[Senate Hearing 113-254]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-254
BORDER SECURITY -- 2013
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
MARCH 14, 2013
MEASURING THE PROGRESS AND ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES
APRIL 10, 2013
FRONTLINE PERSPECTIVE ON PROGRESS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
MAY 7, 2013
EXAMINING PROVISIONS IN THE BORDER SECURITY, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, AND
IMMIGRATION MODERNIZATION ACT (S. 744)
----------
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
S. Hrg. 113-254
BORDER SECURITY -- 2013
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2013
MEASURING THE PROGRESS AND ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES
APRIL 10, 2013
FRONTLINE PERSPECTIVE ON PROGRESS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
MAY 7, 2013
EXAMINING PROVISIONS IN THE BORDER SECURITY, ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, AND
IMMIGRATION MODERNIZATION ACT (S. 744)
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Deputy Staff Director
Blas Nunez-Neto, Senior Professional Staff Member
Holly A. Idelson, Senior Counsel
Stephen R. Vina, Deputy Chief Counsel for Homeland Security
Keith B. Ashdown, Minority Staff Director
Christopher J. Barkley, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Daniel P. Lips, Minority Director for Homeland Security
Trina D. Shiffman, Chief Clerk
Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Carper..........................................1, 131, 263
Senator McCain.........................................15, 134, 284
Senator Landrieu............................................. 135
Senator Tester............................................... 151
Senator Ayotte............................................... 154
Senator Baldwin............................................157, 283
Senator Coburn.............................................159, 266
Senator Johnson.............................................. 280
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 287
Prepared statements:
Senator Carper.........................................33, 171, 315
Senator Coburn.........................................36, 174, 318
Senator Landrieu............................................. 319
WITNESSES
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Hon. Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, U.S. Immigration
Policy Program, Migration Policy Institute..................... 4
Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow, Council on
Foreign Relations.............................................. 6
David A. Shirk, Ph.D., Director, Trans-Border Institute,
University of San Diego........................................ 9
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Alden, Edward:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Meissner, Hon. Doris:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Shirk, David A., Ph.D.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 62
APPENDIX
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), statement for the Record.. 94
Government Accountability Office, statement for the Record....... 102
National Immigration Forum, statement for the Record............. 121
Colleen M. Kelley, National President, National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU), statement for the Record............... 124
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Kevin K. McAleenan, Acting Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........ 136
Michael J. Fisher, Chief, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security........ 139
Randolph D. Alles, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Air and
Marine, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 140
James A. Dinkins, Executive Associate Director, Homeland Security
Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 142
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Alles, Randolph D.:
Testimony.................................................... 140
Prepared statement........................................... 176
Dinkins, James A:
Testimony.................................................... 142
Prepared statement........................................... 189
Fisher, Michael J.:
Testimony.................................................... 139
Prepared statement........................................... 176
McAleenan, Kevin K.:
Testimony.................................................... 136
Prepared statement........................................... 176
APPENDIX
Photo submitted by Mr. Fisher.................................... 185
Photo submitted by Mr. Fisher.................................... 186
Photo submitted by Mr. Fisher.................................... 187
Photo submitted by Mr. Fisher.................................... 188
Colleen M. Kelley, National President, National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU), statement for the Record............... 198
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Mr. McAleenan, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Alles...................... 204
Mr. Dinkins.................................................. 243
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Hon. David F. Heyman, Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 268
Kevin K. McAleenan, Acting Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
accompanied by Michael J. Fisher, Chief, U.S. Border Patrol,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security....................................................... 270
Daniel H. Ragsdale, Deputy Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.............. 272
Anne L. Richards, Assistant Inspector General for Audits, Office
of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security..... 274
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Heyman, Hon. David F.:
Testimony.................................................... 268
Prepared statement........................................... 322
McAleenan, Kevin K.:
Testimony.................................................... 270
Prepared statement........................................... 322
Ragsdale, Daniel H:
Testimony.................................................... 272
Prepared statement........................................... 322
Richards, Anne L.:
Testimony.................................................... 274
Prepared statement........................................... 328
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Mr. Heyman and Mr. McAleenan................................. 343
Ms. Richards................................................. 456
BORDER SECURITY:
______
MEASURING THE PROGRESS AND ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, presiding.
Present: Senators Carper and McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER
Chairman Carper. Well, I am tempted to say the Committee
will come to order, but the Committee is in order and so is the
audience and our witnesses. We are glad you are here arrayed
before us today and thank you for joining us. We are looking
forward to your testimony and the hearing. I think we are going
to have some votes today. We are working on some important
legislation. So we will probably be interrupted a time or two,
but we are going to get started and just roll with the punches.
It is nice to see all of you.
As Congress wrestles anew with immigration reform this
year, the security of our borders will be closely examined.
This conversation is likely to be quite different from the one
we had 7 years ago when we last debated immigration reform.
That is largely due to the substantial investments we have made
to secure our borders over the past decade, particularly our
Southern border with Mexico.
Despite all of the money and attention we have poured into
these efforts, we are still facing what I believe is a lag
between perception and reality, much like what happened with
the American auto industry. By the beginning of this current
century, the quality of the vehicles that Detroit was making
had begun to markedly improve, greatly narrowing and then
eliminating the quality gap between our vehicles and those
produced in Japan and Europe. However, it was only in the last
few years that the public really recognized and accepted this
fact, allowing the perception of the quality of American
vehicles to catch up with the reality of the quality of those
vehicles.
Likewise, despite the tremendous improvements that have
been made in border security over the past decade, the public's
perception of these improvements has lagged at times behind
reality. According to one of our witnesses today, Doris
Meissner, we will spend $18 billion this year enforcing our
immigration and customs laws. That is more than we will spend
on all other Federal law enforcement, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the
U.S. Marshals, and the Secret Service combined. Just think
about that. And since 2000, the Border Patrol alone has more
than doubled in size, and its funding has almost quadrupled.
This enormous investment reflects just how important effective
border security is to our Nation.
Last month, I was able to visit portions of the U.S.-Mexico
border in Arizona with one of our colleagues, Senator John
McCain. We were joined there by Congressman Mike McCaul of
Texas, who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Later that same week, I toured other parts of that border in
Arizona with their former Governor, now Secretary of Homeland
Security, Janet Napolitano. Based on what I saw there, I
believe that our efforts, and especially those of the dedicated
men and women who work along the border, are paying off for the
American taxpayers, and they need to.
As it turns out, illegal immigration has dramatically
decreased. Some experts estimate that more undocumented
immigrants now leave the United States each year than enter
unlawfully. Border Patrol apprehensions of undocumented
immigrants, our best current measure, albeit an imperfect one,
are at their lowest levels in decades.
Now, some parts of these decreases may be due to the great
recession we have endured, which reduced the number of jobs
available for immigrants. But I believe that we could attribute
a lot of this success to the security gains that we have made
which deter people from crossing the border, whether there are
jobs here for them or not.
Having said all that, I returned from the border wondering
if apprehensions is the metric we should be using to measure
our program and our progress in border security and to guide
our future investments there. I am not convinced that it is. I
am convinced, however, of the wisdom of the old adage, you
cannot manage what you cannot measure. And the truth is that we
need to refine and strengthen the metrics that we use to
determine how secure our borders and our ports of entry (POE)
are to ensure that our security efforts are both effective and
as cost efficient as possible.
This is especially necessary when the budgets are tight--
and they are, and we are literally debating that here today in
the U.S. Senate. We simply cannot afford to keep ramping up
resources for the border at the rate we have in the past. We
must be strategic with our investments, and we can be.
When I was in Arizona with my colleagues, I heard a number
of frontline agents say that we need to focus our efforts on
giving them technologies and tools that can serve as force
multipliers. That includes a wide range of cameras, sensors,
and radars that can be mounted on trucks or put on fixed towers
to help the Border Patrol deploy its agents more effectively.
More aerial surveillance assets, including blimps and aircraft
such as the C206, are also needed, and that is not a real
exotic airplane. It is a pretty basic airplane, but it is a
good platform. But C206 are also needed to help the Border
Patrol identify people crossing the border illegally and track
them until agents can catch them.
We also need to ensure that the investments we have already
made are fully utilized and not wasted. I was surprised and,
frankly, disappointed to learn that the Border Patrol has four
drones deployed in Arizona but only has the resources to fly
two of them, and even then, they cannot fly them every day of
the week. We can do better than that.
Another critical issue is the growing sophistication of
drug smuggling networks along the border and the problems that
they create for the Border Patrol and for our country. Agents
in Arizona told me that the cartels actually put spotters with
encrypted radios on top of mountains in our country to help
smugglers on the ground avoid law enforcement. We need to do a
better job of using our resources, including our drones and
other aircraft, to find these spotters and to send agents to
arrest them.
Stopping these criminal networks must be a high priority.
Finding the criminals that guide drugs and immigrants across
the border can be like finding a needle in the haystack. If we
can reform our broken immigration system to open up more
effective legal channels for those looking to come to our
country for economic or family reasons, I believe we can make
that haystack smaller. This will allow law enforcement to focus
on the truly bad guys.
Finally, I would also like to note that a lot of the
smuggling seen on the Southern borders is being pushed to the
ports of entry. These border crossings have received far less
attention and resources than the Border Patrol over the past
decade, but they are just as important to our security and to
our economy.
Additionally, local mayors that I met with all told me that
the lack of investments in border crossings is causing long
wait times, which hurts their communities and our country as a
whole. We must make sure that our ports of entry are secure,
but we also need to ensure that they are effective conduits for
the legal travel and trade that are essential to our national
well-being and, frankly, that of the Mexicans.
Ultimately, I hope that we can help the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) be so effective at securing our border
that we can begin to shift some of our resources toward
staffing and modernizing our ports of entry. We need to.
In closing, I hope that today's hearing facilitates a frank
conversation about how border security has improved since the
last time immigration reform was debated and helps us to
identify what more needs to be done. I support the efforts
underway to reform our immigration laws. Looking ahead, I
believe that this Committee can contribute significantly to the
conversations that are taking place now by informing them and
ultimately enabling the Congress and our President to hammer
out a thoughtful and effective immigration policy for America
in the 21st Century.
And we are going to be joined by some of our colleagues
here. Dr. Coburn is going to be offering a couple of amendments
on the floor today, and I know he is tied up with that right
now. I know he will be joining us, and some of my other
colleagues will, too.
I want to introduce our witnesses. As they say about the
President, he does not really need an introduction, and Doris,
I am not sure that you do, either, but I am going to give you a
short one anyway. Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director of
the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy
Institute (MPI). From 1993, Ms. Meissner served in the Clinton
Administration as the Commissioner of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS). Welcome.
Our second witness is Mr. Edward Alden. He goes by ``Ted.''
Mr. Alden is the Bernard Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Council
on Foreign Relations. Bernard Schwartz, that is a good name.
Give him my best. He specializes in U.S. economic
competitiveness. Mr. Alden has done extensive work on border
security metrics and is the author of the book, The Closing of
the American Border, which examines U.S. efforts to strengthen
border security in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.
Our final witness is Dr. David A. Shirk, Director of the
Trans-Border Institute and Assistant Professor in the Political
Science Department at the University of San Diego. Dr. Shirk
conducts research on Mexican politics and U.S.-Mexican
relations and security along the U.S.-Mexican border and has
many publications focused on these issues.
We are delighted that you all are here. This is going to be
a great hearing. The vote is at 11:15. Let us try to stick
close to seven minutes each. If you run a little bit over, that
is OK. If you run way over it, that is not.
Doris, you are our lead-off hitter. Take it away. Thank
you. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DORIS MEISSNER,\1\ SENIOR FELLOW AND
DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY PROGRAM, MIGRATION POLICY
INSTITUTE
Ms. Meissner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for the opportunity to be here this morning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Meissner appears in the Appendix
on page 37.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Carper. Our pleasure.
Ms. Meissner. My statement is based on my personal
experience with border and immigration enforcement when I
served as Commissioner of INS. It is also based on a recent MPI
report that I and colleagues coauthored called ``Immigration
Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable
Machinery.'' The report describes for the first time the
totality and evolution since the mid-1980s of the Nation's
modern day immigration enforcement machinery. My written
statement focuses on the border enforcement element of that,
which I will summarize as follows.
For more than 25 years, there has been strong and sustained
bipartisan support for strengthened immigration enforcement. As
a result, the level of immigration enforcement spending in the
United States now stands at a record high. You just summarized
the key points on that spending.
It has now reached $17.9 billion, larger than the other law
enforcement agencies combined that you recounted. That amount
is 24 percent higher than the amount spent for those other law
enforcement agencies, and, of course, the lion's share of that
funding has been for border security.
Since fiscal year 2005, the budget of Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) rose from $6.3 billion to $11.7 billion. That
is an increase of about 85 percent. The agency's staffing grew
by 50 percent, from 41,000 to 61,000-plus. That includes a
doubling in the size of the Border Patrol to 21,000-plus agents
since just 2004.
Border enforcement encompasses a broad sweep of
responsibilities at and between air, land, and sea ports of
entry. Enforcement along the Southwest land border with Mexico
represents the most heavily funded and publicized element of
border enforcement. Resource infusions there have led to
notable results. Historic highs in staffing, technology, and
infrastructure have combined with historic 40-year lows in
apprehensions. Border Patrol apprehensions fell by 78 percent
between fiscal year 2000 and 2012, from more than 1.6 million
to just 365,000. The greatest drop, 53 percent, has occurred
since just 2008. Beyond significantly fewer apprehensions and
individuals arrested, net new migration from Mexico has fallen
to zero.
These are dramatic numbers. They represent a top-line story
of changes that have been years in the making. To me, two
aspects of the changes stand out as particularly significant.
The first is a new strategic plan that the Border Patrol
announced last spring that has received little notice. It calls
for risk-based enforcement to supplant its earlier goal of
building adequate staffing, technology, and infrastructure that
began in 1994, when I was Commissioner. The plan says that the
Border Patrol's resource base has now been built, allowing for
targeted enforcement responses to be carried out through
information, integration of effort, and rapid response. It
depicts steady State funding and refining of programs alongside
increased cooperation with other law enforcement entities,
especially Mexico. This is entirely new and unprecedented.
Second, these sustained resource infusions have allowed for
significant changes in border enforcement practices. Instead of
the storied revolving door along the border, the Border Patrol
is employing enforcement tactics that impose consequences
beyond simple voluntary return on those it arrests. According
to the Border Patrol, the purpose of its new tactics is to
break the smuggling cycles and the networks by separating
migrants from smugglers and increasing deterrence of repeat
entries. As a result, whereas 90 percent of border enforcement
had been voluntary return, the reverse is now true and the
large majority of those apprehended face a consequence, such as
lateral repatriation, expedited removal, or Operation
Streamline, for example. Remarkably, CBP refers more cases to
the United States for prosecution in district courts than does
the FBI.
