) law enforcement
agencies. Federal prisons are already 39 percent over capacity, due in
large part to indiscriminate prosecution of individuals for crossing
the border without authorization, often to rejoin their families. The
majority of those sentenced to Federal prison last year were Hispanics
and Latinos, who constitute only 16 percent of the population, but are
now held in large numbers in private prisons.\18\ CBP's spending runs
directly counter to data on recent and current migration trends. A
weaker U.S. economy, strengthened enforcement, and a growing Mexican
economy have led to a dramatic decrease in unauthorized migration from
Mexico. In fact, net migration from Mexico is now zero or slightly
negative (i.e., more people leaving than coming).\19\ Apprehensions by
the Border Patrol declined more than 72 percent from 2000 to 2010, and
are currently near a 40-year low.\20\ Yet, the number of Border Patrol
agents has doubled since 2004, from 10,819 to 21,394 in 2012,\21\ with
about 85 percent of the force deployed at the U.S.-Mexico border.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ See generally ACLU, ``Operation Streamline Issue Brief.''
(Feb. 25, 2013), available at http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/
operation-streamline-issue-brief.
\18\ U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2011 ANNUAL REPORT, Chapter 5,
available at http://www.ussc.gov/Data_and_Statistics/
Annual_Reports_and_Sourcebooks/2011/2011_An- nual_Report_Chap5.pdf.
\19\ Philip E. Wolgin and Ann Garcia, ``What Changes in Mexico Mean
for U.S. Immigration Policy.'' (Center for American Progress, Aug. 8,
2011), available at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/
mexico_immigration.html.
\20\ Testimony of DHS Secretary Napolitano to the House Judiciary
Committee (July 19, 2012); DHS Fact Sheet, ``Apprehensions by the U.S.
Border Patrol: 2005-2010.'' (July 2011), available at http://
www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-apprehensions-
fs-2005-2010.pdf; see also Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn, ``U.S.
Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade.''
(Pew Hispanic Center, Sept. 1, 2010), available at http://
pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=126.
\21\ United States Border Patrol: Border Patrol Agent Staffing By
Fiscal Year (2012), available at http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/
border_security/border_patrol/usbp_statistics/usbp_fy12_stats/
staffing_1993_2012.ctt/staffing_1993_2012.pdf.
\22\ Meissner, Doris, Kerwin, Donald M., Chishti, Muzaffar and
Bergeron, Claire. Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The
Rise of a Formidable Machinery, Migration Policy Institute, January
2013. Available at: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/
enforcementpillars.pdf.
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With so many agents and so few apprehensions, the costs per
apprehension are at an all-time high. The Yuma, Arizona sector, for
example, has seen a 95 percent decline in apprehensions since 2005
while the number of agents has tripled.\23\ Each agent was responsible
for interdicting just 8 migrants in 2010, contributing to ballooning
per capita costs. While costs vary per sector, each migrant
apprehension at the border now costs five times more on average, rising
from $1,400 in 2005 to over $7,500 in 2011.\24\ In recent years, agents
have reported widespread boredom, and some have even been disciplined
for falling asleep on the job.\25\ Despite Border Patrol's doubling in
size since 2004, overtime costs have amounted to $1.6 billion over the
last 6 years,\26\ yet in fiscal year 2012, Border Patrol apprehended on
average 18 people per agent.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Richard Marosi, ``Plunge in border crossings leaves agents
fighting boredom.'' Los Angeles Times (Apr. 21, 2011).
\24\ Immigration Policy Center, Second Annual DHS Progress Report.
(Apr. 2011), 26, available at http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/
default/files/docs/2011_DHS_Report_041211- .pdf.
\25\ Richard Marosi, Plunge in Border Crossings Leaves Agents
Fighting Boredom, Los Angeles Times, Apr. 21, 2011, available at:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/21/local/la-me-border-boredom-
20110421.
\26\ ``Border Patrol overtime, staffing up; arrests down.''
Associated Press (Feb. 5, 2012).
\27\ Chen and Kim, ``Border Security,'' supra.
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In this context of already-excessive border spending, the Senate's
border enforcement build-up would be unacceptably costly in budgetary
terms. Moreover, it promises to place enormous burdens on our Southwest
Border communities, especially the daily routines of their brown and
black residents, who are already being damaged by a Border Patrol that
routinely engages in racial profiling and uses excessive, even deadly,
force, including against U.S. citizens.
iii. h.r. 1417 commendably includes a requirement that dhs assess its
existing border security technologies and practices and ``their effect
on civil rights, private property rights, privacy, and civil
liberties,'' as well as review training programs affecting these
rights. congress should prioritize requiring cbp to improve its
atrocious record of oversight and accountability.
Unprecedented investment in border enforcement without
corresponding oversight mechanisms \28\ has led to an increase in human
and civil rights violations, traumatic family separations in border
communities, and racial profiling and harassment of Native Americans,
Latinos, and other people of color--many of them U.S. citizens and some
who have lived in the region for generations. Stressed border
communities are a vital component of the half-trillion dollars in trade
between the United States and Mexico, and the devastating effects of
militarization on them must be addressed in immigration reform. The
U.S.-Canada border has experienced an increase in border enforcement
resources as well, with Northern Border residents often complaining
about Border Patrol agents conducting roving patrols near schools and
churches and asking passengers for their documents on trains and buses
traveling far from border crossings.\29\ Border enforcement must
prioritize investment in robust and independent external oversight that
includes border communities' participation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Tim Steller, ``Border Patrol faces little accountability,''
Arizona Daily Star (Dec. 9, 2012), available at: http://azstarnet.com/
news/local/border/border-patrol-faces-little-accountability/
article_7899cf6d-3f17-53bd-80a8-ad214b384221.html.
\29\ New York Civil Liberties Union, NYU Law School Immigrant
Rights Clinic, and Families for Freedom, ``Justice Derailed: What Raids
on New York Trains and Buses Reveal About Border Patrol's Interior
Enforcement Practices'' (Nov. 2011), available at http://www.nyclu.org/
news/report-reveals-troubling-border-patrol-tactics-upstate-new-york.
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a. Oversight and Accountability
While the Federal Government has the authority to control our
Nation's borders and regulate immigration, CBP officials must act in
compliance with National and international legal norms and standards.
As employees of the Nation's largest law enforcement agency, CBP
personnel should be trained and held to the highest professional law
enforcement standards. Systemic, robust, and permanent oversight and
accountability mechanisms for CBP should be integral to border security
measures. Indeed, in recent polling, over 90 percent of respondents--
regardless of party affiliation--said they support creating ``greater
oversight and accountability'' of CBP.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Belden Russonello Strategists, ``American attitudes on
immigration reform, worker protections, due process, and border
enforcement,'' (April 2013), available at: http://cambio-us.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/04/BRS-Poll-for-CAMBIO-APRIL-16-2013-RELEASE.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the overwhelming support for greater oversight and
accountability and the documented history of CBP abuse, investments in
oversight and accountability mechanisms have not kept pace with the
growth of CBP. For example, while the CBP budget increased by 97
percent from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2012, the DHS Office of
Inspector General's (OIG) budget has increased by only 70 percent
during this same time period.\31\ Similarly, from fiscal year 2004 to
fiscal year 2011, the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
(CRCL) budget increased only 56 percent.\32\ Overall, the combined
budget of the OIG and CRCL accounted for less than .005 percent of the
total DHS budget in fiscal year 2011.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ DHS Office of the Inspector General, ``Fiscal Year 2004 Annual
Performance Plan, DHS Office of the Inspector General,'' pp. 6 http://
www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/OIG_APP_FY04.pdf; DHS, ``FY 2014 Budget in
Brief,'' pp. 6 http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/
MGMT/FY%202014%20BIB%20-%20FINAL%20-508%20Formatted%20%284%29.pdf.
\32\ DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, ``Fiscal Year
2011 and Annual Report to Congress,'' pp. 6 (June 2012) http://
www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/crcl-annual-report-fy-2011-final.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The failure to invest in sufficient oversight and accountability
contributes to continued misconduct and corruption within CBP. There
are numerous examples of CBP officers making improper arrests,
detaining people for days incommunicado, subjecting them to coercive
interrogation, and pressuring them to sign away their rights. In
addition, a 2012 GAO report found that from 2005 to 2012, CBP had 2,170
reported incidents of arrests for acts of misconduct, such as domestic
violence or driving under the influence, and a total of 144 current or
former CBP employees that were arrested or indicted for corruption-
related activities.\33\ The same report found that CBP's Office of
Internal Affairs had numerous deficiencies impacting its ability to
prevent misconduct and appropriately screen new hires. Considering
these findings, proposals to exponentially increase CBP will likely
result in increased numbers of CBP officers that have been poorly
trained or screened, and contribute to overall abuses within the
agency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ GAO-13-59 ``Border Security: Additional Actions Needed to
Strengthen CBP Efforts to Mitigate Risk of Employee Corruption and
Misconduct,'' Dec 4, 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similarly, the insufficient funding of oversight and accountability
mechanisms has resulted in a complete failure of the agency to
appropriately investigate and respond to complaints. DHS has frequently
faced a complaint backlog. For example, in March 2012, DHS OIG had 2361
open investigative cases. Between October 2011 and March 2012, DHS OIG
closed only 730 cases, or less than a third of their open cases.\34\ In
order to deal with this backlog, the OIG transferred cases back to CBP
and ICE for investigation, which raises serious conflict-of-interest
concerns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the absence of robust oversight and accountability measures, CBP
will continue to operate without adequate checks on abuses such as
racial profiling, excessive use of force, and inhumane short-term
custody facilities.
b. Racial Profiling
Racial profiling is rampant as a result of CBP's abuse of its vast
authority within 100 miles of any land or sea border. While the
Southwest Border and Florida have been the site of systemic racial
profiling, this unlawful and ineffective law enforcement practice
extends to the Northern Border as well. The ACLU of Washington State
has brought a class-action lawsuit to end the Border Patrol's practice
of stopping vehicles and interrogating occupants without legal
justification. One of the plaintiffs in the case is an African American
corrections officer and part-time police officer who was pulled over
for no expressed reason and interrogated about his immigration status
while wearing his corrections uniform.\35\ A local business owner said
he's ``never seen anything like this. Why don't they do it to the white
people, to see if they're from Canada or something?''\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Complaint available at http://www.aclu-wa.org/sites/default/
files/attachments/2012-04-26--Complaint_0.pdf.
\36\ William Yardley, ``In Far Northwest, a New Border Focus on
Latinos.'' New York Times (May 29, 2012) (emphasis added), available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/us/hard-by-canada-border-fears-of-
crackdown-on-latino-immigration.html?pagewanted=all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBP also aids and abets State and local police racial profiling
practices, ensnaring U.S. citizens. In February 2011, Tiburcio Briceno,
a naturalized U.S. citizen, was stopped by a Michigan State Police
officer for a traffic violation while driving in a registered company
van. Rather than issue him a ticket, the officer interrogated Briceno
about his immigration status, apparently based on Briceno's Mexican
national origin and limited English. Dissatisfied with Briceno's valid
Michigan chauffeur's license, the officer summoned CBP, impounded
Briceno's car, and told him he would be deported. Briceno says he
reiterated again and again that he was a U.S. citizen, and offered to
show his social security card but the officer refused to look.
Briceno was released after CBP officers arrived and confirmed that
he was telling the truth. ``Becoming a U.S. citizen was a proud moment
for me,'' Briceno has since reflected. ``When I took the oath to this
country, I felt that I was part of something bigger than myself; I felt
that I was a part of a community and that I was finally equal to every
other American. Although I still believe in the promise of equality, I
know that I have to speak out to make sure it's a reality for me, my
family and my community. No American should be made to feel like a
criminal simply because of the color of their skin or language
abilities.''\37\ Ending CBP's unchecked practices of racial profiling
must be a priority of immigration reform.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ ACLU of Michigan, ``ACLU Urges State Police to Investigate
Racial Profiling Incident.'' (Mar. 21, 2012) (emphasis added),
available at http://www.aclumich.org/issues/racial-justice/2012-03/
1685.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
c. Excessive Use of Force
In addition to racial profiling at and beyond the border, incidents
of excessive use of force are on the rise, with at least 19 people
killed by CBP officials since January 2010,\38\ including five U.S.
citizens and six individuals who were standing in Mexico when fatally
shot. On April 20, 2012, PBS's Need to Know \39\ program explored the
trend of CBP's excessive use of force, with a focus on Anastasio
Hernandez Rojas. New footage depicting a dozen CBP personnel
surrounding and repeatedly applying a Taser and other force to Mr.
Hernandez--who was shown to be handcuffed and prostrate on the ground
contrary to the agency's incident reporting--shocked viewers. The San
Diego coroner classified Mr. Hernandez's death as a homicide, noting in
addition to a heart attack: ``several loose teeth; bruising to his
chest, stomach, hips, knees, back, lips, head and eyelids; five broken
ribs; and a damaged spine.'' CBP's version of events described a
``combative'' person; force was needed to ``subdue the individual and
maintain officer safety.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Jorge A. Solis, 28, shot and killed, Douglas, AZ (Jan. 4,
2010); Victor Santillan de la Cruz, 36, shot and killed, Laredo, TX
(March 31, 2010); Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, 32, tortured to death, San
Diego, CA (May 28, 2010); Sergio Adrian H. Huereca, 15, shot and
killed, El Paso, TX (June 7, 2010); Juan Mendez, 18, shot and killed,
Eagle Pass, TX; Ramses Barron Torres, 17, shot and killed, Nogales,
Mexico (Jan. 5, 2011); Roberto Perez Perez, beaten while in detention
and died due to lack of proper medical care, San Diego, CA (Jan. 13,
2011); Alex Martinez, 30, shot and killed, Whatcom County, WA (Feb. 27,
2011); Carlos Lamadrid, 19, shot and killed, Douglas, AZ (March 21,
2011); Jose Alfredo Yanez Reyes, 40, shot and killed, Tijuana, Mexico
(June 21, 2011); Gerardo Rico Lozana, 20, shot and killed near Corpus
Christi, TX (Nov. 3, 2011); Byron Sosa Orellana, 28, shot and killed
near Sells, AZ (Dec. 6, 2011); Alexander Martin, 24, died in car
explosion that may have been caused by Border Patrol tasers (March 15,
2012); Charles Robinson, 75, shot and killed, Jackman, ME (June 23,
2012); Juan Pablo Perez Santillan, 30, shot and killed on the banks of
the Rio Grande, near Matamoros, Mexico (July 7, 2012); Guillermo
Arevalo Pedroza, 36, shot and killed, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (Sept. 3,
2012); Valerie Tachiquin-Alvarado, 32, shot and killed, Chula Vista, CA
(Sept. 28, 2012); Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, shot and killed,
Nogales, Sonora (Oct. 11, 2012); and Margarito Lopez Morelos, 19, shot
and killed, Baboquivari Mountains, AZ (Dec. 2, 2012). This count does
not include Border Patrol agent Nicholas J. Ivie, 30, who was fatally
shot by friendly fire near Bisbee, AZ (Oct. 2, 2012).
\39\ PBS Need to Know special, aired April 20, 2012 and entitled
``Crossing the line at the border,'' available at: http://www.pbs.org/
wnet/need-to-know/security/video-first-look-crossing-the-line/13597/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spotlighting another CBP fatality, the Arizona Republic reported
earlier this year that ``[a]n autopsy report raises new questions about
the death of a Mexican youth shot by at least one U.S. Border Patrol
officer four months ago in Nogales. The Border Patrol has maintained
that Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, was throwing rocks over the
border fence at agents on the U.S. side when an agent fired across the
international border the night of Oct. 10. But entry and exit wounds
suggest that all but one of as many as 11 bullets that struck the boy
entered from behind, according to the report by two medical examiners
working for the Sonora Attorney General's Office.''\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Bob Ortega, ``New theory on Border Patrol killing of boy.''
Arizona Republic (Feb. 7, 2013), available at http://www.azcentral.com/
news/articles/20130206border-patrol-killing-boy-new-theory.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a Congressional letter signed by 16 Members was sent to DHS
Secretary Janet Napolitano, DHS Acting Inspector General Charles
Edwards, and Attorney General Eric Holder,\41\ on July 12, 2012, the
Associated Press reported that a Federal grand jury was investigating
the death of Anastasio Hernandez.\42\ Border Patrol's use-of-force
incidents have attracted international scrutiny with the government of
Mexico,\43\ the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,\44\ and the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights \45\
weighing in.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Congressional sign-on letter sent May 10, 2012 to Secretary
Janet Napolitano available at: http://serrano.house.gov/sites/
serrano.house.gov/files/DHSletter.pdf; letter sent to DHS Inspector
General Charles Edwards available at: http://serrano.house.gov/sites/
serrano.house.gov/files/DHSIGletter.pdf; letter sent to DOJ Attorney
General Eric Holder available at: http://serrano.house.gov/sites/
serrano.house.gov/files/DoJLetter.pdf.
\42\ Grand Jury Probes Anastasio Hernandez Border Death, available
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/jul/12/grand-jury-probes-border-death/.
\43\ See, e.g., Bret Stephens, ``The Paradoxes of Felipe
Calderon.'' Wall Street Journal (Sept. 28, 2012), available at http://
online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443916104578022440-
624610104.html?mod=hp_opinion.
\44\ See ``IACHR condemns the recent death of Mexican national by
U.S. Border Patrol Agents.'' (July 24, 2012), available at http://
www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2012/093.asp.
\45\ See U.N. Radio, ``United States urged to probe deaths of
Mexican migrants at border.'' (May 29, 2012), available at http://
www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2012/05/united-states-urged-to-
probe-deaths-of-mexican-migrants-at-border/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is past time for CBP to reform its use-of-force policy to
conform with best law enforcement practices, including the mandatory
use of body-worn cameras by officers, which have been shown to reduce
both uses-of-force and unfounded complaints against law enforcement
officers.\46\ CBP must also bring transparency to review of use-of-
force incidents for disproportionality and unreasonableness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ See Spokane, WA Office of the Police Ombudsman, Body-Worn
Video & Law Enforcement: An Overview of the Common Concerns Associated
With Its Use (Feb. 2012), available at http://www.spdombudsman.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/02/Attachment-G-Body-Camera-Report.- pdf; U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute
of Justice, A Primer on Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement (Sept.
2012), available at https://www.justnet.org/pdf/00-Body-Worn-Cameras-
508.pdf; Koppel, Nathan. ``Cameras Keep a Close Watch on the Police.''
Wall Street Journal (Feb. 12, 2013), available at http://
online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424127887323511804578298060326177182.html; Stross, Randall.
``Wearing a Badge, and a Video Camera.'' New York Times (Apr. 6, 2013,
available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-
cameras-for-police-officers.html.
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d. Short-Term Custody
Organizations working with immigrants, asylum-seekers, and U.S.
citizens who have been held in CBP short-term custody facilities
receive regular reports of civil and human rights violations. These
include denial of medical care, confiscated medicine such as insulin,
being held in detention without access to a phone to communicate with
family members or legal counsel, verbal and physical abuse, coercion
into signing forms that have not been explained, failure to provide
copies of legal documents signed, overcrowding, and failure to return
key belongings and personal identity documents prior to repatriation.
These violations have been recurring for years and have been widely
reported.\47\ For example, the University of Arizona's recently-
released report, based on more than 1,000 interviews conducted in
migrant shelters from Tijuana to Nuevo Laredo (and in Mexico City),
found that:\48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ See for example, No More Deaths. Crossing the Line: Human
Rights Abuses of Migrants in Short Term Custody on the Arizona Sonora
Border (Sept. 2008), available at: http://www.nomoredeaths.org/Abuse-
Report-Crossing-the-Line/View-category.html; No More Deaths. A Culture
of Cruelty: Abuse and Impunity In Short-term U.S. Border Patrol Custody
(2011), available at http://nomoredeaths.org/cultureofcruelty.html;
Kino Border Initiative. Documented Failures: the Consequences of
Immigration Policy at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Feb. 2013), available at:
http://www.jesuit.org/jesuits/wp-content/uploads/Kino_FULL-
REPORT_web.pdf.
\48\ University of Arizona, In the Shadow of the Wall: Family
Separation, Immigration Enforcement and Security. (Mar. 15, 2013), 24,
available at: http://las.arizona.edu/sites/las.arizona.edu/files/
UA_Immigration_Report2013web.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 percent reported physical abuse by U.S. authorities.
23 percent reported verbal abuse by U.S. authorities.
45 percent did not receive sufficient food while in U.S.
custody.
39 percent had possessions taken and not returned by U.S.
authorities.
26 percent were carrying Mexican identifying documents and
had at least one document taken and not returned.
In addition to extensive documentation, organizations have filed
numerous administrative complaints and legal claims based on these
abuses.\49\ In May 2012, the ACLU submitted an administrative complaint
concerning serious abuses against travelers in CBP custody at ports of
entry. And in March 2013, Americans for Immigrants Justice filed
Federal Tort Claims actions on behalf of four immigrants who were held
in CBP custody. Customs and Border Protection should be required to
implement and enforce binding short-term custody standards, including
minimum conditions for detention, like the provision of adequate
nutrition, appropriate climate, and medical care; dissemination of
legal rights information in commonly-spoken languages; access to visits
by lawyers, consular officials and non-Governmental organizations; and
enforceable policies for credible fear procedures relating to asylum-
seekers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ ACLU Demands Federal Investigation Into Charges of Abuse by
Border Agents: Abuse of U.S. Citizens and Non-Citizens Alike
Necessitates Greater Oversight and Accountability (May 10, 2012),
available at http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/aclu-demands-
federal-investigation-charges-abuse-border-agents; AI Justice Takes
Action Against Border Patrol for Abusing Immigrant Women (Mar. 14,
2013), available at http://aijustice.org/ai-justice-takes-action-
against-border-patrol-for-abusing-immigrant-women.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
iv. conclusion
The ACLU urges the House to reject S. 744's wasteful resource
splurge on border security as irrational and damaging to border
communities. Instead, Congress must prioritize the reduction of abuses
in the currently-oppressive immigration and border enforcement system.