Now, this is not to say that border enforcement must not
continue to be improved. Technology initiatives that have
played a major role in transforming the border have also often
been disappointing. The story of Secure Border Initiative
(SBInet) is a case in point. Meeting the physical
infrastructure needs at land ports of entry has not kept pace
with advances in documentation and screening developments.
Space limitations prevent important new technologies from being
fully utilized. Thus, the potential for land port of entry
inspections to be a weak link is a continuing enforcement
challenge.
There is much disagreement over how to measure what
constitutes a secure border. Current measures rely primarily on
inputs, such as resource increases, not on outcomes and
impacts, such as the size of illegal flows, the share of the
flow apprehended, or recidivism rates. CBP and DHS must do
better in demonstrating border enforcement effectiveness.
At the same time, the combination of increased border
enforcement, shifting trends in Mexico, and job loss in the
U.S. economy has led to new facts on the ground that have
important policy and political implications for immigration
debates. Today's border enforcement is a multifaceted,
sophisticated enterprise. It has become institutionalized
through its national security links and resource investments in
vital capabilities that demonstrate the Federal Government's
ability and will to vigorously enforce the Nation's immigration
laws.
While imperfect, border security has been significantly
strengthened in all key dimensions. It would be strengthened
even further by enactment of immigration laws that both address
inherent weaknesses in enforcement beyond border security, such
as employer enforcement, and that better rationalize
immigration policy to align with the Nation's economic needs
and future growth and well-being. The dramatic strides that
have been made in border security constitute a sound platform
from which to address broader immigration policy changes suited
to the larger needs and challenges that immigration represents
for the United States in the 21st century.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Great testimony. I wish all of
my colleagues were here to hear it, but a lot of people are
watching on television and a lot of staffers are here, so we
thank you for that. Thank you for all your work over the years,
as well.
Ms. Meissner. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Mr. Alden, we are happy you are here.
Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF EDWARD ALDEN,\1\ BERNARD L. SCHWARTZ SENIOR
FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Alden. Thank you, Chairman Carper. I am delighted to
have been invited to testify today and it is great to be here
with Doris Meissner and David Shirk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Alden appears in the Appendix on
page 50.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Carper. Do you all know each other?
Mr. Alden. We do.
Ms. Meissner. Yes, we do.
Mr. Alden. Yes. It is a group of people who I think have
worked on these issues for a while, Doris longer than I have,
but----
Chairman Carper. Really? [Laughter.]
Have you all testified together before?
Ms. Meissner. No.
Mr. Alden. No.
Chairman Carper. OK. This is your debut, so this is good.
Thank you.
Mr. Alden. The testimony that follows, as I was saying, is
drawn from research I have conducted with two distinguished
economists, Bryan Roberts, who is here with me today, and John
Whitley, on measuring the effectiveness of border enforcement.
Dr. Whitley is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Defense
Analyses and the former Director of Program Analysis and
Evaluation (PA&E) at the Department of Homeland Security. Dr.
Roberts is Senior Economist at Econometrica and was formerly
Assistant Director of Borders and Immigration for Program
Analysis and Evaluation at DHS. I appreciate your generous
introduction.
In a 2011 article in Foreign Affairs which was entitled,
``Are U.S. Borders Secure: Why We Do Not Know and How to Find
Out,'' Dr. Roberts and I noted that by every conceivable input
measure, as Doris' testimony went over, the number of Border
Patrol agents, miles of fencing, and drone and surveillance
coverage, the border is far more secure today than it has ever
been. And yet according to a new poll by the Hill Newspaper,
nearly two-thirds of Americans still believe the border is not
secure.
One reason for public skepticism is that the U.S.
Government actually releases very little information about
unauthorized border crossings. Currently, DHS makes public only
a single relevant number, which is the total arrests or
apprehensions made by Border Patrol in the vicinity of the
border, numbers we are all familiar with. Multiple arrests of
the same individual, it should be noted, are counted multiple
times. And as Doris testified, apprehensions at the Southwest
border have indeed dropped dramatically over the past decade,
from more than 1.65 million in fiscal year 2000 to 357,000 at
the Southern border in fiscal year 2012. This is lower than any
year since the early 1970s, which is really before illegal
immigration became a big policy issue. But other enforcement
metrics related to illegal entry at the ports or between the
ports or through visa overstays are not reported.
DHS has recognized the inadequacy of the apprehensions
number and has said it considers it, ``an interim performance
measure.'' Yet despite promising to produce and report
alternative measures, it has failed to do so, leaving this
Congress to assess the current State of border security in the
absence of data that would greatly assist that effort.
The outcome that is of most concern to the U.S. public is
the gross inflow of unauthorized migrants, or in other words,
how many people escape detection, enter and remain in the
United States successfully. While economic conditions in the
United States and in the major sending countries of Mexico and
Central America are obviously the biggest drivers of illegal
migration, the two primary enforcement variables that affect
gross inflow are the chances of being caught, that is, the
apprehension rate, and the consequences of being caught.
If we look between the land ports of entry, where much of
the focus has been, there are three low-cost methods available
that can be used to measure gross inflow and apprehension
rates: Migrant surveys, recidivism analysis, and what is called
known flow data.
Migrant surveys, which have been carried out for several
decades by academic groups, ask those who have attempted
illegal entry how many times they were arrested on a particular
trip and whether they were ultimately successful in entering
the United States or gave up their attempt. The survey data,
however, unfortunately, is not available in a particularly
timely fashion. It tends to be backward looking.
Recidivism analysis is possible because Border Patrol has
captured fingerprints of those it apprehends for more than a
decade now so that it can identify accurately those caught
multiple times. Under certain assumptions, this analysis allows
for accurate estimates of the apprehension rate. The difficulty
is accounting for those who are arrested, sent back across the
border to Mexico, and are deterred and do not make subsequent
attempts. I explain that more in my written testimony.
Finally, known flow data is based on sector-by-sector
observations by the Border Patrol. Each sector has long kept
such records, which include estimates of the number of people
who successfully evaded the Border Patrol, so called ``got-
aways,'' or are observed to retreat back into Mexico, so-called
``turnbacks.'' The difficulty here is that some percentage of
illegal migrants will enter successfully without any
observation by the Border Patrol.
As our research shows in greater detail, each of these
methods suggests considerable progress has been made in
improving the effectiveness of border enforcement over the past
decade. Migrant surveys suggest that the apprehension rate has
trended upwards from a low of about 20 percent in 1990 to a
current rate of somewhere between 40 and 50 percent.
The recidivist method, depending on the assumptions one
makes about deterrence, similarly suggests an apprehension rate
in the 40 to 50 percent range. It could be higher than this. As
Doris mentioned, Border Patrol's current strategy calls for
consequence delivery to replace the historic practice of
voluntary return of those arrested back to Mexico. We are
talking about Mexicans here, who are the bulk of those trying
to enter. These consequence programs are intended to discourage
multiple reentry attempts. That is their whole purpose. But DHS
has yet to release any data to evaluate their effectiveness.
Finally, the known flow methodology, which was the subject
of an extremely important Government Accountability Office
(GAO) report in December, suggests that as many as 80 percent
of those crossing illegally are apprehended. Evidence on
illegal entry through the ports is scarce. In theory, it should
be possible to measure and report apprehension rates and gross
inflow through the ports. DHS implements a program of
randomized secondary inspection, where certain vehicles are
pulled aside on a random basis, that could be used to generate
data on the probability that vehicle passengers attempting
unauthorized entry succeed in getting through primary
inspection. It is not known if DHS has made such estimates.
They certainly have not released them publicly.
Another relevant measure, though it does not directly
related to the Southwest border, is the issue of visa
overstays. A commonly accepted estimate is that more than 40
percent of unauthorized migrants arrived on a lawful visa and
then overstayed. DHS currently has the capability to provide a
reasonably accurate estimate of the number of visa overstays
from each country, but again has not released this information
to Congress.
The key outcome performance measures for any law
enforcement organization are the rate at which the laws under
their jurisdiction are broken. For U.S. immigration law, this
means the numbers and rate at which individuals enter illegally
and/or reside in this country unlawfully. Such data are crucial
for designing more successful policies in the future. The U.S.
Government is currently incapable of giving data-informed
answers to some of the most basic policy questions in
immigration management, such as would new legal programs for
lower-skilled migrants reduce the incentive to migrate
illegally to the United States? Would increased workplace
enforcement do more to deter illegal immigration than increased
border enforcement? Where would expenditures be more effective?
Where are the vulnerabilities for increased illegal migration
the greatest? At the ports of entry? Between ports? Visa
overstays? We do not have good evidence.
In an effort to produce more policy-relevant data and
improve ongoing oversight, Congress should require at least the
following as part of any forthcoming immigration legislation.
First, that the Administration develop a full set of outcome
performance measures for enforcement of immigration laws. There
is a table in our written testimony that suggests what those
should be. Congress should make the development and reporting
of such measures mandatory for the Administration and tie this
to future appropriations.
Second, performance data should be used in the ongoing
management of illegal immigration. DHS should establish an
early warning system that monitors all unauthorized inflows,
along with economic, demographic, law enforcement, and other
trends that may affect these outcomes. This is a critical part
of a risk management strategy as the Border Patrol has adopted.
And then, finally, oversight must be strengthened. Relevant
Committees in Congress should hold regular hearings to review
the early warning system data and forecasts, examine trends and
outcome performance measures, and assess DHS proposals for
adjustments to its strategies as conditions on the ground
change.
Thank you. I appreciate your indulgence in going over time
and I would be happy to respond to questions.
Chairman Carper. That was well worth the time it took.
Thank you.
Dr. Shirk, please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID A. SHIRK, PH.D.,\1\ DIRECTOR, TRANS-BORDER
INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO
Mr. Shirk. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to you
and the Committee for allowing me to speak to you today. I have
been studying security issues on both sides of the border for
the last 10 years at the Trans-Border Institute based at the
University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies,
and also, I have been a long-time resident of the border region
and I am personally affected on a daily basis by the choices
made here in Washington about our border with Mexico, so I am
very pleased to speak in that regard.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Shirk appears in the Appendix on
page 62.
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I have been studying security issues on both sides of the
border for the last 10 years at the Trans-Border Institute
based at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc School of
Peace Studies, and also, I have been a long-time resident of
the border region and I am personally affected on a daily basis
by the choices made here in Washington about our border with
Mexico, so I am very pleased to speak in that regard.
Living in San Diego for most of the last two decades, I
have witnessed the dramatic transformation of the border region
that my two colleagues have described as a result of more
concentrated enforcement measures to prevent unauthorized
migration, smuggling, and terrorism. The dramatic increases in
the number of Border Patrol agents on the ground has already
been mentioned. But I would simply underscore that this
arguably makes the U.S.-Mexico border the heaviest guarded
border between two peaceful, interdependent trading countries
in the world. The border itself has been physically
transformed, especially in major populated areas where multi-
billion-dollar high-tech equipment and fencing are used to
detect and deter both immigrants and criminals.
By some measure, as has been mentioned, these efforts have
resulted in real security improvements along the border,
particularly when looking at inputs. But also, I want to speak
to some of the consequences for us living in the border region.
Even amid the economically and demographically driven
decline of Mexican outbound migration in recent years, we have
seen more effective deterrence, detection, detention, and
deportation of unauthorized immigrants than at any other point
in our history. We have produced safer conditions in terms of
roads, lighting, communications systems, and emergency back-up
for Border Patrol and Customs agents working in these zones, as
well as lower crime rates for border communities, businesses,
and residents like me.
In many places, this has improved the quality of life for
people living along the border insofar as it has resulted in
less fear and property damage for businesses, ranchers, and
residents, and greater protection for our parks and
recreational areas located near the border.
However, this border security buildup has come at a
significant cost, as has been noted. The operational costs of
border enforcement have increased greatly, from billions to
tens of billions of dollars annually. More sophisticated border
controls have resulted actually in more sophisticated criminal
organizations, greater threats for immigrants, residents, and
Government agents working in border zones. We have also
produced more dangerous conditions for unauthorized immigrants
crossing the border, contributing to more than 6,000 migrant
deaths since 1995.
In weighing the cost of border security, we should also
consider the lengthy delays resulting from slow procedures and
inadequate infrastructure, which results in lost economic
opportunities for both countries. Last year, commercial,
vehicular, and pedestrian crossers at the border accounted for
over a half-a-trillion dollars in business with Mexico, our
second-largest trading partner. Border wait times, solely in
the San Diego-Tijuana region, which is in urgent need of
further funding to complete infrastructure upgrades, cost both
countries around $6 billion each year, according to the San
Diego Association of Governments.
Impacts on Mexican border cities, where tens of thousands
of immigrants are returned without coordination with Mexican
authorities, include greater crime and violence as those
individuals try to struggle to adapt to their deportation
conditions.
Astonishingly, as has been noted, despite all the effort
and cost, we have few reliable indicators to determine whether
these border security measures are effective in deterring
undocumented immigration. Almost all of the most commonly used
metrics of border security effectiveness are proxy indicators.
Analysts measure the number of unauthorized immigrants living
in the United States based on surveys and approximations.
Analysts measure the flow of illegal immigrants into the
country by the number of arrests made by Border Patrol agents.
Ultimately, we do not have accurate, up-to-date estimates of
the size and composition of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant
population or the number of unauthorized immigrants coming into
the United States.
These estimates need to be more regularly updated and
publicly disseminated to give a clear picture of the overall
effectiveness of immigration control measures, including those
that go beyond the border. Greater research and analysis is
also needed to approximate the proportion of visa overstays
compared to unauthorized border crossers that comprise our
undocumented population, as well as the countries of origin, so
we can get a sense of how important Mexican and Central
American migration is as a phenomenon overall.
The U.S. Government, I think, should also work more closely
with the Government of Mexico and Mexican research agencies to
examine statistics on Mexican outbound migration and returnees,
repatriacion, as they say in Mexico, as well as surveys of
migrants, as has been mentioned, that provide a better
understanding of their motivations and experiences.
Authorities do have some measures that can be used, as
well, to evaluate the performance of U.S. border control
agencies in terms of process. For example, border officials
collect data on the likelihood of detention after detection,
again, this idea of got-aways or turnbacks. But the methodology
for gathering these data varies from sector to sector, so
developing a standardized methodology for the collection of
these and similar performance metrics would help officials to
identify areas in need of improvement along different sectors
of the border and redeploy resources accordingly to those
zones.
On a final note, my colleague at the Wilson Center, Eric
Olson, and I have argued for better security through wider
gates. This may seem counterintuitive, but if Congress can
achieve a long overdue reform of our immigration system, this
would reduce the incentives to violate our immigration laws and
thereby increase our ability to control the border, because it
would reduce the size of the haystack that our Border Patrol
agents have to sort through. In that sense, conditioning
immigration reform on tougher border security may be the wrong
sequence of policies.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Carper. Well, thank you. That was really excellent
testimony. We appreciate each of your statements.
We have been joined by Senator McCain, and I mentioned,
Senator McCain, before you got here how valuable our visit to
your border, your State's border with Mexico, was for me.
I am reminded as I prepared for this hearing and listened
to testimony today of a couple of thoughts. One, is the border
more secure? Can we do better? Everything I do, I know I could
do better. It is one of my core values. I think that is true
for all of us. Everything we all do, every Government program
we have, I suspect we can do better. And while real progress
has been made along our border with Mexico, can we do better?
Sure, we can do better. I like to say, the road to improvement
is always under construction, and it is in this case, as well.
One of my take-aways from the time I spent with Senator
McCain and Congressman McCaul and later that week with
Secretary Napolitano was that you look at the areas between the
ports of entry, where you have deployed large numbers of ground
forces, Border Patrol, but also a lot of emphasis there on a
fair amount of technology, fencing and other things, we are
doing a better job. We are clearly doing a better job. If you
look at the ports of entry, especially the ports of entry where
we have some new technology, and we visited at least one of
those, very impressive operations, but there are also huge
back-ups, impeding trade going North and going South.
One of the take-aways for me from that visit was if some of
the technology that we are using is being used effectively to
help direct our troops on the ground, our Border Patrol on the
ground to the places they need to go and to better deploy those
assets and deploy them in a more timely way, but I was down
there looking for force multipliers. And one of the great
examples is the drones. We have four drones on the border. Two
operate at any time. They can operate for about 16 hours. They
operate 5 days a week. What happens the other 2 days? What
happens with the other two drones? What happens when the wind
is blowing more than 15 knots? What happens when maintenance
brings down the drones and they cannot fly? We have to figure
out how to resource all four drones. If we are going to have
four drones there, we need to be able to resource them.
We have pretty good technology with, some people call them
aerostats, but they are really blimps, the kind of sensors that
we can mount on these blimps. Put them up in the air, they can
be there whether the wind is 15 knots or 35 knots. They can
survey what is going on. They can help us better direct our
resources.
Ideally, what I would like to do--and the C206, an aircraft
that, frankly, I had not heard of. It is an older plane, small
plane, but it is one that is a great platform and a very cost
effective platform compared to the drones. You can fly for
extended periods of time. It would be a great way to help
better deploy our assets on the ground. It is a force
multiplier.
But those are the kinds of investments I think we need to
be making, and if we make those investments, we will make the--
how many thousand troops or Border Patrol do we have on the
ground? It is not 18,000. What is it?
Ms. Meissner. Twenty-one-thousand.
Chairman Carper. Twenty-one-thousand, to help make them
more effective.
The other thing we have to do, we have these folks who are
sitting up--the bad guys sitting up on the mountains up in our
country really spying and being able to talk to other bad guys
who are trying to bring either drugs or people into the country
illegally. We ought to take them out. We ought to be smart
enough to find out where they are and to be able to go take
them out. If we could do that, that would make our efforts, I
think, a whole lot more successful. It is probably a lot more
difficult than it sounds, but that is part of what we need to
do.
I am going to ask a question or two and then turn it over
to Senator McCain for--he has a number of questions--for at
least 10 minutes, and then we will bounce back and forth. But,
Mr. Alden, you spent a whole lot of time on the metrics and how
do we measure, actually measure success. It is not easy. It is
not an easy thing to measure.
But I want to ask the three of you to just have a
conversation with us about what might be a consensus about a
metric or a series of metrics that are more reasonable, more
effective, more appropriate. And, Doris, Dr. Shirk, I do not
care who goes first, but react to what Ted Alden has said to
us. What do you agree with? What do you maybe not agree with,
and what----
Ms. Meissner. I would endorse every one of Ted's
statements. You asked us at the outset, if we know each other,
or if we have worked together. Certainly Ted and I have, along
with others that are in the university community as well as
analysts that Ted mentioned.
This issue of metrics is absolutely paramount at this point
and DHS has been far too cautious. CBP has been very risk
averse where measures that already are available are concerned.
I understand the caution. We all recognize what the issues are
surrounding them. But one of the things with measures and one
of the things with data is that it has to be used. It has to be
tested. It has to be validated, both inside closed circles
within Government agencies but also by the external community.
And it is past time where that should be done more fully.
I think we would all agree that if there was one measure
that we could have that would make all the difference, it would
be the measure of the flow. It is what we in the trade call the
magical denominator. We have the numerator. That is
apprehensions. We need to know what those apprehensions
represent as a percentage of the overall flow.
We have that flow number in glances. The Congressional
Research Service (CRS) has been able with select pieces of
requests of data to get a sense of it. We know that the Border
Patrol sector-by-sector has a reasonably good picture of it,
lots of it because of the technology that you described and
cited.
The standardization of definitions on what is to be
counted, et cetera, is not where it needs to be. That all needs
to be done. But some of this can happen in an iterative way if
things begin to be shared and this becomes a really sincere
analytic effort to try to find out what the answers are.
One of the most important things we learned from one piece
of research that CRS did is that the apprehension numbers,
365,000 a year ago, actually means just 269,000, or maybe it
was 267,000, individuals. That is another very interesting
subset of this. As compared to the arrest actions, how many
real individuals does that represent? Just in those two things,
the flow and how many individuals are represented by the
apprehension numbers, we would know a great deal more about
effectiveness than we do. Those, I would argue, are within
reach.
Chairman Carper. Oh, good. Thanks. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. I would agree, as well. I would just note that
both Doris and I are on the advisory committee for the paper
that Ted is working on for the Council on Foreign Relations
precisely on this topic, and I think it is excellent work.
I would say that one of the things that he noted, the fact
that we can isolate with the apprehension data whether or not
individuals are recidivists using the thumbprint identifier
code that is available on that--that could be made available on
that database is an example of how data should be made
available to researchers so that we can do more sophisticated
analysis and give you a better understanding of what the actual
trends are using those data.
I would also simply point out that if you--one metric,
thinking about numerators and denominators, is in 1990, when we
had about--late 1990s, when we had about 9,000 agents, they
were making about 150-plus arrests per agent, on average, using
the apprehension data that we have. If you flash forward to
today, when we have 20,000-plus agents on the border, they are
arresting about 15 undocumented immigrants per agent.
So that is actually, ironically, a good thing. We want a
low number of arrests to the number of agents that we have
deployed. Ideally, we would like to have fewer Border Patrol
agents and fewer arrests, meaning that flows would be low and
there is a lot of deterrence. So if we can reduce manpower at
the border while increasing some of those force multipliers
that you mentioned, that would be the ideal.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thanks very much.
I am reminded, before I turn it over to you, Senator McCain
and I spent a whole lot of time in the Navy. I admire his
service--I know we all do--and salute him for it. The time that
he spent in--and he was in much more difficult circumstances
than I was. I flew in a Navy airplane called a P3. We used to
hunt Russian submarines all over the world. We also flew a lot
of missions off the coast of Vietnam and Cambodia, low levels
trying to detect a little infiltrator probably trying to get
into South Vietnam to resupply the Viet Kong. And in the South
China Sea, there was a lot of surface traffic, and a lot of
surface traffic going into Hong Gai Harbor. We flew a lot of
missions down along the Straits of Majorca, between the Indian
Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
And this was 40 years ago and we had the technology then to
literally track scores of little boats electronically, to
assign targets to them electronically, and to be able to track
them, scores of them at the same time. This was 40 years ago.
And if we could do that 40 years ago, I think we ought to have
the technology today, whether it is on a drone or a C206 or an
aerostat, to be able to do something with not just little boats
trying to infiltrate into South Vietnam, but people and groups
of people. We ought to have the technology to be able to do
that.
John, thank you very much.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want
to thank you for taking the time from a very busy schedule to
come down to the border, spend time with our agents, with our
ranchers, with all of those who really live this issue on a
day-to-day basis. I wish more of our colleagues could have the
opportunity or seize the opportunity as you did, and I thank
you for doing that. It is a long way from Delaware and I thank
you for being there. It is obvious that you learned a lot, as I
did, and I appreciate it very much.
I thank the witnesses. Doris, it is nice to see you again,
and thank you for your outstanding work, and thank you all for
your continued contributions to this discussion we are having
on comprehensive immigration reform.
Doctor, I agree with you that we have to have comprehensive
reform. You ended your remarks that the best way to relieve
this pressure is probably through comprehensive reform. I know
that all of our witnesses would agree with that. And part of it
is--of any comprehensive immigration reform is verifiable
identification of people who apply for jobs. When the magnet is
not there anymore, then fewer people are going to come to this
country illegally.
But I also, Doris, want to emphasize that it is beyond my
understanding why the Department of Homeland Security would not
publicly disclose the information that is necessary to all
Americans as to this issue of flow and how many we apprehend
and how many are turned back and you have motivated me, if we
pass comprehensive immigration reform, that will be one of the
provisions of the legislation, that this information needs to
be made public to all Americans.
I guess for all three of our witnesses, that is probably
the best way to--or do you know a better way of ascertaining
the effectiveness rate than apprehensions and turnbacks? Is
there a better way to achieve these metrics than that, or is
that probably the best way to do that? Doris.
Ms. Meissner. As far as I know, those are the key ideas,
and David's addition of recidivism and repeated entries off of
the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) data is
what we have. And that is what we need. I mean, it is not that
what we have is too primitive. We have the wherewithal to get
those numbers. Now, when we have them, they may raise other
questions that one needs to dig further on. But having them
would put us way far forward from where we are today in
understanding.
Mr. Alden. I would say, as I spelled out in the testimony,
we really believe that the three methods you need, it is a
place to start. There could be improvements to all of them. One
is these Border Patrol observations, and you have had a very
good picture of that in this GAO report in December, which is
the first time all of that data has been made available widely
to Congress and the public. A very important contribution.
We need a similar kind of transparency with respect to the
recidivist data, and DHS has this information on multiple
arrests. They can use it, as I said, with certain assumptions
to help make calculations of flow and apprehension rates.
And then, finally, we need to make more serious use of
these migrant surveys. Now, there are problems there in terms
of who carries it out. It is done by academic groups. There
would be concern if the Government got directly involved in
that area. But the surveys are very valuable in helping us
understand what the migrants themselves are doing, what
motivates them, what deters them. It would be very interesting
if we finally get serious workplace enforcement to have
questions in surveys, were you deterred from coming to the
United States by the fact that you did not think you could get
a legitimate job? That is an important piece of information
that we need to know as part of ongoing management.
So I think we really are moving from this position of a big
resource buildup to ongoing law enforcement and management of
the problem, and I am hoping that this legislation will help
facilitate that turn because I think that is where we are. Both
for good objective reasons, because that is where we need to
be, but, I think, also for budgetary reasons. There are just
limits to how much we can continue to spend on enforcement.
Senator McCain. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. I would only add, first of all, if the
Government does not want to release the IDENT data, at a
minimum, doing some analysis and presenting that through GAO or
some other source would be an alternative. But it seems to me
that there is no apparent reason for why this and similar data
are not released.
Another example that I would use on another security area
would be seizure data. We do not have publicly available
information about, say, drug seizures or drugs and cash on a
port of entry level and in between port of entry level across
the entire border. But that would be a useful metric, as well,
as we think about border security's effectiveness on other
measures, such as drug trafficking.
On the scope of the problem, we have been using this number
of 11 million undocumented immigrants, but that is an old
number and it is a number that has not been backed up by new
survey data. And so I would only underscore that the survey
data is very important for getting a better understanding of
the size and composition of what some researchers call lakes
and streams, right, the population and the people moving into
and out of that population. And, unfortunately, that is the
kind of work that needs to be done by academics and think
tanks, and funding is critical for that kind of research. It is
often--academics seem like we are not doing a whole lot in the
ivory tower, but ultimately, when funding is available to do
this kind of research, policymakers get the kind of information
that they need to make decisions.
Senator McCain. In 1986, I was around here and we passed
legislation that gave, ``amnesty'' to three million Americans.
There is a bitter taste in a lot of people's mouths because
there was a commitment at that time, an assurance that we would
never have to address this issue again. So this obviously
emphasizes the importance this time around of border security.
And I agree with the witnesses. I am not sure we need
additional people. But I also believe that we have learned a
lot of lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan on detection, on
surveillance capabilities, that have been a quantum leap. In
2007, we did not use drones. We had dirigibles, you know,
blimps. And so I agree with you. We need to use that additional
technology to increase it.
But I also think that we need to have a measurement,
probably through effectiveness rate, so that we can assure the
American people that we have about 90 percent effective control
of the border and take steps that are necessary to achieve
that. Now, because of the advances we have made, when you look
at the nine sectors, except for the smallest sectors where less
than 30,000 apprehensions are not that important, we are only
looking at three sectors that are not at 90 percent
effectiveness. So I do not think it is that hard to achieve
that 90 percent.
But at the same time, I think I have an obligation, not
just to the people of Arizona, but to the people of this
country, to assure them that not only will we enact
comprehensive immigration reform, but we are not going to come
back and face this same third wave again some years from now. I
would appreciate your comments on that, maybe beginning with
you, Doris.
Ms. Meissner. Well, I certainly do not think that one wants
to establish an effectiveness rate in statute. But it is
absolutely important at this point to do what Ted suggests in
his testimony: Establish in the statute expectations from DHS
of the kind of data, and the managing of that data against
circumstances on the ground that we want to see where border
control is concerned.
I also think that in terms of the 1986 experience and its
lessons that although this debate is similar in that it is
returning to the issues of border enforcement, employer
enforcement, et cetera, it is also very different, not only
because of what we have learned, but the way things have
changed. And I would point to a couple of changes.
The most important are changes that are taking place in
Mexico. I mean, Mexico, of course, has been the source of the
largest share of illegal immigration now for 40-plus years and
there is actually a historic set of changes taking place in
Mexico that is part of the new picture where illegal
immigration to the United States is concerned. That has to do
with dramatic reductions in the birth rate and fertility rate
in Mexico, the age curve in the population, so that less people
are actually working age, the growth of a middle class, and
solid economic growth in Mexico because they got their
fundamentals right in the 1990s in terms of the economy.
So even though one does not want to say that there is not
going to be illegal immigration from Mexico--there will be--it
is a very different picture in terms of dynamics.