That profligate enforcement has cost $219 billion in today's dollars
since 1986.\50\ By jettisoning proposals for escalated border security
that clash with civil liberties and thereby creating space for genuine
immigration reform, Congress can ensure that the roadmap to citizenship
for aspiring Americans, which is indispensable to true immigration
reform, is a generous one free of unjust obstacles.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Robbins, ``U.S. Grows,'' supra.
Mr. O'Rourke. Wonderful. Thank you. I want to thank you for
convening this panel and for your leadership on this issue and
asking in a previous hearing what I think is probably the most
important fundamental question, which is, what does a secure
border look like? Then work back from that and decide how we
want to get there, what we are willing to spend, what we are
willing to sacrifice in order to achieve that.
I guess my question is along those lines in terms of we
talked about a lot of balances that we are trying to strike
right now especially at the border. One that I think about a
lot is the balance between seeing Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico
border as a threat versus an opportunity. That is the reason
for providing those maps to all the Members.
I think far too often we exclusively see Mexico as a
threat, whether it is drug smuggling, human smuggling, the
potential for terrorist activity crossing our borders. So I was
hoping to get an answer from the panelists on how you can
quantify or prioritize that threat if, as I have heard the
Secretary of Homeland Security on down say that the single
greatest priority and the reason that we have this committee is
to ensure that we prevent terrorist attacks in this country.
Given the fact that those other threats--human smuggling,
illegal immigration, drug smuggling are significant but
secondary, I guess, I have to ask the question are we already
doing too much? Is $18 billion, which is twice what we were
spending in 2005, is 19,000 or 20,000 Border Patrol Agents,
which is a doubling over what you had the previous decade at a
time when net migration from Mexico is zero, when we have
record low north-bound attempts, when we have record high
south-bound deportations.
Are we too fixated on this threat to the exclusion of
capitalizing on the trade with that country, increasing the
economic progress on both sides of the border, which I would
argue would also increase security? If that is the case, how do
we approach this issue in a more rational, more fiscally
responsible, more humane manner?
I guess I will start with Commissioner Ahern.
Mr. Ahern. Thank you very much. I think one of the points
to begin with one of your last comments about fiscally
responsible and even back to the Chairwoman's question on do we
need more and the process we went through when we doubled the
size of the Border Patrol and looking at resource deployment
today.
I am not sure how widely known it is throughout the
Congress, the appropriators probably have a pretty good handle
on this but I am not sure how broadly it is known. The
positions today are not fully funded. So that might be one of
the first steps before we look at increasing. You talked about
fiscal responsibility, let's take a look at the current
resources we have because as we doubled the size of the Border
Patrol, those costs were not annualized in the budget each
year.
So, as we had mandatory minimums and things of that nature,
and couldn't go below certain levels, the head of the
organization had to then take a look at where do you pull
resources from elsewhere so out of the trade positions to go
from other locations in air and sea ports to go ahead and make
sure that we hit those mandatory minimums.
So, I think one of the first steps would be is take a look
at the appropriations because I think this year the
organization had like a $200 million to $300 million salary
shortfall that needed to be fixed. Then you talk about delays
for technology-deployment or capital infrastructure
improvements. You have to pull from those other accounts so you
are not anti-deficient and you have to pay your salaries and
benefits first. So I think that is a fiscally responsible thing
to begin with.
On the relationship with Mexico and I would also suggest
that we don't exclude the discussion with Canada as well
because, again, looking at the border we are not looking just
at the Southwest Border issue in my view. In my experience you
take a look at what is occurring both with Canada and Mexico as
well as our littoral borders with the maritime domain as well
as the air.
But speaking of Mexico, there has been tremendous amount of
discussions over the last several years that I was a part of it
and I know continued after my departure. I think Secretary
Napolitano is down there this week to meet with President
Nieto's cabinet level officials and her counterparts on real
significant security issues but also equally significant report
on cross-border trade issues.
Mexico today is still I think our third-largest trading
partner. I think as an opportunity we need to continue to find
ways to expedite legitimate trade, also legitimate travel. I
think there has been some moves in that regard. But I think,
you know, some support in those areas could actually be a
downpayment on future fiscal opportunities as we are able to
streamline legitimate travel and trade. Does that actually
become the seed that would grow more opportunities going
forward?
So, I think looking at those things and continuing to build
upon that, because the organization that I was a head of for
many years does have that responsibility beyond just as far as
the homeland security, border security mission. But it is also
to promote and expedite legitimate travel and trade as well.
That was something that was never excluded in the overall
thought process and decision-making.
Mr. O'Rourke. Madam Chairwoman, I am out of time but I
certainly would like to hear the opinions from the other
panelists so perhaps we can follow up, either privately or
afterwards, but thank you. I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentleman.
The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman from South
Carolina, Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman for holding this
hearing. I think it is very applicable and apropos to what is
going on.
To echo the words of Senator Cardyn just a few minutes ago
the international criminal organizations and drug cartels
regularly explored our borders not to mention the real
possibility of foreign terrorist organizations to deliver
drugs, contraband weapons, laundered money, human trafficking,
and God only knows what else into this country. Senator Cardyn
goes on to say that the threat is at our door.
Madam Chairwoman, I will remind this committee that not
every person that transits our porous border are Hispanic and I
question what these other-than-Mexican persons--and that is not
my term, that is a formal term that is used by CBP and DHS--but
what these OTM personnel, keep in mind apprehensions are of
Africans, Asians, and those of Middle Eastern descent as well
as the Hispanics, what are they coming here for? So I just
remind the committee about that.
Congressman Lamar Smith recently sent a Dear Colleague to
every Member of Congress I assume, with several articles about
the whole immigration issue and border security issues, and I
will submit this for the record when I finish my statement.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
Letter From Lamar Smith, A Representative in Congress From the State of
Texas
immigration issues to consider
July 22, 2013.
Dear Colleague: Much is at stake in the immigration debate. America
has the most generous immigration system in the world and it should
continue. However, our immigration system must put the interests of
America first. The enclosed materials highlight solutions and pitfalls
to immigration reform, aas well as how Americans view this important
issue.
For additional information, please contact Curtis Philp in my
office.
Sincerely,
Lamar Smith,
Member of Congress.
Attachment 1.--National Review Online/Sessions: How GOP Can Turn
Immigration Debate On Its Head
By Jeff Sessions, July 10, 2013 5:29 PM.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/353129/sessions-how-gop-can-turn-
immigration-debate-its-head-jeff-sessions
The White House and their congressional allies believe that the
Senate immigration bill can be used as a political cudgel against House
Republicans.
They are wrong. If Republicans do the right thing, they will not
only turn the immigration debate on its head but will begin the
essential drive to regain the trust of working Americans.
We already know that the public repudiates the Gang of Eight's
amnesty-first model by a 4-1 margin. Less discussed is the public's
broad opposition to the large increases in low-skill immigration--and
its impact on jobs and wages--that lies at the heart of the Senate
proposal.
In their zeal to rush this 1,200-page train wreck through the
Senate with as many votes as possible, Democrat leadership whipped
every single member of their conference. After over four years of the
Obama presidency, wages have continued their painful decline. But the
same Democrat senators who attacked President Bush for declining wages
have suddenly fallen silent.
And so, with unanimous Democrat support, the Senate adopted a bill
that adds four times more guest workers than the rejected 2007 plan at
a time when 4.3 million more Americans are out of work and 20 million
more Americans are on food stamps. The proposal also grants immediate
work authorization to those here illegally while dramatically boosting
permanent levels of annual legal immigration in the future. Based on
Congressional Budget Office data, the bill would grant permanent
residency to 46 million mostly lower-skill immigrants by 2033.
The result? CBO says wages would fall for the next dozen years,
unemployment would rise, and per-capita GNP would be lower for the next
quarter century.
Strikingly, wages are lower today than in 1999. Median household
income has declined 8 percent. One in seven recent college graduates is
unemployed. One in three Americans without a high-school diploma can't
find work. The Senate immigration bill--written by the White House,
Democrat leadership and supported by the entire Democrat conference--
sacrifices the economic interests of these Americans in deference to
the politicians and business interest who want lower-cost labor.
If there is any lesson for the GOP to learn from 2012, it's that we
must do a better job fighting for and connecting with working Americans
of all backgrounds--immigrant and native-born alike--whose wages have
fallen and whose employment opportunities have increasingly diminished.
In pushing for this bill, the Left has abandoned and taken for
granted the struggling worker. By doing the right thing on immigration,
the GOP can distance our party from the corporate titans who believe
the immigration policy for our entire country should be modeled to pad
their bottom line.
Consider this story relayed in a recent New York Times article:
``Since John Vretis was let go by an electronics company in November,
he has made it through the first and second cut of applicants at
several companies near his home in Moline, Ill. But Mr. Vretis has yet
to receive an offer. He recently interviewed at a metals company that
is adding 25 workers a month, but was told it had 4,000 applicants for
those positions. `I'm 55 and I know that's an issue,' said Mr. Vretis,
who holds an associate's degree in accounting.''
With all due respect to Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Rove, and the Chamber
of Commerce, there is not a shortage of workers in America. There is a
shortage of jobs.
The failed 1986 amnesty has been much and rightly discussed
throughout the current immigration debate. But there is an even more
poignant lesson to be drawn from the Reagan years: One thing that made
President Reagan such an exceptional leader was the clarity and courage
with which he gave a fresh voice to the economic concerns and needs of
his time.
The GOP is presented with such a moment now. The White House has
made its central legislative priority a bill that would result in
decades of stagnant wages, stubborn unemployment, and increasing
poverty. Instead of joining in that destructive effort, the GOP should
reject it and demand reforms that encourage self-sufficiency and
promote rising wages.
Both as a matter of economic policy and social policy, the best
course for America is one that helps more of our residents move off of
welfare, off of unemployment, and into good-paying jobs. We can't
simply ignore the large number of chronically underemployed Americans.
Immigration policy should promote--not inhibit--individual opportunity
and community confidence.
The Senate immigration bill is Obamacare's 1,200-page legislative
cousin. It is a disaster on every level. Republicans should make no
effort to salvage it or to offer even the slightest hope of revival.