Senator McCain. Well, it is very different in other ways,
too. One is an increased flow from other parts of the
hemisphere, not just from Mexico, and the dramatically
increased sophistication of the drug dealers as they bring
drugs across our border, so----
Ms. Meissner. Well, and that is right----
Senator McCain [continuing]. So I respectfully disagree
with you that the problem is lessened. In fact, as far as drugs
are concerned, it is greater. There are people sitting on
mountaintops in Arizona today guiding drug cartel people
bringing drugs across our border. There is a dramatic increase
in other than Mexicans (OTMs) that are trying to come across
our border, as well. So I respectfully disagree with your rosy
assessment, and I believe it needs to be----
Ms. Meissner. No, I----
Senator McCain. Let me finish. And I believe that it needs
to be written into law so that the American people can know
whether there is an effective control of our border. I owe them
that obligation, particularly the citizens of my State.
And I am out of time, so could I go to you, Ted.
Mr. Alden. I just wanted to caution against--and I can
understand why for public assurance this is very important, but
I want to caution against looking for a single number. I mean,
Chief Michael Fisher of the Border Patrol put out this----
Senator McCain. We have to have some measurement.
Mr. Alden. But we can have multiple measures.
Senator McCain. OK.
Mr. Alden. We do not simply need one measure. I mean, Chief
Fisher put out this 90 percent effectiveness ratio and that
comes from this known flow methodology. The problem with that,
as I said, is that known flow almost certainly underestimates
the number of people coming in illegally because we simply do
not know what it was that the Border Patrol did not observe.
The second danger with focusing solely on that number is
that in many ways, it is the most subjective of these different
measures that I talked about because it depends on Border
Patrol observations. And you want to be able to assure the
public that these numbers are not being gamed by Border Patrol
agents who are looking to hit a certain target in order to
satisfy the Congress or satisfy the public.
That is why we believe very strongly that multiple
measures, including ones like the recidivist data that, for all
of the challenges, are more objective--so we know when we have
apprehended people multiple times--that you have to use these
data together to try to come up with a complete picture.
I would caution against establishing a target effectiveness
ratio and then saying that is what we need to hit, because I
think there is a real danger that effective long-run
performance management will be jeopardized by focusing on a
particular----
Senator McCain. How do I assure the people of my State that
the border is under effective control?
Mr. Alden. You have to get them to understand that there
are different ways to look at this. The data is all pointing in
the same direction. The truth probably lies somewhere between
these poles and we need to continue making it better. We are
going to manage this on an ongoing basis. The Congress is going
to do oversight. We are going to question the Administration
and the Border Patrol aggressively. We are going to have a
laser-like focus on continued improvement in the future, not on
one particular magic number that we are going to try to hit.
I think there is a real danger of that in terms of what you
are trying to do in reassuring the public that this is not
going to be 1986 all over again. I mean, people are smart about
this, right? They understand----
Senator McCain. No, they are not.
Mr. Alden. Well, they should be, right? This is----
Senator McCain. Well, maybe they should be.
Mr. Alden. This is called----
Senator McCain. Maybe they should be, but they are not.
Mr. Alden. This is hard stuff, right.
Senator McCain. Maybe they should be, but I can tell you,
they are not.
Mr. Alden. OK. Well, as my----
Senator McCain. I have town hall meetings all over my
State.
Mr. Alden. Fair enough.
Senator McCain. You may have seen some of them on
television.
Mr. Alden. I have. I understand the challenges.
Senator McCain. We have spirited debate and discussion----
Mr. Alden. I understand the challenges.
Senator McCain [continuing]. And they want a secure border,
and they have that right.
Mr. Alden. Absolutely.
Senator McCain. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. Senator, I have studied drug trafficking and
drug-related violence in Mexico very carefully over the last
several years and I agree with you that they are more dangerous
and more deadly than at times in the past.
I do think that that is all the more reason that we need to
redirect flows of migrants to legal entry points so that we can
reduce the size of the haystack and focus on the real threats
that we face at the border, as you have tried to----
Senator McCain. I have promised to. That is the intent of
this legislation, and I appreciate that.
Mr. Shirk. As you have tried to do, sir.
I also would simply underscore that I also think we can
help Mexico's economy continue to grow and benefit in the
process. Mexico is our No. 2 most important destination for
U.S. exports and I would like us to keep sending more iPods and
more U.S. goods to Mexico as their economy improves and their
purchasing power improves. Anything we can do to facilitate
that, I think, would be a positive thing.
But you are also right that we need to do more to work with
Central America, which has been losing large numbers of its
migrants, the OTMs, as you say, the other than Mexicans, who
are coming North to the United States. And if we can work with
them as we have worked with Mexico in the last few years, I
think that would be positive. Thank you.
Senator McCain. I thank you. I have to go, Mr. Chairman. I
thank the witnesses. And again, Mr. Alden and Doris, I need to
have something to assure people that they are not going to live
in fear, as some of them are right now in the Southern part of
my State, or believe they are. And so this is a very tough part
of this issue. And I do not think we could ever return to 1986
because of the dramatic improvement we have made in border
security. But I can see a relaxation that might cause--and
there is always--one of the problems with these Central
American countries is their economies are terrible, as opposed
to the Mexican economy. So we need to work with the Mexicans on
improving their Southern border.
But I need to assure the people of my State and this
country that we are not going to revisit this issue again 10,
15, or 20 years from now. So there has to be some assurance to
them, no matter what parameters we use to secure our border.
You have added a lot to this debate and you have been
helpful to me as we are in these discussions and hopefully
coming up with a product that Mr. Bismarck would not call laws
and sausages. I thank the witnesses.
Ms. Meissner. Senator, if I might just say very quickly, I
am sure, on behalf of all of us, we would be very pleased to
work with you on those issues.
Senator McCain. Thank you very much. We have in the past,
in the Coolidge Administration. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Chairman Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Alden, in your testimony, you note that the U.S.
Government is incapable of giving data-informed answers to key
questions that I think a number of us believe will be crucial
when we try to figure out what more needs to be done.
I want to go down the panel and ask each of you to help me
address three questions that I am going to ask. They are short
questions, and I am going to ask the question and then ask--we
will start with you, Dr. Shirk--but ask you and then Mr. Alden
and Doris to respond.
But the first question is, would increased workplace
enforcement do more to deter future illegal immigration than
increased border enforcement?
Mr. Shirk. I think, ultimately, yes. The data, however, I
think as others will point out, does not make it possible for
us to accurately determine exactly how significant the
workplace enforcement effects are, but my personal leaning is
that I think that that would be more of an effective measure,
because the problem, I think, is that we always try to use the
border as a solution to problems that do not originate at the
border, whether that is with drugs or with undocumented
immigration. We do not deal with the point of contact or the
point of origin of the problem, the point of sale or the point
of consumption.
And in my mind, if we are not doing something to address
the point of departure for undocumented immigrants, making
their economic opportunities better at home, and we are not
dealing with employers and making it easier for employers to
ensure that the people that they hire have legal authorization
to work in the United States, then anything we do in between is
not going to be particularly effective.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. I would just like to note quickly that Dr.
Whitley has joined us, as well. I am delighted to have him here
with us.
Chairman Carper. Do you think he would raise his hand and
smile at us? How are you?
Mr. Alden. Thank you. I think, logically, one would have to
say yes, because border enforcement, beginning with the work
that Doris did back when she was INS Commissioner, has
developed substantially over the last two decades, as we have
talked about today. Workplace enforcement is still really in
its infant stages. I mean, e-Verify covers, what, 7 percent of
employers now. There are identification problems. One has to
believe that the potential gains are much bigger in that space
than they would be for increased border enforcement. There has
been some academic work that suggests that in a tentative way.
It is hard to get a firm handle on.
But one of the things that we would want to do if, as a
result of this legislation, workplace enforcement becomes more
and more stringent, is to begin to monitor that. I mean, in
migrant surveys, for instance, you would want to ask people,
were you deterred from coming to the United States by the fact
that it was going to be difficult for you to find legitimate
work? Currently, if you ask people that, the answer is, no,
that is not a deterrent factor at all. And so that would be an
important piece of data to try to get a sense of what kind of
impact these measures have.
I mean, there is no perfect workplace enforcement, either.
One of the results will be more gray market work. More people
will work for cash under the table. But there is no question
that it could have a big impact in reducing the ease with which
unauthorized migrants can find employment. But we would want
to, again, as part of an ongoing process, monitor the impact of
that as carefully as we can in terms of illegal migrant flows.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you. Ms. Meissner.
Ms. Meissner. Let me add one other element to what has
already been said. I agree with what has been said. The other
element here, of course, is that about 35, 40 percent of the
people in the unauthorized population are probably there
because they are overstaying visas. They have nothing to do
with coming across the Southwest border with Mexico.
Chairman Carper. So they started out on----
Ms. Meissner. So they started out as a foreign student or
as a visitor, or whatever, and they overstayed their visa.
Again, we do not know the proportion because the Government
does not put data out on it, so the research on that comes from
the most recent Pew Hispanic Center, probably 5, 6 years ago.
But let us just say it is 40 percent. That percentage is likely
to go up the more that border enforcement on the Southwest
border succeeds because less people, arguably, would be
crossing the Southwest border and becoming part of the resident
unauthorized population than would be overstaying visas.
The best way to deal with the visa overstay is the
employment point. That is the most logical intervention,
because those people, too, are overstaying largely for purposes
of working in the United States. So employer enforcement is the
most direct way to get to a very large chunk, and possibly a
growing chunk, of the unauthorized population, to the extent
that it continues.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you.
My second question I want to ask of each of you, and maybe
we will reverse the order here, reverse the flow, and Ms.
Meissner, I am going to ask you to go first, but here is the
question. Would new legal programs for lower-skilled migrants
reduce the incentive to migrate illegally to the United States?
We have had some discussion of this already, but I would like
to just ask that directly and hear from each of you.
Ms. Meissner. Yes, it would. I think that is one of the
main lessons coming out of 1986 and the Immigration Reform and
Control Act (IRCA) that we did not do. We thought of it as a
closed box. We did not foresee that the issues of migration
would be continuing issues in our labor market. That is far
more acute now, however, than 25 years ago because of our own
demographics, the aging of our society, the global labor market
and global economy in which we live and compete. Immigration
and immigration tied to our labor market needs is clearly a
part of our future as an economy and as a competitive economy.
Therefore, it is essential that we have ways of bringing
those people to this country across all skill spectrums--
across the entire skill spectrum--in legal ways. And so we need
to do that as part of immigration reform, but it does need to
be combined with effective enforcement, because no matter what,
there will be more demand to come to the United States than
there will be legitimate opportunities. So good future flow
provisions along with solid enforcement is the best we know of
where to go with this.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. There is an interesting historical example, and
credit Dr. Roberts for the research on this for our paper. If
you look back in the 1950s, there had been a big spike in
illegal migration in the early 1950s, actually, a million
apprehensions, I think it was in 1953 or 1954. As a response,
the Eisenhower Administration did two things. They expanded the
quota of the Bracero Program dramatically, which was the farm
worker program at the time. Now, I acknowledge all of the real
human rights, labor rights issues with the Bracero Program. I
am not advocating Bracero.
But you look historically. A big expansion of the Bracero
Program coupled with very tough enforcement, what was
infamously known as Operation Wetback, which was rounding up
lots of people living without status in the United States,
either sending them back to Mexico or forcing them into the
Bracero Program to work as authorized Bracero workers.
What we see in the apprehensions data is it plunges in the
years after, down to a level of roughly 80,000 annually. During
this period of time, the Border Patrol is monitoring conditions
in the agricultural economy very carefully to try to assess
where might there be spikes in people coming over. That whole
period through the end of the Bracero Program in 1964, we have
very low levels of apprehensions. The numbers are typically
fewer than 100,000 per year. After the elimination of the
Bracero Program, those numbers start to spike again and we have
the modern rise.
So I think there is an interesting historical experiment,
then, which for all the problems with Bracero, which for all of
the problems with the way enforcement was done in the 1950s--
again, I am not advocating these--seems to indicate that a
combination of legal paths for lower-skilled workers plus tough
enforcement does, in fact, reduce illegal migration
substantially.
Chairman Carper. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. I agree with everything that has been said, for
the most part. I just would point out that the challenge, I
think, on workplace visas is that there is enormous complexity
to the number of workplace visa types that we have. We have the
A-1. We have high-skilled--I am sorry, the H-1. We have H-2A
and H-2B. We have numerous different categories of visas and
often there is a cost for the employer to contract workers to
take them in as temporary workers.
As a result of that, we tend to have larger firms taking
advantage of workplace visa opportunities, bringing people in
from Mexico or other places. But for smaller firms that have
maybe one or two people that they need in the back of a kitchen
or something like that, the cost of doing all the paperwork and
paying the costs associated with those workplace visas are
relatively high, which means that it is much easier to go to
the black market or the gray market around the corner, hire
some guy off the street. If workplace visas were made more
flexible and accessible so that smaller companies could take
advantage of them, I think that would be a huge benefit.
In particular, with regard to the border region, I would
like to point out that we have a category called the B-1 visa
and iterations on that B-1 visa which allow border residents
from Baja, California, and other border States in Mexico to
cross over for the purposes of shopping and for visits with
family, et cetera. They are not allowed to work. But the
reality is that you have large numbers of people crossing the
border with their B-1 visa and soliciting employment in the
informal sector. In my mind, it would make much more sense and
would greatly facilitate the border economy as a whole to
actually make those B-1 visas also eligible for temporary labor
in those border communities.
Chairman Carper. OK. Good.
Third question, and this, I am going to start with you, Mr.
Alden, if we could, and ask our other two witnesses to respond,
as well. But the third question is where are the
vulnerabilities for increased illegal migration the largest? At
the ports of entry? Between the ports? Or through visa
overstays? Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. I would say--I would agree with Doris on visa
overstay. Let me start there. I think that is likely to become
a bigger vulnerability in the future. I think we have good
tools to deal with it. We have a reasonably functioning
biometric entry and biographic exit system. The Department of
Homeland Security knows pretty accurately on a country-by-
country basis how many people are overstaying. They,
unfortunately, have not yet shared that information with the
Congress, which is important. In fact, if you want to revise
the Visa Waiver Program, which is a kind of separate issue, you
need that data.
We do not do simple things with visa holders advocated in a
paper I wrote with an immigration attorney, Liam Schwartz, last
year. We should send e-mail notifications. If you are here on a
visa and your visa is going to expire, there should be an e-
mail notification from the U.S. Government 30 days or 15 days
or whatever before your visa is going to expire warning you
that you need to make arrangements to go home or to renew your
visa to remain lawfully. There is a lot of social science
evidence that people tend to obey the law when they think
somebody is watching. We do nothing as a Government to let
people know we actually expect them to abide by the terms of
their visa. Easy stuff that we do not do on that front.
Chairman Carper. Do you have research that indicates
whether or not these folks that are here illegally or overstay
their welcome, that they ever text?