Instead, we should draw sharp and bold contrasts that earn the loyalty
of our faithful supporters and the newfound respect of the millions of
working Americans who have turned away.
Jeff Sessions represents Alabama in the United States Senate.
Attachment 2.--Legal and Illegal Immigrants Gain At Native-Born Expense
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/071113-663399-immigrants-gain-
jobs-while-native-born-lose.htm
Lost Opportunities.--Immigrants, both legal and illegal, have
accounted for all the job gains in the U.S. since 2000. With labor
force participation rates at record lows, why do some tout the benefits
of importing workers?
According to a White House report released Wednesday, the
immigration legislation tinkered together by the Gang of Eight (or Gang
of Ocho, as critics sneer) would increase real GDP by roughly $700
billion in 2023 and reduce the federal deficit by almost $850 billion
over the next 20 years.
This would happen, we're told, by bringing illegal workers out of
the shadow economy into the real economy where they'd pay taxes and
contribute to society.
The long-term costs are ignored, though. The Heritage Foundation
reckons the short-term tax boost would lead to a long-term drain of up
to $6.3 trillion in benefits that legal taxpayers would have to fund
for legalized immigrants over their lifetimes.
Indeed, while the Gang of Eight's bill bars amnestied immigrants
from receiving most federal benefits for 10 years, the time-frame
supporters tout as providing the boon, the costs will stack up after
that.
The Congressional Budget Office analysis of the supposed benefits
does not take into account the Medicare and Social Security liabilities
that amnestied illegal aliens will begin accruing immediately.
While that debate rages, the Center for Immigration Studies has
released a report questioning the need to import workers or amnesty
those already here in an economy where the labor force participation
rate is at a record low, millions have dropped out of the workforce and
too many are underemployed because they can't find full-time
employment, a situation ObamaCare already is making worse.
According to the CIS analysis, 22.4 million immigrants of working
age held jobs at the beginning of this year, up 5.3 million over the
total in 2000. Native-born workers with jobs dropped 1.3 million over
that period, from 114.8 million to 113.5 million.
``Given the employment situation in the country, the dramatic
increases in legal immigration contemplated by the Gang of Eight
immigration bill seem out of touch with the realities of the U.S. labor
market,'' say study authors Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler.
We agree with that observation.
The total number of working-age (16-65) natives not working--
unemployed or out of the labor force entirely--was nearly 59 million in
the first quarter of this year, a figure that has changed little in the
past three years and is nearly 18 million larger than in 2000.
According to the CIS report, between the first quarter of 2000 and
the first quarter of 2013, the native-born population accounted for
two-thirds of overall growth in the working-age population, but none of
the net growth in employment among the working-age has gone to natives.
The overall size of the working-age native-born population
increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, and those Americans have
been hammered by that 1.3 million job drop.
Before we're accused of being nativist, let us state that legal
immigrants, particularly those with skills this beleaguered economy
needs, have always been welcome. But clearly this economy is suffering
from a shortage of jobs, not workers, and when you consider that 40% of
illegal aliens are people who came here legally and simply overstayed
their visa, the Gang of Eight rationale for de facto amnesty is off
target.
We ask Tea Party people what books they read and the content of
their prayers, but we can't track those who overstay their visas? Maybe
the NSA could help.
We could have solved much of the immigration problem simply by
enforcing existing law requiring employers to verify whom they hire and
for the government to make sure immigrants leave when they're legally
required to.
Now that's a job most Americans are willing to do.
______
Attachment 3.--Kill the Bill
Passing any version of the Gang of Eight's bill would be worse than
passing nothing.
By William Kristol & Rich Lowry, July 9, 2013 12:00 AM.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352919/kill-bill-william-kristol-
rich-lowry
We are conservatives who have differed in the past on immigration
reform, with Kristol favorably disposed toward it and Lowry skeptical.
But the Gang of Eight has brought us into full agreement: Their bill,
passed out of the Senate, is a comprehensive mistake. House Republicans
should kill it without reservation.
There is no case for the bill, and certainly no urgency to pass it.
During the debate over immigration in 2006-07, Republican rhetoric at
times had a flavor that communicated a hostility to immigrants as such.
That was a mistake, and it did political damage. This time has been
different. The case against the bill has been as responsible as it has
been damning.
It's become clear that you can be pro-immigrant and pro-
immigration, and even favor legalization of the 11 million illegal
immigrants who are here and increases in some categories of legal
immigration--and vigorously oppose this bill.
The bill's first fatal deficiency is that it doesn't solve the
illegal-immigration problem. The enforcement provisions are riddled
with exceptions, loopholes, and waivers. Every indication is that they
are for show and will be disregarded, just as prior notional
requirements to build a fence or an entry/exit visa system have been--
and just as President Obama has recently announced he's ignoring
aspects of Obamacare that are inconvenient to enforce on schedule. Why
won't he waive a requirement for the use of E-Verify just as he's
unilaterally delayed the employer mandate? The fact that the
legalization of illegal immigrants comes first makes it all the more
likely that enforcement provisions will be ignored the same way they
were after passage of the 1986 amnesty.
Marco Rubio says he doesn't want to have to come back ten years
from now and deal with the same illegal-immigration problem. But that's
exactly what the CBO says will happen under his own bill. According to
the CBO analysis of the bill, it will reduce illegal immigration by as
little as a third or by half at most. By one estimate, this means there
will be about 7.5 million illegal immigrants here in ten years. And
this is under the implausible assumption that the Obama administration
would administer the law as written.
The bill's changes in legal immigration are just as ill considered.
Everyone professes to agree that our system should be tilted toward
high-skilled immigration, but the Gang of Eight bill unleashes a flood
of additional low-skilled immigration. The last thing low-skilled
native and immigrant workers already here should have to deal with is
wage-depressing competition from newly arriving workers. Nor is the new
immigration under the bill a panacea for the long-term fiscal ills of
entitlements, as often argued, because those programs are
redistributive and most of the immigrants will be low-income workers.
Finally, there is the sheer size of the bill and the hasty manner
in which it was amended and passed. Conservatives have eloquently and
convincingly made the case against bills like this during the Obama
years. Such bills reflect a mistaken belief in central planning and in
practice become a stew of deals, payoffs, waivers, and special-interest
breaks. Why would House Republicans now sign off on this kind of
lawmaking? If you think Obamacare and Dodd-Frank are going swimmingly,
you'll love the Gang of Eight bill. It's the opposite of conservative
reform, which simplifies and limits government, strengthens the rule of
law, and empowers citizens.
There's no rush to act on immigration. The Democrats didn't do
anything when they controlled all of the elected branches in 2009 and
2010. The Gang of Eight tells us constantly that we have a de facto
amnesty for illegal immigrants now. Fine. What's the urgent need to act
immediately, then?
The Republicans eager to back the bill are doing so out of
political panic. ``I think Republicans realize the implications for the
future of the Republican party in America if we don't get this issue
behind us,'' John McCain says. This is silly. Are we supposed to
believe that Republican Senate candidates running in states such as
Arkansas, North Carolina, Iowa, Virginia, and Montana will be hurt if
the party doesn't embrace Chuck Schumer's immigration bill?
If Republicans take the Senate and hold the House in 2014, they
will be in a much better position to pass a sensible immigration bill.
At the presidential level in 2016, it would be better if Republicans
won more Hispanic voters than they have in the past--but it's most
important that the party perform better among working-class and younger
voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility.
Passing this unworkable, ramshackle bill is counterproductive or
irrelevant to that task.
House Republicans may wish to pass incremental changes to the
system to show that they have their own solutions, even though such
legislation is very unlikely to be taken up by the Senate. Or they
might not even bother, since Senate Democrats say such legislation
would be dead on arrival. In any case, House Republicans should make
sure not to allow a conference with the Senate bill. House Republicans
can't find any true common ground with that legislation. Passing any
version of the Gang of Eight's bill would be worse public policy than
passing nothing. House Republicans can do the country a service by
putting a stake through its heart.
William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard. Rich Lowry is editor
of National Review.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you.
He states in the letter that our immigration system must
put the interest of Americans first. The first thing that comes
to mind is the need for a secure border primarily in the
southwest region as that is where the majority of illegal
immigration takes place, a secure border with metrics and
benchmarks which are verifiable.
At last glance, we are still a sovereign Nation and America
should be able to secure our Nation and secure our borders. But
I will echo the words of the gentleman from Texas, that does
come with some sort of legitimate trade issues as well. I
recognize that, and he and I have had good conversations about
that and so it has got to facilitate that as well.
We as Americans need to determine who comes in our country,
how many come in to the United States annually and what they
come for and how long they stay. We are a Nation of laws and
the enforcement of laws--excuse me, the enforcement laws are
already on the books without the need to create more laws in
the scope of the Senate bill that has passed.
Let's enforce the laws that we have. This includes
enforcement of those who overstay their permission slip or
their visa that they obtained to come into America for a myriad
of reasons.
So instead of having certain aspects of our Government
inquire about the reading habits and prayer content of Tea
Party groups, why not focus our attention on the 41 percent to
49 percent of our illegal alien population that are currently
here, those that have overstayed their visa. Almost half of the
illegals in this country, America, are folks that we gave a
permission slip for them to come to this country and they just
decided to stay.
They are visa overstays. They have broken the law. We must
come up with a workable entry-exit system for those we give
permission to come to our country. So let me be clear, there is
a difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration.
Legal immigrants have always been welcome in this country and
always will be.
But the way to address illegal immigration is not to take
the door off the hinges at our Nation's borders. I posed a
question back home when I speak that mirrors something, I think
like Mr. Ahern just said, ``What does a secure border look
like?''
I think that is a question we all have to ask ourselves,
``What does a secure border truly look like? Is it a West
Germany, East Germany border-tight, concrete-steel, concertina-
wire effort?'' If it is, we need to get that in our mind. But
if it is not, it does have to take into consideration of trade
and other things and legal immigration issues as well. We have
to ask ourselves that question as Americans.
I believe that Chairman McCaul's legislation is a step in
the right direction. We are talking about the outcome-based
metrics here, so in my limited time, I ask Mr. Stana: In your
previous work at GAO, after Secretary Napolitano stopped
reporting miles under operational control, you warned that the
absence of measures for border security may reduce oversight
and DHS accountability, which has proven correct.
So I ask you: Do you still think that the lack of outcome-
based performance measures have left Congress and the public
effectively in the dark when it comes to the current state of
border security?
Mr. Stana. You certainly need goals and performance
measures to gauge any program and to understand exactly where
the next dollar ought to be spent and how successful the last
dollars were spent. Those goals and measures aren't there now.
Mr. Duncan. Okay. Are meaningful metrics necessary to
gaining the trust and support of the American people?
Mr. Stana. I would assume so. I think they are just good
management tenets.
Mr. Duncan. Yes. Absolutely. So those metrics, I think are
part of this, trying to have two or three different
organizations all sign off on the fact whether you have a
secure border or not. I try to take the politicization of it
out to some degree. Those are aspects of this bill that I like.
But I do know this, Madam Chairwoman, that I have been to
the border. I have seen the fencing. I do know there are areas,
especially in Arizona and Tucson sector that are very
mountainous. That are like the Rocky Mountains in their height
and the scope and the depth of their canyons and it is very
difficult to put fencing there.
But that one thing that I do know is that fencing will
create--if you can get up right up to the borders, it will
create these corridors that then we can focus our personnel in.
The personnel can be used effectively, not just at the ports of
entry but also in those canyons, in those mountains, making
sure that those drug traffickers and other bad guys that are
bringing folks into this country can be thwarted.
So we can focus our efforts. I think fencing makes a lot of
sense in that issue. I think that is one thing the Chairman's
bill does. So, I appreciate it. I look forward to maybe a
second round of questioning here, and with that I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, gentleman.
The Chairwoman now recognizes our Ranking Member, the
gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, who is busy running in
between a couple of meetings this morning.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I know.
Madam Chairwoman, let me thank you for your indulgence and
thank you for placing that on the record that I am in between
several meetings. But this is a very important hearing. Let me
thank all of the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Ahern, please tell Secretary Chertoff that I said
hello. I have been here long enough to have served when he was
Secretary of Homeland Security. Let me start with Mr. Stana,
you have found yourself in this room a number of times. We
thank you.
So let me pointedly ask the question, with other elements
that trace or frame themselves around immigration reforms, the
number of components to E-Verify: Do we really need border
security to move forward on immigration? What I am saying is do
we need a--as you well know, this bill focuses on metrics in a
study in a thoughtful approach. Do you see the need for a
trigger when you connect border security and then immigration
reform? We have to keep waiting and waiting and waiting. Do you
see other elements that allow us to go forward and do it
simultaneously or know that it is going to come in order?
Mr. Stana. Looking back to how the 1986 act was implemented
I think would be helpful here and maybe Jay remembers that,
too. But what happened with the 1986 act is a set time
positive, a date where you had to enter the country by, in
order to receive temporary permission to stay in a path to LPR
which, legal permanent residency, which was 5 years.
So they took the illegal immigrant in the country issue off
the table relatively quickly. Another thing that they did which
proved----
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. They move ahead to get that
framework going, so you at least know who is supposed to be
here and who is not supposed to be here.
Mr. Stana. Yes. They kind of tried to take people out of
immigration limbo, if you will. But then there were only 3
million and half of those were ag workers, so it was a
different situation than today.
Another thing they did is they publicized the I-9 process
and the danger of interior enforcement and had education
programs with employers. The word got out, at least initially
that the Government was serious about this. In fact, there
wasn't a whole lot of pressure on the border for the first 2 or
3 years that the act was enforced until it became apparent that
the I-9 process could be defeated by false documents and there
really wasn't much of an enforcement mechanism internally.
That is when--at least I would connect those dots, the
pressure came to the border. So I think it is important to
understand that border security issues are important but you
can't isolate them from all the other moving parts in the
immigration reform and immigration control system.
It is only one of many. Necessarily immigration security
and immigration control measures at the border aren't the only
thing that could be successful in controlling and managing
immigration flows.
Ms. Jackson Lee. That is a very important point, because I
think H.R. 1417 speaks directly to that by calling upon a
roadmap and metrics. I heard the comments about that that is
not the only thing. I agree with that. Our bill does not
suggest that metrics technologies are the only thing. We are
the border security component, and I think we complement very
well what you have just said other aspects to get regular
order.
The Senate bill's regular order deals with how you address
the now 11 million, which a large part are agriculture and a
large part are overstays. Clearly, I think those should be
addressed as well.
The question of resources: One bill has $46 billion and
throws money on top of the already enormous amount of money
which I supported in years past, ramping up Border Patrol
Agents, because in the 1990s, we weren't there. In the 2000s we
weren't there, but we did ramp it up.
Mr. Stana. You know, an interesting statistic along that
for the last----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you think that, you know, that you can
do it by just saying let's add another 50,000 Border Patrol
Agents?
Mr. Stana. Well, I think we ought to understand what works.
If it makes sense to add more of a certain component that is
fine, but if you look at the apprehensions in the Tucson
sector, despite billions of dollars more in fencing and cameras
and sensors and radars that was deployed to Tucson, their
success rate, that is the number of apprehensions per number of
known entrants, is about the same as it was in the mid-2000s.
So how does that happen if we had all these other inputs?
Something is working but something is not working to
expectation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I think that is a good point. Mr. Ahern,
if I may follow up with you. This whole idea of fencing and
staffing, we have ports of entry where Americans go through,
where business people go through, where trucks with goods go
through. Don't we have to find that balance if we are going to
make the system actually work?
I want everybody to also know when we say border security
and that we have a Northern Border.
Mr. Ahern. That is right.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We must never leave that out and I know
Chairwoman Miller continuously reminds us. Mr. Ahern.
Mr. Ahern. Yes. Thank you. I will just go ahead and restate
some of the things that are also in the written testimony and
also just got briefly, earlier. You do need to take a look at
all aspects of the border air, land, and sea. I think
oftentimes there is too much time spent focused on, you know,
what is occurring on our land border with Mexico, you know?
Certainly, there is 1,900 miles on that Southern Border.
But when you take a look at the entire universe to include
95,000 miles of maritime borders, it is a pretty broad spectrum
we need to be taking a look at versus isolating on
particularized threats.
I think that clearly, when you take a look at moving
legitimate travel and trade, 350 million people coming across
our borders and also $2.3 trillion of trade, we need to make
sure that we make the capital investments for our ports of
entry.
Frankly, it is the same elements of the strategy that we
use to secure the border to where it is between the ports of
entry today. It is infrastructure. We need to have better
facilities that are actually able to be contemporary with the
type of volume and the level of goods that comes through there
today.
We need to make sure as far as we have the appropriate
levels of personnel that we did when we took a look at the
strategy between the ports of entry. It also introduced new
technology, ways to go ahead and biometrically verify people
coming into the country. There are some examples that certainly
in the air environment. They are doing some of that coming into
the country on the southern borders, some pilot tests going on
today, the introduction of higher non-intrusive in technology
to be able to look at things in an expedited fashion.
So it is the same three basic principles--infrastructure,
technology, and personnel, but I do think, as we did the much-
needed ramping-up of the border between ports of entry that was
done to the detriment of what was occurring in the ports of
entry. By example I started in the Government for what was the
former customs service in the 1970s.
Just only within the last 2 years has the world's largest
land border port of entry is going through a modernization
effort. That is a pretty strong statement. I mean, I know that
there are examples of that across both borders and it is
something that we do need to take a look at and turn our
attention to because I would submit that the investments we
make in personnel, in the technology and in the infrastructure
would increase travel and trade and therefore have a positive
economic impact.
At the same time, those resources are also focused on the
security threat and the criminal threat of the 7,700 people
that have been apprehended at the ports for serious criminal
activity and 145,000 people are actually denied admission
compared to the universe of 365 between the ports of entry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. Just this last quick quote, Madam
Chairwoman. I just want to finish on this. I also, it looks
like Mr. Alden wants to answer, but let me just say this. I
think you are speaking to the approach that H.R. 1417 is
taking. I assume you looked at that bill. Would you say that?
Mr. Alden. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. I just want to ask this final point.
In the deliberation that we made in drafting this bill along
with very important amendments from all of our Members, we also
thought it was important because we know that our citizens
travel and business persons travel that we actually sited
issues dealing with civil liberties as you come across the
border, the idea of racial profiling as you come across the
border and the idea of human trafficking, which I think is very
unique for a border security bill.
I just want to get a yes or no, whether you think that is
positive.
Mr. Ahern. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. I just wanted to add one quick thing on the
Tucson sector. If you look at the GAO report from December
2012, which is tremendously important, this was the first time
the Border Patrol had shared all of the data that it had been
gathering for a decade now on people that it apprehends in the
border region, it does in fact, shows significant increases and
effectiveness in the Tucson sector over the last 5 or 6 years.
Now, you can question how much of that is a result from
enforcement. How much of that is the job became easier because
with the economic downturn, fewer people were coming. But I
think it is quite clear looking at the experience of Tucson
that enforcement can play a significant role in discouraging
illegal immigration. I think the GAO study from December shows
that quite clearly.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I will just say that our bill does
not run away from enforcement. We are just suggesting that, at
least I am, that it is comprehensive. Did you want to give a
yes or no on those issues that I have just said?
Mr. Alden. I would agree. I think that was an important
addition to the bill.
Mr. Stana. Yes. I do agree. I just do want to say that
although I am not speaking for GAO, you've got to read those
statistics carefully. They have been misquoted in the
Washington Post and elsewhere. I know when I read it, I
couldn't believe that the Washington Post quoted it in the way
they did. Read them carefully.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, gentlelady.
The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I want to thank
our witnesses for being here today. I have enjoyed our Members'
questions, statements, as well as your testimony.
I have the great privilege of serving on two, actually,
three great committees in the House. One, of course, is this
committee which is tasked with Homeland Security and the other
is House Armed Services Committee, which is tasked with the
defense of our Nation both at home and abroad.
So sometimes I think of things in different ways, not just
from my past experiences but also from my committee experience.
I keep hearing that personnel is a serious issue that Customs
and Border Protection are, you know, recruiting and retaining
and training Border Patrol agents.
So then when you look at the Senate bill, it throws a lot
of resources at the bill for probably political purposes,
probably trying to get people to embrace it and then there are
other obvious schemes built-in for, you know, for other
Members.
But if we are going to throw 20,000 more Border Patrol
agents at the border, billions of dollars in more resources,
and I know we are actually deploying resources that are coming
back surplus, assets from Iraq and Afghanistan, which is great.
We shouldn't have to be going out buying more equipment.
I want to ask you, and I don't know if you have given this
great thought, there is also another resource that is coming
back from Iraq and Afghanistan and that is our men and women in
uniform, specifically, our members of the National Guard.
They are highly trained, very dedicated, very loyal citizen
soldiers who aren't afraid to sacrifice their life for this
country abroad. I think it could be a huge honor for them to
actually take a historic role in securing our borders in
partners with other agencies.
I know there have already been reports of them being
engaged, working along the border in several areas. One of my
amendments to this bill is to find--you know, to look at that
even more and see what the lessons learned were and perhaps how
they could be greater utilized, especially when you look at the
fact that unemployment for our men and women in uniform, our
veterans is around 21 percent. It is a lot greater than the
National average.
I think we can--it would be wrong for us not to see if
there is a way to utilize them. I would just open it up. I
would love to hear--I mean, we are still exploring the stages.