Mr. Alden. Whether they what? Sorry.
Chairman Carper. Use texting.
Mr. Alden. Are they---- [Laughter.]
Chairman Carper. We have a great program called Text for
Baby that Johnson and Johnson helped us develop. This is an
aside, but I will just mention it to you. And a lot of mothers,
young mothers included, who do not in some cases have all the
information, the knowledge about how to raise a little baby and
get them started in this world, we have a new program called
Text for Baby and we can text a new mom every day or whenever
their kids are due for a check-up or immunizations, all kinds
of stuff. It seems to work. It is cost effective. We call it
Text for Baby. I mean, we could have Text for----
Mr. Alden. Text for Visas.
Ms. Meissner. Text for Going Home.
Mr. Alden. It is just, like, easy, simple stuff that we
should be doing.
Chairman Carper. Right.
Mr. Alden. Ports of entry, I think, are a bigger
vulnerability than we recognize. If you look at the migrant
survey data, it suggests that anywhere between about 10 and 25
percent of people say they actually got into the United States
through the ports of entry. I think we are underestimating the
vulnerability there.
There is also a really good commercial argument. I mean, if
you are improving staffing and efficiency at the ports of
entry, you get a two-fer. You get better security, so you are
identifying and apprehending more people that are trying to
come illegally or trying to smuggle drugs. But you also get
greater efficiency, because, generally, the ports are
understaffed, at least the busiest ones. We have these long
lines.
So unlike increases in the number of Border Patrol, where,
really, the only purpose it serves is to stop illegal activity,
at the ports, you get both stopping illegal activity and
facilitating legal activity. So I think a deeper analysis of
that would show that money is better spent at the ports of
entry than it would be on additional enforcement between the
ports of entry.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. I will just build on that point about the ports
of entry. One of the reasons why you see such a significant
proportion of migrants crossing through the ports of entry has
to do with the fact that they frequently resort to using false
IDs or IDs falsely, and that problem, I think, would be
alleviated if we expanded the use of Trusted Traveler
initiatives at ports of entry.
In the San Diego-Tijuana region, we estimate that somewhere
around 40,000 to 60,000 of people who are crossing at the ports
of entry do so on a daily basis. They come up for their own
purposes and they go back home across to Tijuana on a daily
basis. That means that the new faces at the border and the
scrutiny that is needed should really be focused on the folks
who are coming maybe for the first time, who are often in the
situation of maybe they are using some false ID that was
provided to them by a migrant smuggler. And so expanding and
encouraging greater use of Trusted Traveler programs at the
ports of entry, I think, would be a way of getting at that
problem.
But on visa--sorry. I do think that the overstays is the
main area, the one, as Doris said, that we have the greatest
purchase to gain in terms of trying to find ways of limiting
opportunities and preventing people from falling into the trap
of overstay. Tracking incoming and outgoing people on a more
regular and effective basis would, I think, do a lot to address
that problem.
Chairman Carper. OK. Doris, do you want to share a thought
or two on this question?
Ms. Meissner. I mean, my vote goes for the POEs, as well. I
am very concerned about the ports of entry, and we talk about
that a great deal in this report that we did a little while
ago.
And, really, the ports of entry on the land border--the air
ports of entry are working reasonably well. The U.S. Visitor
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (VISIT) Program and the
IDENT Program is fully deployed in airports and that has been
an enormous advance since 9/11.
But the land ports of entry just deal with these enormous
volumes of people, the vast majority of which are properly
coming in and out of the country. So, I mean, arguably, they
have the most difficult job, because they are dealing with the
full range of reasons that people are coming, whereas anybody
that the Border Patrol sees is doing something wrong, by
definition. It may be really wrong, like a drug smuggler. It
may be less threatening if it is purely somebody coming across
illegally. But the ports of entry are much tougher.
So that is a major infrastructure job from the start,
because you need to have space to handle these volumes of
people that are coming in, largely for the right reasons. And
that is a multi-year buildup. It is, I believe, money that
would need to go to the General Services Administration (GSA),
not to any of the immigration agencies. So you have a whole
different set of players and planning and execution that needs
to be put into place.
But, I would also say, in the way that David points out
when we started really working on the border in 1994, it was a
very different place physically from what it is now. I mean,
tons and tons of earth has been moved and lots and lots of
brush has been cleared, and roads have been built, et cetera.
So you have to just start at some point. And this
infrastructure improvement, particularly on the Southwest
border with Mexico, is essential to our economic future. It is
not only an enforcement issue. It is an economic issue for the
country, the United States, for Mexico, for the region. And if
we begin down that path, we will do much, much better on
enforcement because we have the technology. We just cannot
deploy the technology.
Chairman Carper. Good. Thank you.
A couple more questions and we are going to start a vote
and send you on your way.
One of the goals of this hearing is to discuss what more
needs to be done to secure our borders. Obviously, we are
making progress. What more can be done? You all mentioned in
your testimony we invest heavily in securing the border between
the ports of entry. I said that in my opening statement.
During my trip to Arizona with Senator McCain and
Congressman McCaul and Secretary Napolitano, I heard a number
of frontline agents say that what they really need is more
technology and more air support. I talked about some of that
earlier. They also said that the ports of entry really need our
attention and our help, and I heard some of you say that here
this morning, as well.
So my question for each of you is this. Let us drill down
on this a little bit. What more do you think we need to do
along our borders? A simple question, probably not a simple
answer. But what more do you think we need to do along our
borders? Doris, would you like to go first?
Ms. Meissner. Well, let me start with talking about the
technology. I do not know myself what additional technology we
need. But I do know, based on a lot of experience, that I place
a high value on what the Border Patrol itself says it needs in
technology. I think the Border Patrol has become very savvy
about its understanding of how to use technology. I do think
that they need outside encouragement, let us say, on some of
the issues that we have talked about, where metrics
measurement, et cetera, are concerned.
But where the kind of technology that works for them is
concerned, I would put a great deal of faith in what they say,
particularly because they know the nature of the environment in
which they are working. You talked about it in terms of the
times the drones can and cannot be used, the weather
conditions, the temperature, the winds. All of these sorts of
things are reality that is difficult to put into the equation
from the outside, but they know those realities.
So the technology issues, I think, are always going to be
there and we need to always be improving and investing in them.
Beyond that, where the ports of entry are concerned, and to
add to our earlier discussion and my earlier comments, the
ports of entry also need to be far more rigorous in their
management of what it is that they do. They are very
individualistic, port to port, in the definitions that they use
for their enforcement actions. They do not have nearly the kind
of data gathering intensity that is the case with the Border
Patrol. So on the ports of entry, it is not only an issue of
their infrastructure. It is also an issue of their operations
and their data gathering, which really do need to be more
sophisticated and have a much better sense of standard norms
and discipline.
Chairman Carper. Thanks. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. This is one of those questions that I am a
little reluctant to weigh in on because I cannot pretend to
know more than the Border Patrol does about what technology
will be effective in that environment.
And I do think if you look over the history of legislation
in the past, there is a tendency for Congress to micromanage at
that level. I mean, it seems to me the right role is to say, we
expect you to be able to carry out your law enforcement
mission. We want the arrows to be moving in the right
direction. We want to measure what is happening. We need you to
tell us what you need to perform that mission, and then we as a
Congress need to decide what we are willing to pay for it, I
mean, how much are incremental improvements in apprehension
rates or in reducing illegal--how much is that worth to us as a
country?
I think that is the right sort of discussion for Congress
to be having, and obviously, you need to listen and the
Administration needs to listen to what the needs of the agency
are. But I really think the focus should be on results more
than on inputs, and then let the experts, the guys who work in
that region on the ground--and the girls, the people who are on
the front line decide.
Chairman Carper. Hold it right there. That is a great
answer. Thank you. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. I would simply say that I think the more we can
help the Border Patrol and Customs to focus on the harms rather
than the known harmless, the more they will be effective.
Chairman Carper. Say that again.
Mr. Shirk. The more we help them to focus on the harms than
the harmless, in other words, the large numbers of people who
are crossing legally, for example, and who cross on a regular
basis, we know--we see them every day. In many cases, the folks
that I live with in my community say, yes, I see the same
Border Patrol agent every day, but I have to go through the
same 2-hour line or 3-hour line every morning to get across the
border to come shop or study, et cetera, in San Diego. So
helping to move those people through more efficiently will
allow the Border Patrol and Customs to focus on those less-
familiar faces that need a second look.
And so if I had an extra billion dollars to throw at this
problem, I think I would first focus on alleviating legitimate
flows by expanding the use of Trusted Travelers programs.
Chairman Carper. Good. Thanks.
During the recent trip I talked about earlier, we met with
several Mayors from towns at or near the borders who said that
their communities are being hurt by incorrect perceptions of
the border. They say people hear about drug-related violence in
Mexico and assume it is permeating nearby towns on the U.S.
side. In fact, crime statistics show that those U.S.
communities are among the safest in the country. It is a great
irony, is it not?
On the other side, we met with some ranchers who had a very
different story to tell, and Senator McCain was there with us
and he has met with them, I know, many times before. But they
feel, understandably, still feel threatened by cross-border
smuggling. Not all, but a number of them do.
How can we assess the safety of communities near the
Southwest border? And that would include the communities where
people have the nice big ranches, hundreds of acres, thousands
of acres, and those are some of the folks that say they still
do not feel safe. Not everybody, but a number of them do not.
How can we assess the safety of communities like--including
those near the Southwest border? Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. I am going to defer to Dr. Shirk on some of this
because of his experience in the region. I do not think some of
the metrics help you get at that. I mean, there are going to be
particular places along the border where you have property
owned by Americans and they feel under siege because their
property has become an entry route for smuggling of drugs or of
unauthorized migrants.
I think that has to be dealt with locally. There has to be
close cooperation between the Border Patrol and those
individuals to try to address those problems. I do not think
any of the really big picture stuff that we are talking about
here today helps you solve that problem.
The perception problem, I agree. I mean, I have spent a lot
of time in the cities along the border. Those are very safe
places. I have never felt nervous. I think the residents of
those places do not feel nervous. I think that is a push back
on the perception issue, and I know Secretary Napolitano talks
about this a lot. I think that is important.
But, you know, there is no perfect solution here. You are
always going to have places where people feel vulnerable, that
are preferred routes for whatever reason, and I think those
need to be dealt with seriously but on a local basis. It is not
a 30,000-foot view.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thank you. Dr. Shirk.
Mr. Shirk. Three of my graduate students--Marisol Martinez,
Sara Nettleton, and Jamie Lenio--worked with me on a project
funded by CRS to assess the problem of spillover violence a
couple of years ago, and what we found--one of the things that
we found is that, actually, the further you get away from the
border, the less safe you are because of the very low crime
rates we see in U.S. border cities. You are almost three times
as likely to be murdered if you go away from the border toward
any of the other top 300 largest cities in the United States.
But I think one problem with dealing with some of those
specific experiences of the ranchers and other folks that live
along the border and do have to deal with very real problems
and fears is that how we have discussed and measured spillover
violence is not very intellectually honest. The official agency
definitions for spillover violence that are used by the U.S.
Government do not count drug trafficking organization (DTO)-on-
drug trafficking organization violence. So if there is a
shootout between two drug traffickers in the San Diego Mall,
that would not count as spillover violence as long as they did
not hit an innocent civilian.
So I think that we need to think carefully about what kinds
of problems we are actually seeing. But the net data and what
we have available through Uniform Crime Report (UCR) crime data
suggests that border communities really are quite safe.
The one metric on which I would like to see more data or be
able to try to get at the problem a little bit better is
kidnapping, which is not something that is measured in a
uniform way throughout the United States and by the FBI. So
that is an area where we could really do a better job of
assessing some of the problems in Senator McCain's state.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thank you. Doris.
Ms. Meissner. I do not really have anything to add. I would
subscribe to what Ted said about these being largely local
issues. And I know that is not comforting to the people that
are experiencing them, but I also do know that the Border
Patrol has a very strong history and can work effectively
locally, particularly with the kind of staffing it now has, on
addressing some of those issues. So I think that we just have
to recognize that, at the end of the day, this will always be
imperfect, but the overall picture that has been painted here
is the prevailing condition of the border. And it is a far cry
from what it used to be.
Chairman Carper. Well, we are just about at the finish line
here. It has been illuminating and timely and helpful.
When Senator McCain was here, he mentioned the OTMs, the
other than Mexican folks who are trying to come to this country
illegally. We are seeing, actually, I think, some encouraging
developments in Mexico. Their economy continues to strengthen.
They have a growing middle class. I think the leadership of the
country is trying to do their best to quash the illegal drug
cartels and to just restore the kind of safety in their own
country and kind of lawful order that you would hope for in
every country.
One of the folks that we talked to down on the border in
Arizona was one of the Mayors or sheriffs. He talked about a
balloon. You squeeze it in one place and it pops out in
another, and I think we may be seeing some of that with respect
to the countries to the South of Mexico.
But one of those countries is Colombia, way down South, and
that was a country that a lot of people were ready to give up
on 20 years ago. I heard a lot of people call it a failed
nation, or very close to that. I think it was Colombia where, I
do not know, 25 years ago, some criminals rounded up, I think,
most of the Supreme Court, took them into a room, and killed
them all, about 11 of them. If that is not a failed nation or
close to it, I do not know what is.
Colombia is a changed country today and it is a much safer
country and a much more profitable and prosperous country
today. And I think we are seeing some encouraging turn-around
in Mexico, as well. There are a bunch of countries in between
Mexico and Colombia, particularly just South of Mexico, that I
think may need our help, not just in terms of law enforcement
help, but just help to strengthen their economies so that their
folks will want to stay there and work there and not feel the
need to leave, and also to try to, as best we can from a
distance, to promote more vibrant democracies and civil
liberties.
The other thing I want to mention is improvements in--we
talked about force multipliers and we talked about being able
to fully resource the drones and have better intelligence
packages and sensor packages on the blimps or the dirigibles or
the aerostats we use and have better radar on the ground in
parts of the Arizona border and all. Those are all important,
but also to continue to improve the intelligence that we are
getting from Mexico and from other countries to the South of
Mexico that will enable us to better deploy our resources is
important.
I am told by pretty knowledgeable people that we are better
at that than we used to be and those countries are better at it
than they used to be, as well. And the question is, can we do
better? Sure, we could do better, and we need to do better in
all these things that we are talking about.
When I leave a hearing like this, I always take some take-
aways with me, and some of the best take-aways I get are right
at the end of the hearing when I ask--you give an opening
statement. Witnesses are always asked to give an opening
statement. I usually like to ask my witnesses to give a closing
statement, and especially in this case. I always look for
consensus on difficult issues, and I think we have a fair
amount of consensus with this panel.