As being a member of the National Guard myself, I know I would
love the opportunity to go down there and work the border, the
terrain in many areas is very geographically similar to where
they have been training. I know they can do the job. I know
they could get operational control. They probably won't require
a permanent presence or increase in basically the Border Patrol
by 100 percent.
So, Mr. Ahern.
Mr. Ahern. Yes. Thank you very much. I think, going back in
history, I think back into the 1980s, there was a program
called Operation Guardian where we have used the National Guard
to support the mission of the border both at the ports of entry
as well as between. Right up until I departed we were using the
National Guard resources.
We always viewed the National Guard as kind of a temporary
augmentation of your staffing, to fill gaps in these,
particularly as we were looking to surge and double the size of
the Border Patrol in the period of time in the mid-2005, 2006,
2007 time frame.
That is an important distinction, I think, that we need to
talk about, that having them as a temporary measure. I mean,
they had different authorities, as you well know, and not being
able to fully deploy and fully to engage in the border mission
was certainly an issue.
I think that we clearly could use them for--it was talked
about previously--about some of the canyon areas where you
could have entry identification teams, EITs, being able to
observe pathways of individuals coming across the border and be
able to then report it to the Border Patrols so they can then
respond to those individuals coming between the ports of entry.
But I think, you know, as we look forward, we should be
looking at finding ways to bring more of them into the full-
time ranks of Customs and Border Protection as many of them
are. I know that, many times, I was bringing back many of our
pilots, the maritime commanders, as well as Border Patrol
agents who had been activated and sent over into Iraq or
Afghanistan. We think that is a very important thing to
continue to find ways to bring them into our full-time employ.
The last thing I would just comment is there has been
different references in different bills about having DOD
engaged and actually deploy the mission that they are familiar
with from working in theater overseas to secure our border. I
can't state strongly enough how I think that would be unwise to
do because you would have two competing entities that are out
there in uncoordinated fashion that could lead to very
significant security issues and coordination issues as a result
of not having a single operation commander in charge of those
resources.
I think, you know, temporary uses of resources is
important, find ways to bring them into the organization on a
full-time basis, but not having dual-levels of reporting out
into the field.
Mr. Palazzo. Mr. Ahern, I think you brought up some good
points. I would love to hear from the others, but my time--I am
out of time. The surge concept was exactly what we were
thinking. It was successful in Iraq, Afghanistan. Apparently,
it has been successful in the border, not a permanent presence.
But, again, these are citizen soldiers and they want to have a
role in protecting our borders at home.
So I hope and I strongly encourage not just the Members of
this committee, but those that are going to be involved in
drafting true border security legislation going forward, that
they just consider the use of the National Guard and how it is
going to save billions of dollars to the taxpayer and, also,
hire a veteran, who, at these times in our economy, who really
need the work; and, maybe, they can even be rolled into the
full-time Border Patrol force.
Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentleman. The Chairwoman now
recognizes the gentlelady from California.
Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I want to thank
both you and the Ranking Member for working so hard on these
issues. I had the opportunity to, as you know, chair this
subcommittee before, so I have worked with these gentlemen
quite a bit on this. There is a lot of experience in this
committee. I hope that people will take their lead from this
subcommittee in particular because we have gone through so
much.
I really want to echo the issue of there is not just the
Southern Border. As we all know, there is the Northern Border,
which the Chairwoman has been very diligent about trying to get
attention on that, as well, as all of our seaports--Puerto
Rico, Hawaii, I mean Guam--I mean, you name it, we have got
it--Maine, who has got, I don't know, a thousand islands out
there or something--I am told they--that is the only State I
haven't visited in our union--but lots and lots of coasts
including California, which has a long coast, as well as our
airports.
I have been probably the largest voice here talking about
US-VISIT exit and getting that under control. So I think there
is a lot of places where we can put technology to work, not in
the way we saw so dismally in SBInet. We have the scars to show
for that also, but I think, with respect to US-VISIT, for
example, it would be incredibly important.
I would like to see the Senate bill really be more
flexible, Madam Chairwoman, to put some of this money towards
our land ports, towards E-Verify, towards US-VISIT to really
get those things under control. So I really thank you for
bringing your knowledge, and I wish, somehow, Madam Chairwoman,
we could disseminate this to the rest of our House of
Representative Members because they really need--they really
should be sitting here to understand it is a lot more than just
putting boots on the ground at the border.
We also went through the pains with Chief Aguilar in going
from a little bit over 4,000 in the Customs and Border Patrol
to 23,000 in the Customs and Border Patrol and, you know, the
whole supervisory and what do they really do.
One of the things they also found was that these veterans
who were coming back weren't necessarily the ones who honestly
were--could pass the test to be brought into the Customs and
Border Patrol because Customs and Border is different than
fighting in Iraq. I sit on both of those committees, so we have
seen that. I guess, you know, I really hope that we get some
input, Madam Chairwoman, this subcommittee and this committee
get some input in trying to do this.
My question to you all is really--and I really want to
start with our former GAO who spends so much of his time on
this. Thank you. Thank you from our country's perspective. Who
should be on the task force or the committee to figure out what
are the metrics we are going to measure this by? Who do you
think would be the best people to put in a room and come up
with the metrics that we really need in order to know that we
are not getting an SBInet again, that we are not increasing,
doubling the size of CBP and don't have any way to sustain
those salaries over the years?
Who do we need on that committee to do metrics ?
Mr. Stana. If you are talking about a committee that is
apart from the Congressional Committees, which I think you are,
I think I would look for people with a good dose of
professional skepticism. That could be part of the DHS OIG or
GAO. It might be people in the private sector who work for
different organizations who study these things.
I think the problems occur when we don't follow the rules
for acquisitions or we don't follow a prescribed way of
thinking about how to deploy these assets and we don't bring
people in with the expertise to ask the tough questions. These
things just seem to have a life of their own all too often.
Unfortunately, sometimes, the person with the loudest voice in
the room prevails.
Mr. Alden. Could I just add that if you look, there is
potentially a very strong external research community that
could be a real asset to the Department of Homeland Security.
If you look at the relationships that the Department of Defense
has built up over the years with external research, some of
them in the universities, some in Pentagon-funded organizations
of various sorts, the Rand Corporation and others, these have
been tremendously valuable.
DHS needs to do the same thing. I would urge you to look,
for instance, at the National Academy of Sciences study that
tried to look at this question. It assembled a very fine team
of researchers on that. DHS has some internal capacity in the
Homeland Security Institute and the Border Center in Arizona.
So this really needs to be part of this process going
forward of bringing together people with real expertise on
issues of measurement, as well as issues of border security,
and having these people work closely with folks in DHS, have
access to the data they need to make these judgments.
I think this will be part of the sort of maturation process
for DHS to start to develop the same kind of community that DOD
has to help it do its work more effectively.
Ms. Sanchez. If the Chairwoman would give me just a few
extra seconds to ask our commissioner?
Mr. Ahern. Thank you. I think that, obviously, I began some
of this view back in the 1970s. When I left Government in 2010,
I looked at it both inside and outside of Government. So I
think I need to punt that to someone else at this point.
But I think one of the things that I think that is very
important is to find the right group that has the right level
of knowledge and the right level of objectivity and one that
will not be biased or directed to come to a specific
conclusion. I know that is not a real good answer, but I think
those should be some of the characteristics of a committee.
But I think one of the things that we need to be careful of
going forward, and I have observed this again over the years,
is that I think just coming up with a border metric, whether it
is operational control, situational awareness, apprehension
rate, measuring the flow, all these things that are very
difficult to go ahead and actually make a determination because
you don't know what the overall getaway rate is, is not to use
that for a reason to not move forward.
Ms. Sanchez. So no trigger kind of point per se. But what
we are talking about is--I mean, I am excited that there is so
much money that the Senators want to put into this. I don't
think it should just be on boots on the ground. I think there
is land ports. There is E-Verify. There is so much we can use
this money for. But I really don't want to be wasting it the
way we did on SBInet.
So who do we put in a grouping that can help us understand;
let's get it right?
Mr. Ahern. I think, again, it has to be an external group,
some Government as well as, perhaps, some representative from
the Hill as well to make sure that their interests are, you
know, covered in the discussion, but I think, again, to the
point of making sure it is not a trigger. I think that we need
to make sure and stipulate that there is a level of control
today that we did not have before.
Whether it is better, you know, or whether it is at the
highest levels, these are some of the catchphrases that people
often use, let's stipulate to the fact that there is better
security today than we have had before. Let's make sure that we
focus on what other elements are critically important for an
overall National strategy, to make sure that we look at things
such as I spoke about earlier in my opening statement is
looking at what goes on with verification of employment of
people that want to come into the United States.
It is a fundamental element of understanding what the
problems are. The problem is people want to come here to work
out of some of the population of the people coming across that
border; others are just part of transnational criminal
organizations. I will go to that in a second. But if we can
actually make it more difficult for people to be employed in
the United States, illegally, through an E-Verify program and
making sure it is robust and one that actually has good, timely
response and accurate data that employers will have confidence
in, that will actually diminish the flow coming across the
border, I would submit.
That way, you can then take the resources you currently
have and not need to require more to focus on those
transnational criminal organizations that are smuggling drugs,
smuggling weapons, smuggling money in and out of this country.
Mrs. Miller. Thank the gentlelady. The Chairwoman now
recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you again
to the witnesses. It has been a good discussion. I wish we had
had a little more time to contrast the House's approach to
border security with the Senate's. I wish Senator Cornyn had
been able to stay; there were some questions I would like to
ask him, I mean, heavens, their approach of let's take an
additional $20 billion and throw it at the problem and hope
something good happens.
I think that encapsulates pretty well their approach, and I
wish we had a little more time to discuss that but perhaps
another time. Let me talk about something that is quite
important to many of us out in the West, I represent Utah.
About 65 percent of my State is controlled by the Federal
Government, they are Federal lands, about the same of amount of
Arizona, for example, and if you look at the entire border
about 40 percent of our Southern Border are designated Federal
lands of one type or another, much of that is designated as
wilderness area, particularly in Arizona with all of the
restrictions that come with the Federal designation like that
as wilderness.
It is not just wilderness, there are, in some cases ESA
restrictions that make it very, very difficult and in some
cases impossible for CBP to do what we task them to do. How do
you patrol an area that you can't have access to other than on
foot in some cases and even in some cases that may be
restricted?
The House--we have made some effort to address that
concern. I am curious, can you tell me whether the Senate bill
does at all and then would you just comment on whether you
think it is a good idea or how we could more effectively
eliminate some of these concerns of taking huge swaths of the
border and telling people you can't control it because it is
either wilderness or there are ESA concerns.
Comments from any of you on that?
Mr. Ahern. Let me offer a quick one on that. I think when
we went through particularly we were looking at building the
fence going back in the 2006 to 2007 time frame as well as the
tactical roads for patrolling in those areas. There were some
significant challenges and environmental issues and also
dealing with Federal lands, Indian reservations, the Tohona
nation for one in Arizona certainly is a challenge.
But I would submit that we were able to work through a lot
of those particular issues and I am not aware of particular
parts of that border today with the exception of perhaps the
Tohono Indian nation in Arizona where there is not the ability
to actually have patrol through those areas.
I know that there was some legislation suggested that some
of that authority should be taken from the Department of the
Interior and put within the Department of Homeland Security. I
am not sure if that is the wisest move, I think it would be
more important to study the entire impact of that and what
might be going on with other Federal land issues but----
Mr. Stewart. What concerns do you have with that suggestion
of taking those areas and putting them or giving DHS more
responsibility for that?
Mr. Ahern. I guess, it may not be the best response but it
is one, I think, that is looking at tradition. Then making sure
that the Cabinet-level department and the agency that was set
up to deal with those Federal lands was put up for a very good
reason.
To extract some of that authority and responsibility to
place it in another organization for a mission-related
function, while it be important, I am not sure it is the trump
that is necessary.
I think coordination and I believe there has been a higher
level of coordination between the Cabinet-level secretaries of
each department. I know as a former agency head we worked
through many of those issues where it did not become an
impediment force in the last couple of years before I departed.
Mr. Stewart. Okay. I appreciate that. I have to
respectfully disagree with some of your comments but we could--
and understanding that there are differences of opinions on
this. Others who would be willing to comment?
Mr. Stana. Yes. I would basically agree with what Jay said.
I think when there were problems, oftentimes, it was at the
local level where they were resolved whether the person in
charge of the law enforcement component of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs unit or Foreign Service unit. When they could get along
with the sector chief and come to an agreement on how to
operate things worked well. If there were personality problems
it became a real nightmare. The other thing that was mentioned
I think is a very important point is these law enforcement
officials that work for the Department of Interior or
Agriculture or whatever other agency has oversight over the
Federal land.
They have other duties in addition to immigration-related
duties or border security duties that should really not be
overlooked when you are thinking about where to put that----
Mr. Stewart. Well, they not only have other duties, they
have other priorities and border security is in some cases not
their priority.
Mr. Stana. You know, I talked with a lot of them at the
local level dozens of times down there and their problems have
normally been the lack of communication and a lack of
coordination. Once it is communicated and coordinated what the
priorities are, they will let the Border Patrol go onto their
land and as long as they don't, you know, take advantage of
that in a bad way. But those things get worked out.
Mr. Stewart. Would you say then--your opinion that this is
just essentially not a concern, it doesn't concern you at all?
Mr. Stana. It is my opinion that it is something you always
have to watch for and you have to assure that the mechanisms
for coordination are there and they are working. It is not to
say that the problem is always going to be solved.
Mr. Stewart. Yes, it is a concern to you then.
Mr. Stana. Well, I think it is something that bears
watching, yes.
Mr. Stewart. Mr. Alden, do you have any comments on that?
Mr. Alden. I would have nothing additional to add. I would
agree.
Mr. Stewart. Okay. All right. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman,
I yield back.
Mrs. Miller. I thank the gentleman for his questions and I
thank the gentleman for sort of refocusing us again on really
the purpose of this hearing which is the study and contrast
between the House and the Senate versions for border security.
Just my final question before we adjourn here, I would just ask
each one of you yes or no. You think the House version is the
proper path forward as opposed to the Senate?
Mr. Ahern. I think there are many more elements that I
think that would add to a better plan for border security as
part of our overall National security plan than I am seeing in
the Senate version.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Ahern--or excuse me, Alden.
Mr. Alden. On border security in and of itself, I prefer
the House approach. The challenge is going to be to see how it
is integrated into some larger piece of legislation if that is
the way it goes and that will obviously raise many difficult
issues.
Mrs. Miller. Mr. Stana.
Mr. Stana. I don't think it is fair to say that 1417 is the
only House approach. I think within its limitations I think it
is a useful document, but I think, again, this is a many moving
parts and a more holistic approach than just is articulated
here is something that needs to be considered. There are
problems with the Senate bill on how some of these resource
inputs are fashioned.
Mrs. Miller. I want to thank all of the witnesses, and
certainly your testimony has been tremendous and we may have
some additional questions from Members of the committee and we
would ask you to respond to those in writing. Therefore,
pursuant to Committee Rule 7(c), the hearing record would be
held open for 10 days. I would yield at this time to my Ranking
Member for a UC request.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Madam Chairwoman, thank you. I might add
that this has been a very positive hearing and I might add to
Mr. Stana, I personally as the Ranking Member offer this as a
component and agree with you that we could have a comprehensive
approach, but I think this is the strongest component of border
security which is H.R. 1417.
I hope you will consider--continue to study this because I
think you will find that it has a very strong response to what
we are concerned about. With that, I ask unanimous consent to
have the statement of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association and the statement for--excuse me, I am sorry, and
the National Immigration Forum statements for the record, ask
unanimous consent that they would be allowed and submitted into
the record.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
Statement of the American Immigration Lawyers Association
July 23, 2013
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) submits this
statement to the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. AILA is
the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote
justice and advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and
policy. AILA has over 13,000 attorney and law professor members.
In recent years, a resource-heavy approach has resulted in a
dramatic, unprecedented build-up of border security enforcement and a
massive expenditure of resources. Nonetheless, lawmakers continue to
call for additional investment of resources on the border. For example,
the ``border surge'' amendment adopted by Senate bill S. 744 would
allocate billions of dollars to double an already excessive number of
Border Patrol Agents and increase technology and infrastructure on the
Southern Border. Such an approach is a gross expenditure of taxpayer
funds that is unjustified and may be completely unnecessary. Little to
no evidence was presented during consideration of S. 744 showing that
the commitment of resources specified by the bill would be cost-
effective or would significantly improve border safety or National
security.
AILA has consistently called for smart border strategies that
establish clear and reasoned goals for resource allocation and
enforcement actions at the border. Until a border plan is developed and
successfully tested to ensure it will actually improve the safety of
border communities and National security, Congress should refrain from
prescribing or authorizing specific expenditures for personnel,
fencing, or other infrastructure on the border.
In the past, Congress has revisited highly prescriptive border
enforcement laws. After passing the Secure Fence Act of 2006, Congress
began questioning the wisdom of the mandatory double-layered fencing
required under the law and amended it to give DRS more discretion as to
where and what kind of fencing was appropriate.
Overly prescriptive legislation would also make it harder for DRS
to respond quickly and efficiently to changing needs on the borders. In
testimony before Congress, Michael Fisher, Chief of the U.S. Border
Patrol, questioned the wisdom of a mandatory 90 percent operational
control standard saying that it ``wouldn't make sense'' for all
sectors.
Any border security plan should be based on performance metrics and
measurable standards of border safety that are achievable and fiscally
responsible. House bill H.R. 1417, Border Security Results Act of 2013,
rightly shifts the focus to an outcome-based measure rather than one
based on the resources committed to border security. H.R. 1417 requires
DHS to develop and implement a plan over 2 to 5 years to achieve
specific border security goals, including reaching a 90 percent
operational control level in the high-traffic border regions and along
the Southwest Border.
border security and immigration reform
One problem with H.R. 1417 is its failure to address how border
security will fit in with reforms to the legal immigration system or a
legalization plan for the undocumented. Without these key components of
reform that go hand-in-hand with border security, a massive commitment
of resources is unlikely to improve border security or reduce illegal
border crossings. Effective border security cannot be achieved in a
vacuum--it requires all the moving parts to be improved in order to
produce a workable result.
Finally, AILA urges Congress to avoid setting the border security
requirements in H.R. 1417 as trigger conditions that must be met before
legalization may move forward. There is widespread consensus that the
immigration system requires broad reform and that reform should proceed
as expeditiously as possible. America's economic and National interests
depend on it. There is no rational policy justification for holding
certain elements of reform ``hostage'' until others are achieved. More
specifically, if border security triggers are not well-defined and
attainable in a reasonable time frame, the legalization of millions
will be held in an indefinite status and discouraged from coming out of
the shadows, thus compromising the goals of meaningful and
comprehensive immigration reform and National security.
______
Statement of the National Immigration Forum
July 23, 2013
The National Immigration Forum works to uphold America's tradition
as a Nation of immigrants. The Forum advocates for the value of
immigrants and immigration to the Nation, building support for public
policies that reunite families, recognize the importance of immigration
to our economy and our communities, protect refugees, encourage
newcomers to become new Americans and promote equal protection under
the law.
The National Immigration Forum applauds the subcommittee for
holding this hearing on the matter of American border security and
urges the committee to look at border security as part of broad
immigration reform that includes an earned path to citizenship.
We believe the current conversation around border security and
immigration reform is different. In the past 2 years, an alliance of
conservative faith, law enforcement, and business leadership has come
together to forge a new consensus on immigrants and America. These
relationships formed through outreach in the evangelical community; the
development of State compacts; and regional summits in the Mountain
West, Midwest, and Southeast.
In early December 2012, over 250 faith, law enforcement, and
business leaders from across the country came to Washington, DC, for a
National Strategy Session and Advocacy Day. They told policymakers and
the press about the new consensus on immigrants and America. In
February, to support these efforts, the National Immigration Forum
launched the Bibles, Badges, and Business for Immigration Reform
Network to achieve the goal of broad immigration reform. Last month, to
help achieve that goal, this network held a Policy Breakfast and
Advocacy Day where participants organized 83 Hill meetings (55 with
Republicans). This was just one event of over 40 that were held all
over the country in support of immigration reform.
Last month by a bipartisan vote of 68-32 the United States Senate
passed S. 744, the ``Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and
Immigration Modernization Act'' (herein after referred to as S. 744), a
comprehensive immigration reform that attempts to strike the right
balance between increased immigration enforcement and border security,
earned legalization and an opportunity for citizenship, reforms to our
current family-based and employer-sponsored immigration system, and
efforts to deal with the current immigration backlog. One of the key
lessons learned from 1986, besides the need for additional future legal
avenues in our immigration system, is that all parts of our complex
immigration system are interrelated, and must be dealt with in a
cohesive manner, or we will see the results of unintended consequences.
That is why as the subcommittee discusses border security, it is
important that the discussion not become singularly focused on
immigration enforcement. A singular focus on immigration enforcement
will not result in workable solutions and gives an appearance of an
attempt to prey upon both our legitimate concerns and prejudices in
order to score political points. Certainly, we must do what we can to
ensure that real threats, including terrorists, transnational criminal
organizations and human traffickers cannot exploit our borders to do
harm. But at this time of fiscal discipline, continuing to throw
unlimited sums of money and resources at the border to chase an
impossible goal is not an effective use of resources. Further, heads of
border agencies under both Republican and Democratic administrations
have stated that the best way to improve border security is to fix the
immigration system by providing legal avenues for workers to enter the
United States when needed and allow families to reunify. This will
allow law enforcement and border officials to put fewer resources
toward economic migrants and more resources toward the true criminal
and terrorist threats.