But just maybe give us a minute, about a minute take-away.
You can reiterate or reemphasize, underline some of the things
that you have said or heard, maybe something you have learned
or that has been reinforced for you.
But, Dr. Shirk, I will start with you. Give us sort of like
a mini-benediction here, something to take home with us from
church.
Mr. Shirk. Well, I would simply reiterate, I think as the
discussion has unfolded about immigration, there has been some
talk about making border enforcement, border security, a
precondition for immigration reform. And I want to caution
against that, because as we have said multiple times during the
hearing, it may be that reducing the pressure on the border by
allowing for an expanded flow of legal migrants into the
country by reforming our immigration system would actually make
it easier for the Border Patrol to do their job and make us
safer along the border.
A couple of other very quick comments in response to what
you just said. I mean, Colombia is much safer today, but it
does still have a homicide rate that is 50 percent higher than
Mexico's and the most internal refugees of any other country
outside of Sudan. So one of the things I worry about for Mexico
is that the legacy of the violence that we have seen in recent
years will continue and we need to be alert to that problem.
And to the extent that the situation in Mexico appears to
be stabilizing, we need to be careful about how we interpret
what is happening. It is not clear that less violence
necessarily means more law enforcement, and the possibility
that the drug cartels and drug markets are stabilizing under a
new equilibrium could mean we will have continued challenges as
we address the drug problem between our two countries in the
future.
Chairman Carper. Thank you. Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden. Thank you. I just have three concluding
thoughts. One, I think that there is absolutely no question
that border enforcement in all its facets is vastly better,
vastly stronger, than it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20
years ago. No question, we have seen big improvement there. So
I think that has to be the starting point.
My second point would be effective border enforcement,
border security, does not mean 100 percent. We are not going to
stop everybody who wants to get in illegally. We are a big
country. The great historical example here that, again, Bryan
Roberts dug up, you can calculate roughly an apprehension rate
for the cold war border between East Germany and West Germany.
So this was a border with roughly----
Chairman Carper. Say that again. Say that sentence again.
Mr. Alden. The cold war border between East Germany and
West Germany----
Chairman Carper. OK.
Mr. Alden [continuing]. This was a border with roughly
three times the staffing we have on our border now, shoot to
kill orders, barbed war, no man's land, floodlights. The
apprehension rate on that border, roughly 95 percent. About a
thousand people a year still managed to get across that border
to freedom in the West.
So if people are really determined to cross borders, you
are not going to be able to stop them entirely. So we have to
be realistic in what our goals are. Absolutely, we can do
better. But perfection cannot be the goal here.
And then the final point I would make is that I do not
believe we are going to see the sort of big resurgence in
unauthorized migration that we saw in the 1980s and the 1990s.
The demographics do not lean that way. The economics do not
lean that way. But we as a country are going to need to be
serious in an ongoing way about managing the problem of illegal
migration.
There is going to be pressure going forward. There are
always going to be people in the world wanting to come here.
And we just were not serious about that as a country in the
1980s and until well into the 1990s. And so that means
seriousness about enforcement and real legal options for people
to come to take the pressure off of the Border Patrol and other
people who are aiming to keep people from coming illegally. So
this is an ongoing issue we are going to have to deal with as a
Nation.
Chairman Carper. That was a very nice summary. That was a
good benediction. Two of them, in fact.
All right, Doris. The pressure is on.
Ms. Meissner. The pressure is on.
Chairman Carper. They are tough acts to follow.
Ms. Meissner. I think where the Southwest border is
concerned--all of our borders, but the focus is always on the
Southwest border in this debate--we simply have to recognize
that this is a very dynamic place and it will be so into the
foreseeable future. So we cannot be complacent about what we
have achieved. But at the same time, we have a very strong new
reality, and set of improvements on which to build.
And so recognizing that it is always going to be dynamic,
we will have to react in different ways. We will have to be
measuring, be adjusting our operations in response, et cetera,
et cetera. That has to be a given. But at the end of the day,
right now, that ability to enforce the laws on the Southwest
border--as well as border enforcement more generally--would be
most fully strengthened by taking some of the other steps in
the immigration reform debate that are now on the table. This
includes better employer enforcement, a better way of bringing
people into the country legally, and dealing with the illegal
status of the unauthorized population that is in the country
right now. All of these things would contribute importantly to
improved border enforcement. We are asking border enforcement
to do more today than it is equipped to do, even if it were
perfect, and it will not be perfect.
So we have to recognize that enforcement deals with
symptoms. We have to go more fully to the real causes of
illegal immigration and align our laws with our economic
reality, with our future needs, and then continue to have a
strong enforcement presence and be committed to adjusting that
as we go.
Chairman Carper. Well, I asked for a benediction, so I
should probably offer an amen. Last year, we did a lot of
political advertisements, and you would hear at the end of each
of the ads, you would hear someone say, ``I approve this
message.'' And we have three good closing messages there and I
approve them all.
Thank you. This has been a great hearing and we appreciate
your preparation and your years of work in this area and your
efforts today to try to better inform us on our decisionmaking.
It is just enormously helpful and we are grateful. Nice to see
you all. Thanks so much.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days for the
submission of statements and questions for the record.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned and we are going
to go vote. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
BORDER SECURITY: FRONTLINE
PERSPECTIVES ON PROGRESS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Levin, Landrieu, Baldwin, Tester,
Coburn, McCain, Johnson, and Ayotte.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER
Chairman Carper. Well, I have three glasses of water here
set up before me. Somebody must think this is going to be a
long hearing, or at least that I am going to need a lot of
nourishment.
But I just want to bring us to order. It is not a very
unruly group, but we are grateful for your presence here and
thanks for your willingness to testify and to respond to the
questions we have.
Dr. Coburn and I had a breakfast meeting with Secretary
Napolitano. He had to run over to the House for a little bit
for a meeting over there and he will be joining us probably
during the course of your testimonies.
I think this is the second in a series of hearings that our
Committee is holding to review the progress that has been made
in securing our borders and to identify what challenges remain
to be addressed.
Normally, I go home at night to Delaware. I stayed down to
have a meeting last night and an early breakfast meeting this
morning, as I mentioned, and so I stayed down last night. I
like to start most of my days by working out. Usually, it is in
the YMCA back home or I run back in Delaware before I catch the
train, but this morning, I stopped off at the Senate gym, the
little Senate gym that we have. It seems like most of the
Senators that have been working on immigration reform were
there and trying to figure out, are our borders more secure and
how do we measure that.
So today's hearing is probably even more germane than you
think. It is something we talked about a lot over breakfast
this morning with the Secretary and Dr. Coburn, as well.
In the last 2 months, I have had the real privilege of
visiting with some of our frontline border security personnel.
Most recently along our Northern borders--it turns out I am a
huge Detroit Tigers fan, and for no really good reason, but to
be in Detroit during the first week of baseball season--and to
spend some time with Senator Levin up along the water border
with Canada, which, as you know, is enormous. But I was
privileged to go with Senator McCain down along the border
between Arizona and Mexico and to spend some time down there
with Congressman McCaul and Secretary Napolitano.
And during my trip to Arizona in February, I saw a border
that appears to me to be--and to a lot of other people--more
secure than it has ever been, or has been in a long time--by
any measure that we have available to us at this moment. In
addition, I spoke with, along with Senator McCain, a bunch of
his local mayors and law enforcement officers who told me that
the crime rates in their communities were at the lowest level
in decades and were continuing to decline.
I saw parts of the border that were overrun with
unauthorized immigration as recently as 2006, when the Border
Patrol agents I met with told me they used to arrest more than
1,000 people every single today. And today, those agents tell
me that they have a busy day if they arrest even 50 people.
That is a remarkable development and clearly a significant
change for the better. It is also consistent with the dramatic
reductions that we see nationwide, in the United States, of
people trying to cross our borders illegally, which have
reached their lowest level since the early 1970s.
I also saw advanced surveillance technology, such as the
cameras and radars that we are deploying to serve as force
multipliers for our folks on the ground. The men and women I
spoke with told me that these technologies help them quickly
pinpoint where people are trying to cross the border illegally
so that their agents can be deployed in time to make an arrest
or turn them back.
We heard about a remarkable new radar being tested on a
drone called the VADER, that is providing the Border Patrol
with an unprecedented view of the people coming across the
border. Another new radar system being tested allows agents to
detect physical changes to the ground, such as footsteps, to
identify where illegal traffic is heading.
And while some of these technologies are expensive, I also
saw an inexpensive and versatile aircraft called a C-206, a
small plane, which is easy to fly and maintain. It can be used
to provide an efficient surveillance platform for agents on the
ground. We also heard about inexpensive blimps or dirigibles
that can be deployed to help agents detect illegal activities.
What I have seen gives me great hope that we have made
tangible and measurable gains in securing our Nation's borders
over the past decade and have a good sense of what we need to
do to build on that progress. We have to rely on intelligence
and advanced technology, to identify when and where the threats
are crossing our borders and to empower the frontline officers
on the ground.
Despite the gains that we have made, we still face
significant challenges. First is the fact that arrests cannot
be the only metric available to measure the performance of our
efforts at the border. Without knowing how many people are
actually trying to cross the border, we will never know how
effective our efforts truly are to date. That is a hard thing
to come up with; is it not?
Our witnesses at the Committee's first border security
hearing, while noting the significant progress that has been
made over the years in securing our borders, also pointed out
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps a variety of
internal statistics on illegal activities at and between the
ports of entry that it does not make public. I just do not
think that is acceptable.
It is critical that the Department of Homeland Security do
a better job of educating the public and Congress on how it
measures its effectiveness at the borders, and it must include
estimates for the number of people trying to cross the border
without proper documentation.
Another one of the challenges that most concerns me is the
growing sophistication of the smuggling networks operating
along our borders, particularly with respect to illegal drugs.
Drug cartels are using tunnels, ultralight aircraft, and even
submarines to avoid detection along our borders and along our
coasts. They place spotters on the tops of our mountains to
help them avoid law enforcement. On top of our mountains. It
blows my mind. I have said this to Senator McCain--that we have
these folks out there sitting on our mountains, on our
mountaintops, and we somehow are unable to take them out. If
they are sitting on a mountaintop in Iraq, I think we would
have taken them out. And one of the things we can talk about
here today is our inability to replicate that kind of success
here.
There are troubling links between organized crime in Mexico
and terrorist groups overseas.
In order to meet these new challenges and to continue to
improve our security efforts, we have to evolve our approach to
securing our borders. We have to become smarter in how we
deploy our limited resources and focus on deploying these force
multipliers that we witnessed in Arizona.
In addition, it is important to note that while most of the
security debate is focused on the issues between our ports of
entry, much of the illegal traffic comes through our actual
ports. Since
9/11, we have made tremendous improvements in screening people
who are attempting to enter our country. Today, all travelers
must present a secure ID at the border. They are automatically
screened against all of our government's law enforcement,
immigration, and terrorism databases in order to ensure that
dangerous people are not allowed to enter our country.
But we continue to be faced with significant infrastructure
challenges. After declining after 9/11, travel and trade have
ramped up in recent years, and that is a good thing.
International arrivals to the United States have been
increasing by some 6 percent a year over the past several
years. But staffing at our air, land, and sea ports has not
kept up. Our ports of entry need to be modernized, and staffed
appropriately, to keep pace with these increases in travel and
trade that we are seeing, which is encouraging.
We also need to make our ports of entry work more
efficiently, so we can focus our inspections on potential
threats rather than on legitimate travelers. This includes
expanding trusted traveler membership, creating public-private
partnerships, and working with the public to better identify
wrong-doers. It could also include modernizing our fee so that
importers and travelers are fully paying for the costs of
inspecting travelers and goods. We expect to hear from the
Administration later this morning on that subject when the
President's budget is released.
Last, as organized crime continues to evolve and become
more sophisticated, we need our criminal investigators to do
the same. We must continue to focus our efforts working in
integrated multi-agency teams, such as the Border Enforcement
Security Task Forces. These task forces allow investigators to
collaborate across agency lines, sharing information about
known and suspected smugglers in order to generate intelligence
about their operations that can be used to attack criminal
networks.
There is no doubt that we have more work to do, but I
believe that any honest assessment of where things stand today
will conclude that we have made tremendous gains in securing
our border over the past decade. As the Senate begins to
consider comprehensive immigration reform this month, I believe
that the conversation will be different from the ones we had in
2006. In 2006, the perception that the border was out of
control was grounded in historically high rates of illegal
immigration. Today, illegal immigration is at historic lows,
and as I have seen firsthand in Arizona, more recently in
Michigan this last week, and in California a couple of years
ago, the unprecedented taxpayer-funded investments that we have
made to secure our borders are working.
In fact, yesterday, I met with the former Commissioner of
Customs and Border Protection, Alan Bersin, and he told me
that, in his views, the increase in border security has been
one of the greatest bipartisan accomplishments over the past 25
years because it has spanned three Administrations, Presidents
from both parties, and has had strong support from members,
both Democrat and Republican. And frankly, I agree with him.
I support the efforts to modernize our immigration laws. I
applaud the efforts, particularly of Senator McCain and others
that he is working with, to make the United States more
competitive and more secure in the 21st Century. I look forward
to working with my colleagues to ensure that any additional
investments made to continue to secure our borders are targeted
to the kinds of force multipliers that are proven to be
effective, and that represent good investment.
Normally, I would turn it over to Dr. Coburn, who, as I
said earlier, is over in the House meeting with some folks. He
will be here shortly. Normally, I do not turn to other Members
of the Committee to make opening statements. We have a couple
of key players here, and Senator McCain spent a whole lot of
time, to good effect, working with seven of our colleagues to
try to find a path forward on immigration reform. He was good
enough to take me down along the border. John, if there is
something you would like to say before, I maybe ask the
Chairman of our appropriations Subcommittee who is here today?
John, please feel free to go ahead.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think your
opening statement covered the issue. I welcome the witnesses
and I look forward to some interesting comments and testimony
on this issue. It comes at a very opportune time, as we are
hopefully concluding our negotiations.
And I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for taking the time
from your schedule to come and visit our border and the people
who live there. I know all of us are appreciative of your
continued intense interest in this issue.
Chairman Carper. Happy to be your partner.
Senator Landrieu, anything you would like to add? Please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANDRIEU
Senator Landrieu. Yes. Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for
taking the leadership to do this very important overview as we
enter into one of the most important debates for our Nation.
And I really particularly want to underscore the importance of
understanding the financial requirements that will be behind
such an important undertaking.
We have in the last 10 years almost tripled from--well,
more than tripled, from $1 billion to $3.5 billion, the
resources going in to protect the borders of Arizona,
California, Texas, I mean, borders of our country, but really
impacting these States primarily along the Mexican border. I am
sure that we can find some resources to do more, but Mr.