During the debate on the Senate immigration reform legislation,
specific border security measures were included. The Senate bill, S.
744, requires that before individuals in Registered Provisional
Immigrant status can obtain a green card a minimum of 38,405 Border
Patrol Agents are deployed, stationed, and maintained on the Southern
Border, 700 miles of pedestrian fencing have been built (including a
double layer of pedestrian fencing where needed), an electronic work
verification system has been implemented and an electronic exit system
is in use at all air and sea ports of entry where U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) officers are currently deployed. S. 744 also
authorizes the deployment of more drones, increases flight hours and
authorizes hundreds of additional sensors, cameras and Integrated Fixed
Towers to be stationed along the border.
The Forum has written extensively on the need for smart enforcement
at our Nation's borders. To see a more detailed analysis on smart
enforcement at our borders please see the Forum's papers: ``What Does
Smart and Effective Enforcement Look Like?'', ``The `Border Bubble': A
Look at Spending On U.S. Borders'' and ``Cut Here: Reduce Wasteful
Spending on Immigration Enforcement.'' The Senate bill does not
necessarily fit our idea of smart border enforcement. However, as part
of a comprehensive set of initiatives that include significant reforms
to the legal immigration system and legalization for a large portion of
the undocumented immigrants in the country, we support the Senate bill.
This is the nature of compromise, tough decisions were made in the U.S.
Senate to garner support to pass legislation and we applaud the Senate
for passing an immigration reform package with a path to citizenship.
However, as the House takes up the issue of border security, we
would encourage the House to look closely at the effectiveness, and
``return on investment'' of the spending on personnel and technology
for border security.
enforcement today
In recent years, there has been an incredible amount of progress
improving the level of enforcement at our borders. Accordingly, any
additional increases in border security should be done in a smart and
conscientious manner. Millions of dollars have been spent in the last
decade as more money has been poured into border technology without
metrics to show how effective these investments have been. In spite of
this, the measurements we do have show that our border is more secure
than ever.
Currently, the entire Southwest Border is either ``controlled,''
``managed,'' or ``monitored'' to some degree. A record 21,370 Border
Patrol Agents continue to be stationed at the border, a number that
does not include the thousands of agents from other Federal agencies,
including the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) , Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI), and other agencies, supplemented by National
Guard troops.
As of February 2012, 651 miles of border fencing have been built
out of the 652 miles that the Border Patrol feels is operationally
necessary. The fence now covers almost the entire length of the border
from California to Texas. There is double fencing in many areas. CBP
relies heavily on technology in order to secure the United States'
borders and ports of entry.
CBP now has more than 250 Remote Video Surveillance Systems with
day and night cameras deployed on the Southwest Border. In addition,
the agency relies on 39 Mobile Surveillance Systems, which are truck-
mounted infrared cameras and radar. CBP has also sent Mobile
Surveillance Systems, Remote Video Surveillance Systems, thermal
imaging systems, radiation portal monitors, and license plate readers
to the Southwest Border. CBP also currently operates three Predator B
unmanned aerial drones from an Arizona base and two more from a Texas
base, providing surveillance coverage of the Southwest Border across
Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Prior to August 2006, many persons who were apprehended at the
border were released pending their immigration hearing. That practice
was ended in August 2006, and now nearly all persons crossing the
border illegally are detained. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) is now funded to hold 33,400 individuals in detention at any
given time. Over the course of the Government's fiscal year 2011, ICE
reported that it detained more than 429,000 individuals, an all-time
high and 118,000 more than the 311,000 individuals who were detained in
2007. For fiscal year 2012, ICE reported that it had removed nearly
410,000 persons, also a record. That number is approximately 91,000
more than were removed in 2007. To read more on how the 2007 benchmarks
have been met, please read the Forum's paper ``Immigration Enforcement
Today: 2007 Reform Goals Largely Accomplished.''
agent training and oversight
All of the efforts described above have demonstrated that the
Government can, and is capable, of enforcing our immigration laws. Yet,
there are still smart, practical enforcement measures that can be
adopted to further strengthen border security, including providing
adequate border agent training, providing adequate resources and
infrastructure at U.S. land ports of entry, establishing sufficient
oversight mechanisms and procedures to hold agents accountable for
misconduct, and effective use of border technology.
The Border Patrol is currently mandated to maintain a minimum of
21,370 agents at any given time, up from 14,923 in fiscal year 2007.
But, while the size of the Border Patrol has expanded, so has the
number of complaints against Border Patrol agents. In 2009, complaints
increased 50 percent from the previous year, while the size of the DHS
Office of Inspector General (OIG) grew by only 6 percent that same
year. Oversight of any agency is crucial to its success, and thus far
the OIG has been hampered by a lack of resources needed to investigate
and resolve the growing number of complaints, and has been without
permanent Inspector General for over 2 years.
Since 2010, at least a dozen individual media reports have recorded
Customs and Border Protection employing excessive use of force. In
addition, CBP has seen as many as 232 criminal indictments of its staff
for drug-related offenses, fraud, misuse of Government resources and
theft--all between October 2007 and April 2012. In a December 2012
report titled ``Border Security: Additional Actions Needed to
Strengthen CBP Efforts to Mitigate Risk of Employee Corruption and
Misconduct,'' the Government Accountability Office found that CBP does
not have an integrity strategy, as called for in its Fiscal Year 2009-
2014 Strategic Plan. It also found significant cultural resistance
among some CBP components in acknowledging the agency's Internal
Affairs authority for overseeing all integrity-related activities. CBP
must develop an effective integrity strategy in light of this
institutional resistance and its rapid growth and ever-growing number
of complaints.
land ports of entry need equal consideration in border security
Unfortunately, most of the conversations about border security
focus between the ports of entry, but the ports are an important part
of our border and National security, as well as our economic security,
facilitating billions of dollars in international trade each day. As
enforcement along the border between the ports has increased, illegal
entry at the ports has increased. A 2012 Texas Border Coalition report
found that, because enforcement resources have been so focused between
ports of entry, individuals illegally entering the United States
through a land port have a 28 percent chance of being apprehended
whereas someone attempting to do so between the land ports has a 90
percent probability of being apprehended. This also leaves land ports
more susceptible to transnational drug and weapons smuggling, as
increased seizures over the last years has demonstrated. This startling
report, coupled with long wait times at ports of entry that hinder the
flow of commerce and trade from Mexico, makes clear the need for
improvements at our ports of entry, including infrastructure,
personnel, and technology.
Conclusion
Continued advancements in enforcement will depend on broader
reforms to our broken immigration laws so that enforcement resources
can target real threats. The American people want better immigration
policy. Multiple National polls over the last month show solid support
for solutions that include, in addition to reasonable enforcement,
creating improved and new legal channels for future immigrants and
establishing tough but fair rules to allow undocumented immigrants to
stay and continue to work in the United States and eventually earn U.S.
citizenship. We cannot simply spend or enforce our way to a solution on
illegal immigration. Border security, while important, is only part of
the picture. Immigration reforms that promote legal immigration and
smartly enforce immigration laws can improve the security at the
border, drying up the customers for criminal enterprises that prey on
migrants, and letting our border agencies focus on more dangerous
threats such as terrorists, drugs, weapons, and money.
Our immigration problem is a National problem deserving of a
National, comprehensive solution. A piecemeal approach is not the
answer. The Senate's comprehensive reform legislation includes
increased interior enforcement and border security, earned legalization
and a path to citizenship, needed reforms to our current family-
centered and employer-centered immigration system and efforts to deal
with the current immigration backlog while also setting realistic
levels for both skilled and necessary lesser-skilled workers. The House
will likewise need to deal with all of these portions of current
immigration law and policy. The Forum looks forward to continuing this
positive discussion on how best to move forward with passing broad
immigration reform into law. The time is now for immigration reform.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I ask for an article entitled, ``Why
Adding 21,000 Border Patrol is a Dysfunctional Plan that Will
Waste Billions.'' It is an article from June, I think, 2013
from Forbes and a statement here in this article from Gary
Jacob, a businessman from Laredo, ask unanimous consent to
introduce this article into the record.
Mrs. Miller. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
Article Submitted for the Record by Sheila Jackson Lee
Why Adding 21,000 Border Patrol Is A Dysfunctional Plan That Will Waste
Billions--Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/07/21/why-adding-21000-
border-patrol-is-a-dysfunctional-plan-that-will-waste-billions/
[ . . . ]
Jacobs: I have seen no evidence of terrorists crossing through
Mexico. It was Canada not Laredo where some of the 9/11 suicide bombers
crossed. On the other hand, there is big money in contraband of all
types including trafficking in human beings. There is ample evidence
that when a poorly educated opportunistic Congress crams unrealistic
goals down the throats of honest and well intentioned managers of
border patrol law enforcement, that they overstress the system.
Because of the increase in overall border malfeasance, Congress
passed the Anti-Corruption Act of 2010 which among other things
requires polygraph tests for all new hires. That was another piece of
legislation pointed in the wrong direction. Local managers, not out of
touch with border issues civil servants in Washington, need to be
designing and implementing recruiting regimens. Our local managers
could easily have identified who had the appropriate background to
serve and quickly weed out the mistakes . . . but they can't because of
Congress.
To put some numbers to it, in 2010 in a mad rush to hire new
Customs and Border Protection agents only 1 in 10 were given lie-
detector tests and of those 60 percent failed . . . mind boggling!
Statistically, right there it says your odds of misbehavior by agents
increased exponentially. Procedures are now in place and all new
applicants are taking the (polygraph) test and, get this, almost 70
percent are failing! The GOA recommends expanding lie-detector tests to
current employees but at $800 per copy, there are no funds in the
budget to handle the expense.
To me, with the statistics just mentioned and with no changes to
the system, why should we begin an ad hoc program to arbitrarily throw
20,000 more bodies at this problem. One can almost guarantee that
without a rational detailed map justifying doubling the size of our
forces, we will be creating more problems than we are solving. I would
rather delegate to local CBP leadership how they want to recruit, where
they want to recruit and how they choose to screen entrants. If they
can only find 200 per year or 2,000 per year who meet the high
standards set for the generation of the now senior folks, then that
will dictate the size of the force . . . When I moved to Laredo and up
until the reactionary creation of the monster agency Homeland Security,
corruption cases along the border were few and far between.
[ . . . ]
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairwoman.
Mrs. Miller. I thank our Ranking Member. I thank all the
witnesses again and certainly the committee also. Without
objection, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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