Chairman, it has been a real push in our budget to actually
fund the outline of what this Committee and others put forward.
So it is going to be a real challenge for us in these very
tough times, so I just wanted to let people know we are doing
the best we can in a $42 billion budget, but there are lots of
pulls and pushes on the Homeland Security budget right now.
Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I think we are lucky that Senator Landrieu serves on this
Committee and also is the principal appropriator. It has the
potential for a great partnership and I think this potential is
going to be fully realized, and one that we all can be part of,
as well.
I want to say good morning to Senator Tester. How are you,
Jon.
Senator Tester. Very well.
Chairman Carper. Nice to see you, partner.
I am going to go through just a brief introduction of our
witnesses. I am going to stumble on the first last name. Is it
McAleenan? How do you pronounce it?
Mr. McAleenan. That is perfect, Chairman.
Chairman Carper. All right. It is not often I am perfect.
Our first witness is Kevin McAleenan, Acting Deputy
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In
this capacity, the Deputy Commissioner is the chief operating
official of Customs and Border Protection. He looks pretty
young to have that kind of responsibility. Previously, Mr.
McAleenan served as the Acting Assistant Commissioner of CBP's
Office of Field Operations, leading the agency's port security
and facilitation operations. Welcome.
Our second witness is Michael Fisher. Mr. Fisher is the
Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, and in this position, Chief
Fisher has responsibility for planning, coordinating, and
directing enforcement efforts to secure our Nation's borders.
Prior to his current position, Chief Fisher served in a number
of leadership positions within the Border Patrol. Chief Fisher
joined the Border Patrol as a child, in 1987.
Our third witness is Randolph Alles? How is it pronounced?
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir. Close enough.
Chairman Carper. OK. Assistant Commissioner for U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, Office of Air and Marine. Mr.
Alles--do you really pronounce it that way? How do you really
pronounce it?
Mr. Alles. ``Alles,'' if you want to be really technical.
Chairman Carper. ``Alles''?
Mr. Alles. ``Alles,'' long A.
Chairman Carper. OK. Good. Thank you. Mr. Alles joined the
Office of Air and Marine as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner
in March 2012. And before joining CBP, Mr. Alles served in the
U.S. Marine Corps for 35 years, retiring in 2011 as a Major
General. Semper Fi. Ready to go. As we say in the Navy, Bravo
Zulu.
Mr. Alles was designated as a naval aviator in 1978 and
attained more than 5,000 flight hours--that is pretty
impressive, John--more than 5,000 flight hours in multiple
aircraft types. What kind of aircraft?
Mr. Alles. A-4, F-18, F-4, sir.
Chairman Carper. All right. Including over 300 combat
hours. Did you serve in Southeast Asia?
Mr. Alles. No, sir. Before my time. Iraq.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thank you. Thanks for all that
service, too.
Our final witness is James A. Dinkins, Executive Associate
Director of Homeland Security Investigations for the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As the Director, Mr.
Dinkins has direct oversight of ICE's investigative and
enforcement initiatives and operations. Prior to assuming his
current position, Mr. Dinkins held a number of key leadership
positions within ICE, including Special Agent in Charge for
Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Mr. Dinkins began his law
enforcement career with the U.S. Customs Service in 1986.
Your entire statements will be made part of the record.
Feel free to summarize. I will ask you to keep your statements
to about 7 minutes, and if you go beyond that, I may have to
rein you in. Your full statements will be made part of the
record and once we finish, we will do some questions. We are
delighted that you are here, grateful for your service,
encouraged by the progress that is being made. Now, we can
always do better, and part of our job is to help you and the
folks that you lead to do better. Welcome. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF KEVIN K. MCALEENAN,\1\ ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER,
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, and good morning, Chairman Carper
and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to be here today to discuss these important issues
with you. We appreciate the Committee's leadership and
commitment to ensuring the security of the American people and
look forward to discussing some of the progress we have made
that you outlined in securing the border, how we measure that
progress, and the key areas we need to continue to address.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. McAleenan appears in the Appendix
on page 176.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am representing CBP's Office of Field Operations today,
and we carry out our border security activities in all 50
States and 330 ports of entry and globally at 70 locations in
40 countries abroad. Our priority mission is preventing
terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the country,
while we also interdict inadmissible persons, illicit drugs,
agricultural pests and animal diseases, unsafe imports, and
goods that violate trade laws.
At our ports of entry, security is defined not only by our
ability to prevent dangerous goods and people from entering the
country, but also how well we support economic security through
the expeditious movement of travelers and cargo. In other
words, at our ports of entry, a secure border is a well managed
border where mission risks are effectively identified and
addressed and legitimate trade and travel is expedited.
With this Committee's support, CBP is more capable than
ever before, but we remain committed to continuous improvement
and we strive to develop programs and operations to make our
border security efforts increasingly effective. As part of
that, the process of measuring and addressing our progress is a
constant focus.
CBP uses a number of different types of metrics to assess
our performance in managing our security risk and facilitation
responsibilities. These metrics are both qualitative and
quantitative, include both effectiveness and efficiency
measures, and are assessed at the national, programmatic,
regional, and port levels. We use these key indicators to
assess our performance and evaluate trends and developments
over time.
It is important to emphasize that there is no single number
or target level that can effectively capture the full scope of
our security or facilitation efforts at ports of entry.
Instead, there are a series of important indicators that we use
to assess and refine our operations.
Qualitatively, we look at measures we have in place to
address specific risks, whether they are comprehensive, and
whether they can be improved. Quantitatively, we use random
baseline examinations of both people and goods to assess how
effective our efforts to identify and address threats are and
we use efficiency measures to determine whether our security
operations are properly targeted.
Last, at the ports, we use facilitation measures, such as
traveler and vehicle wait times, to assess whether we are
pursuing our security requirements and deploying our resources
in a manner that expeditiously moves legitimate cross-border
traffic.
In this vein, I would like to highlight some of the
progress we have made in some key mission areas.
In our anti-terrorism mission, our priority mission, we
measure our success by how effectively we identify potential
risks and how early we take action to address them. In the last
fiscal year, through our National Targeting Center, overseas
programs, in coordination with the interagency, international,
and private sector partners, CBP prevented 4,200 inadmissible
and high-risk travelers from boarding flights to the United
States, almost a tenfold increase from 2009, and identified and
mitigated risks in over 100,000 ocean cargo containers and
2,000 air cargo shipments before they could be laden on a
vessel or loaded on an aircraft destined for the United States.
Similarly, our ability to identify and deny admission to
inadmissible persons seeking entry into the United States is a
core mission where we have seen marked improvement with the
implementation of new technology solutions. United States
Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT)
and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative have allowed us to
reduce the number of acceptable documents and enhance
biographic and biometric checks, serving as a significant
deterrent to attempted illegal entries and the use of
fraudulent documents. And overall, at the ports of entry, our
arrests have increased while attempts by inadmissibles to enter
have diminished.
With regard to our counterdrug efforts, we are continually
assessing how our border security activities have challenged or
changed drug smugglers' ability to move illicit drugs into the
United States through ports of entry. The significant increase
in deployment of large-scale non-intrusive inspection equipment
over the past 5 years has driven improvements in the
effectiveness of our examinations. As a result, smugglers have
changed their tactics, moving to smaller loads and much deeper
and more sophisticated concealment methods, and some of the
avoidance measures that you outlined, Chairman. Accordingly,
larger marijuana seizures are trending down, while hard
narcotic seizures have increased significantly, especially
heroin and methamphetamine.
We have also enhanced our efforts in both agriculture and
trade protection to focus on those threats that present the
greatest risk to the U.S. economy and public. We measure our
success in this mission area using three key types of metrics:
First, our total examinations; second, the interceptions and
seizures they produce; and third, our effectiveness rate in
undertaking those exams. All three show positive trends.
In 2009 and 2010, we focused our agriculture protection
efforts on increasing interceptions of the highest-risk
agricultural pests that, if undetected, could result in
millions of dollars of economic damage to U.S. agriculture. As
a result, we have seen a more than 400 percent increase in
interceptions of these most serious pests.
These core border security missions are pursued in the
context of significant growth in international trade and
travel. Last year, CBP welcomed more than 350 million travelers
at our air, land, and sea ports of entry and processed 25.3
million cargo containers and over 100 million air cargo
shipments, with a trade value of $2.3 trillion. Air travel is
up more than 12 percent over the last 3 years and is expected
to grow at 4 percent annually over the next several. Land
border traffic is also increasing and our trade volumes are at
record levels in all environments and continuing to grow.
As a result, we have seen increased wait times in some
environments. Securing these growing traffic levels without
impeding them is our core challenge and we are tackling it head
on through a series of innovative efforts to deploy new
technology and transform our business processes. We are
increasing enrollment in our Trusted Traveler Programs, like
Global Entry, automated anachronistic paper forms, and
deploying mobile technology to support our officers where the
work is happening. We envision border processes that are
seamless, paperless, and traveler directed, and we are pursuing
them.
In sum, we have increased our mission effectiveness and
security across all threats and environments while facing
increasing demands from growing passenger and trade volume, and
we continue to seek ways to improve.
Chairman Carper and Members of the Committee, thank you for
this opportunity to testify. I look forward to answering your
questions.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thanks so much for that statement and
for joining us today.
Mr. Fisher, please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL J. FISHER,\1\ CHIEF, U.S. BORDER PATROL,
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Fisher. Chairman Carper and other distinguished Members
of the Committee, it is indeed an honor to appear before you
today to discuss progress and remaining challenges facing the
men and women of the United States Border Patrol.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Fisher appears in the Appendix on
page 176.
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In assessing border security progress, one only needs to
travel the border and talk with front-line agents to witness
and fully appreciate the investments made over the last decade
or two. New roads and access to the immediate border have
increased. Numerous technological advancements, both in static
and mobile systems, have provided critical situational
awareness and intelligence collection capabilities, while at
the same time supporting agents during ground operations.
Primary fence and vehicle barricades have fundamentally changed
the way smuggling organizations operate, and aerial platforms
with advanced technology have substantially increased the way
we deploy on the ground and have led to increased effectiveness
throughout the corridors along the Southwest border.
Thanks in large part to this Committee's support,
substantial investment in personnel, technology, and
infrastructure along the Southwest border during the past
several years has led to the reduction of illegal cross-border
activity. This reduction in traffic is now enabling us to
better respond to threats and managing risk.
Over the past 2 years, advanced analytics and data
assessments produced programs such as the Consequence Delivery
System (CDS). CDS has allowed us to reduce the percentage of
apprehensions that result in a voluntary return, from 41
percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2012. Moreover, the
Consequence Delivery System has contributed to the reduction in
the overall rate of recidivism, from a 6-year average of 24
percent to 12 percent today.
But as I have articulated in prior testimony, I will work
to reduce the likelihood of attack against the Nation and to
provide safety and security to our citizens as an ongoing
mission. Our focus now is to expand our operation by taking an
integrated approach that includes our partners at the Federal,
State, local, and Tribal level, applying a risk-based strategy
while moving toward a mobile and flexible workforce that can
rapidly respond to emerging threats.
Our challenges are many, not the least of which is our
ongoing requirement for information and intelligence, which
provides front-line agents critical insights about those that
would seek illegal entry into the country. In addition,
detection capability continues to be a critical need in our
implementation plan, detection to queue response to an
immediate threat and detection to provide strategic situational
awareness.
I am often asked the question, when will the border be
secure? My general response is when there are no more dangerous
people seeking entry into the country to do us harm. The extent
to which the border is secure has more to do with known and
evolving threats and our ability to respond to those threats
and less to do with fluctuations in things like apprehension
numbers.
Although our progress has historically been described in
terms of technology and infrastructure enhancements, the true
value of our collective achievement rests with the agents and
mission support personnel. Their selfless sacrifice and
commitment to excellence exhibited every day nationwide is
unmatched in law enforcement. What our agents continue to
achieve in the face of adversity is no less than exemplary. I
am proud to represent them here today.
I look forward to working with the Committee to identify
measures that adequately assess the state of the border and
explain the return on the investment for the American people.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman Carper. Thank you, Mr. Fisher.
General Alles, please proceed. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF RANDOLPH D. ALLES,\1\ ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER,
OFFICE OF AIR AND MARINE, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Alles. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Carper
and distinguished Members of the Committee. It is an honor to
appear before you today with my colleagues to discuss the
critical role of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in securing
our Nation's borders. I appreciate the Committee's leadership
and commitment to ensuring the security of the American people.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Alles appears in the Appendix on
page 176.
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The Office of Air and Marine (OAM), as I will refer to them
during my comments here, is the world's largest aviation and
maritime law enforcement organization. It is a critical
component of CBP's layered enforcement strategy for border
security. We are composed of 1,200 Federal agents, 267
aircraft, and 289 marine vessels, and we operate from 84
locations throughout the United States.
OAM protects the American people and the Nation's critical
infrastructure through the coordinated use of integrated air
and marine forces to detect, interdict, and prevent acts of
terrorism and the unlawful movement of people, illegal drugs,
and other contraband toward or across the land and sea borders
of the United States. At the borders, OAM's tactical support of
CBP's antiterrorism and border security mission includes
intercepting people and contraband crossing the land borders,
intercepting aircraft and transportation vessels. To accomplish
this, OAM develops information and partners with the Federal,
State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies to ensure our
assets are in the right place at the right time and to effect a
successful resolution to stopping illegal activities.
Additionally, OAM utilizes its unique air and marine
capabilities to provide support for law enforcement along with
disaster recovery, emergency response operations. Over the past
years, and consistent with our air and marine strategic plan,
OAM has delivered an advanced array of new and upgraded
aviation assets, some of which you saw, extremely capable of
sensors, information integration and distribution capabilities
in a variety of marine vessels.
OAM recently delivered its seventh P-3 Orion aircraft with
an additional 18 to 20 years of service life at a fraction of
the cost of the new aircraft. Additionally, over the past seven
years, we have added 70 new or upgraded medium-lift
helicopters, light- or medium-lift helicopters, 18 new or
upgraded fixed-wing aircraft, 10 Predator B unmanned aerial
systems, 56 interceptor and riverine-type marine vessels, and
other maritime and aviation sensors. We also stripped the first
Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (PED) cell, at the
Air and Marine Operations Center in California and North
Dakota.
Two of our most impressive recent capabilities have been
the Multi-role Enforcement Aircraft (MEA) and broad area
electronic sensors, which were referred to by the Chairman at
the start of this session. The MEA provides CBP with a single
aircraft to support border security missions and medium-range
maritime patrol missions. The broad area electronic sensors,
termed VADER, provide unparalleled situational awareness across
the land borders and give Border agents near real-time actual
information without the limitations of ground radars or optical
sensors.
Another key component of our security capabilities is the
unmanned aircraft systems, the Predator. They provide critical
aerial surveillance to personnel on the ground. We own 10 of
those systems and its maritime variant, the Guardian, which
composes 3 of the 10 systems. The Predator can monitor large
areas of land efficiently, enhance situational awareness, and
increase officer safety. They are particularly useful for
detecting and targeting locations susceptible to border
incursions.
From June to July 2012, we deployed one of our assets to
the Dominican Republican, flew 237 hours with that unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV), and we netted a total of 3,900 pounds of
cocaine valued at over $300 million street value.
Recently, and in conjunction with local authorities, OAM
assisted California State and local enforcement in their search
for Christopher Dorner, a former L.A. police officer who was
suspected in multiple homicides and eluded capture for more
than a week. On February 12, our riverside air unit launched an
AS-350 helicopter to assist local authorities in their search
after they traced Dorner to the San Bernadino Mountains, where
he barricaded himself inside a cabin. We launched a PC-12
Pilatus aircraft to provide ground support. An AS-350
helicopter delivered one of Mr. Dinkins' agents, an ICE agent,
to the command and control center along with equipment that
allowed the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) commander to see
the video feed from the PC-12, very helpful to that
apprehension.
Mr. Chairman, I know you are familiar with our P-3 aircraft
and its effectiveness. CBP P-3 aircraft have been instrumental
in reducing the flow of contraband from reaching the United
States by detecting suspect vessels while they are still
thousands of miles away from the U.S. border. In fiscal year
2012, P-3 crews were involved in the seizure of more than
117,000 pounds of cocaine valued at $8.8 billion. And in the
first quarter of this year, they have been involved in the
seizure of over $2.4 billion of cocaine.
Working in conjunction with aviation assets, OAM's coastal
interceptor vessels operate in offshore coastal waters to
combat maritime smuggling and protect U.S. ports from acts of
terrorism. These interceptor vessels are the most powerful
vessels used in law enforcement and are an integral part of
OAM's efforts to stop maritime smuggling.
Further integrating security efforts, our Air and Marine
Operations Center utilizes surveillance capabilities of Federal
and international partners to provide air domain awareness for
agents at the border and within the interior of the United
States.
Because of the continual support of Congress, OAM has been
a significant contributor to CBP's progress in securing the
border. OAM will continue to transform our aviation and
maritime fleet to enhance our detection, interdiction
capabilities, and work with our international and Federal
partners to combat the risk that exists today and be prepared
for tomorrow.
Chairman Carper and distinguished Members, thank you for
this opportunity to discuss our role and CBP's role in securing
our borders. I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Carper. General Alles, thank you so much for that
testimony.
I am tempted to say, the P-3, the mighty P-3, as my sons
used to call it, is amazing. It was not a new airplane when I
was starting to fly. It is amazing that they are still going.
It served in Iraq, Gulf drug interdiction for years down in the
Caribbean, and now in this role. It is really pretty amazing.
And, I presume, cost effective. That is good. Mr. Dinkins.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES A. DINKINS,\1\ EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS
ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Dinkins. Good morning, Chairman Carper and
distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to be here today to discuss the significant
contributions ICE has made over the past decade in securing the
border and our investigative work to disrupt and dismantle
transnational criminal organizations.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dinkins appears in the Appendix
on page 189.
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Over 26 years ago, I began my career in the Federal
Government, and since that time, I have seen some watershed
moments in border security, but as we all know, none more
defining than
9/11. At that moment in time, when the plane hit the World
Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., border security changed forever. At
that moment in time, I was a Supervisory Special Agent with
U.S. Customs in Detroit, Michigan. My office sat just blocks
away from the U.S.-Canadian border and there was a complete new
urgency to securing our Northern border as well as our Southern
border.
Since that time, and with the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security, we have made great strides and realized
considerable enforcement achievements. For example, over the
past 3 years, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), has
achieved a record number of criminal arrests, with an increase
of nearly 25 percent in fiscal year 2012 over fiscal year 2010.
As the Department's principal investigative agency, and as
Customs and Border Protection's investigative arm, ICE Homeland
Security Investigations has deployed nearly 50 percent of our
resources to the Northern and Southern border, with the
remaining resources strategically placed along our coastal
borders and near ports of entry throughout the United States.
In addition, we have special agents assigned to 75 offices in
48 countries around the globe.
This global footprint is imperative to address the entire
criminal continuum of cross-border crimes that we face in
today's global society. This includes at the border where
criminal organizations, as you have heard, seek to smuggle
people, contraband, and money into and out of the United
States--as well as throughout the United States where the
criminal organizations distribute their contraband and earn
significant profits--and then, finally, internationally, where
many of the criminal organizations base their command and
control structures.
In 2006, we made a great step forward, as you had mentioned
in your remarks, with establishing the first Border Enforcement
Security Task Force (BEST). Today, we have 35 BESTs located
across 16 States and in Puerto Rico which leverage over 765
Federal, State, local, Tribal, and international law
enforcement officers representing over 100 different agencies.
To assist in addressing the threats abroad, we also created
Transnational Criminal Investigative Units (TCIUs), which are
bilateral, multi-disciplined investigative units comprised of
vetted international law enforcement partners. Currently, we
have 12 units operating in 10 countries that are dedicated to
investigating the foreign-based criminal organizations who
threaten our Nation.
In an effort to prioritize our investigations, with the
increased resources that we have been granted over the last few
years, ICE Homeland Security Investigations launched the
Significant Case Review Process (SCR), in fiscal year 2011.
This process focuses our investigative resources to disrupt and
dismantle the most prolific criminal organizations. As a result
of our work, over 175 of the most dangerous individuals and
transnational criminal organizations have been disrupted or
completely dismantled. These are criminal organizations that,
at one time, had the capacity to smuggle thousands of illegal
aliens and immigrants, tons of drugs, launder millions of
proceeds, and smuggle weapons into and out of the United
States, but no more.
This past year, ICE also developed the Illicit Pathways
Attack Strategy (IPAS). IPAS is a whole government approach,
both domestically and internationally, to address not only the
most significant criminal organizations, but also the smuggling
pathways, and the methods they use. They use these methods and
pathways for a reason, and we take a whole government approach
to identify what is the underlying reason they are utilizing
and exploiting that pathway. Experience has shown that if we
simply tried to disrupt criminal activity by focusing law
enforcement efforts in one area, criminal organizations will
quickly adapt and shift to another area or method. The goal of
our criminal investigations is to not only stop the individual
criminals, but also to disrupt and dismantle the entire
criminal enterprise and do everything we can to mitigate and
eliminate the vulnerabilities they seek to exploit.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. There is no
question, as you mentioned, that we have collectively made
great strides and progress in enhancing border security over
the past decade, and it would be my pleasure to answer any
questions.
Chairman Carper. Mr. Dinkins, thanks for that testimony,
and again to all of you for your testimonies and for joining us
today.
I am going to ask some questions and then kick it over to
Senator McCain, Senator Tester, Senator Landrieu, Senator
Ayotte, Senator Johnson. Welcome. We are glad you all are able
to join us today.
I am going to telegraph a pitch and then I am going to ask
somebody, maybe Mr. Fisher, to go over and talk us through some
of these charts. But one of the questions I am going to ask is,
do you think the borders are more secure, yes or no? And I am
going to ask, to the extent that this is still a work in
progress, and while improvements have been made, what are the
one or two additional critical things that we need to do? What
do we need to do more of? What do we need to do less of? Just
be very specific, if you will, on that. And then we will drill
down from there.
But why do we not start with the charts?\1\ Mr. Fisher,
would you just walk us through this first chart? It looks a
little bit like the U.S.-Mexican border.
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\1\ The photo submitted by Mr. Fisher appears in the Appendix on
page 185.
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Mr. Fisher. Yes, Chairman. Thank you. I will be happy to.
And I will be succinct and as brief as possible. If you need
further clarification, please stop me while I am explaining it.
Chairman Carper. OK.
Mr. Fisher. The first chart is, as you identified, the
Southwest border. It is a comparative on apprehensions. So if
you look at the very top, in the blue numbers are the
apprehension numbers by sectors, and as you recall, the
Southwest border is broken down into nine sectors. And so the
blue numbers represent the apprehensions at the end of fiscal
year 2012 corresponding to each one of those sectors.
Below that, in the lower numbers in red are the
apprehension numbers at a point in time of the highest
apprehension in that corresponding sector. And as a reference,
if you look just above the red number, you will see a black
number, which is the year in which what we call the high-water
mark was established. So, generally what we do is we compare
apprehensions with the previous year. That is kind of one of
the default metrics that we typically report, both in our
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) measures and
others, and----
Chairman Carper. So what you are saying is apprehensions
are generally down along the border, down substantially
compared to where they were how many years ago? A half-dozen?
Twelve?
Mr. Fisher. Yes. The earliest one recorded is in 1992 in
San Diego.
Chairman Carper. All right.
Mr. Fisher. So from 1992 through, it looks like about 2005,
during that period of time, the Border Patrol historically was
averaging millions of apprehensions per year.
Chairman Carper. OK.
Mr. Fisher. And so what we look at now in the comparative
in 2012, in each one of our sectors, we are seeing continued
decreased activity level, to include apprehensions.
Chairman Carper. Yes. One could argue the reason why the
apprehensions are going down is because we are not as effective
in apprehending people. But having been there with Senator
McCain and others, actually, we are a whole lot better at doing
the job. They are far more effective on the ground, in the air,
in the water. So it is sort of counterintuitive that we would
use apprehensions. I think we struggle with this as a metric--
that is the way we are going to measure progress and making the
border more secure. How do you respond to that? Why is this one
of the key measures for us to use? I know there are others, but
why is this one of the key measures to use?
Mr. Fisher. Right, and Mr. Chairman, I agree with you. As a
matter of fact, if we just talk about apprehensions, I think it
is misleading, because whether it goes up or it goes down, one
could make the case that we are doing a better job. And that
was about 3 years ago, we looked at apprehensions only as the
start of metrics that we would try to describe the State at the
border at any given point in time.
What apprehensions does give us, and the reason why we like
using them and have historically used them, is because it is a
solid number. Those represent people that we have apprehended.
So we can show you their biometrics. We can tell you who they
are. We can give a whole host of demographics, where they were
from. And so we are very confident about that number.
But it just does not tell the whole story in terms of what
is happening. It is a good starting spot, but not the end.
Chairman Carper. Good. And as time goes by, do we have the
ability, as we apprehend people, to know if they are being
apprehended for the second, third, fourth time? Do we have the
ability to do that with some certainty?
Mr. Fisher. We do, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. And what are we seeing in terms of those
numbers as a percentage of those that are being apprehended?
Mr. Fisher. Well, as a percentage, there are less people
that are being apprehended multiple times.
Chairman Carper. OK.
Mr. Fisher. So as a general statement, we can do that, and
we can do that through their fingerprint identification number,
which is a unique identifier based on biometrics. We are able
to do a lot more analytical work in terms of who these people
are, where they are showing up, either at the ports of entry,
between the ports of entry, and we can study that over time,
not just the individuals, but it helps inform our agents in
terms of the networks that are operating these smuggling routes
and it gives us a lot of information about their capabilities
and their vulnerabilities.
Chairman Carper. All right. Good. Do you have anything else
you want to say on this chart before we look at some of the
photos?
Mr. Fisher. No, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. OK. Can somebody help us with the charts,
please. Thank you. And I see some photos.\1\ A picture is worth
a thousand words. What do we have here? Can we put that one up?
Very good. Just put it up on the end, if you would. Thanks a
lot. And what are we looking at here?
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\1\ The photo submitted by Mr. Fisher appears in the Appendix on
page 186.
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Mr. Fisher. This is a before and after photo of an area
within the Tucson sector in the State of Arizona. We have, over
the last few years captured, and we have asked the field to
send us, literally hundreds of photos which help us understand,
not just within our headquarters, but certainly those that,
unlike yourself, would not have the opportunity to go to the
border or perhaps have not been to the border recently, in the
late 1990s or early 2000s.
And the picture up top was taken in 2006. As you can see,
there is a lot of debris. Typically, what was happening, you
would have thousands of people on any given shift going across
the desert. In some areas, it took them hours. In some areas,
it took them days to get from the point of entry across the
border to either a stash house or into a vehicle. And along the
way, in a typical area like this, would be what we call a load-
out area. So as they were getting ready to transition into a
vehicle, they would dump a lot of either old clothes and water
bottles, things that they would take during their trip, and
just leave it in the desert and continue on.
The lower picture basically is a depiction of the same area
as of present, whenever that photo was taken, which I assume
was probably within the last year or so.
Chairman Carper. A member of my staff said, with tongue in
cheek, maybe they are just better recyclers now and we have
these recycling containers and folks are being better human
beings. That is not true, though, is it?
Mr. Fisher. Well, that is certainly an argument, but then I
would be able to show you what the Border Patrol agents are
tracking each shift in terms of how many people are actually
going through there, and they are getting very good in terms of
individuals utilizing technology and their own innate skills in
tracking, being able to--not a complete science, but be able to
depict levels of traffic and people that are coming through
areas like this.
Chairman Carper. OK. All right. Can we look at the next
chart,\2\ please? Would you describe it for us?
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\2\ The photo submitted by Mr. Fisher appears in the Appendix on
page 187.
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Mr. Fisher. Certainly. This is just a depiction of before
and after in terms of the type of technology that we would
utilize along the border. To the left, you see an old
generation night vision. I was mentioning to the General before
the hearing, I said, it looks like one of the AMPBS 7-Bravo
night vision equipments that, when I was a young agent working
in the Arizona area, was given from the military. And back
then, being able to see three feet in front of you with ambient
light was a big deal, because absent that, we did not have any
ability to do that. But then you fast forward and the type of
technology that is available to the agents today, both in terms
of their ability to see further and with more clarity, helps
them really differentiate the types of threats that they are
seeing out there in the desert. So this depiction just captures
one piece of technology over the course of the last few years
that has really enhanced our ability to protect this country.
Chairman Carper. That is pretty dramatic. One more
chart,\1\ and then I will yield to Senator McCain.
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\1\ The photo submitted by Mr. Fisher appears in the Appendix on
page 188.
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Mr. Fisher. Again, this is a snapshot, a before and after
picture, and if memory serves, this is the Douglas area within
Tucson sector. The top photo depicts a section of the border
many years ago. We referred to it--appropriately, perhaps,
looking at the photograph--as the ditch. And the picture below
it is the same area with a level of infrastructure. The
infrastructure includes primary fence. It includes an all-
weather road, which allows the Border Patrol agents access
laterally from one area to the other to respond to different
threats. You will see a secondary fence and then in the
background you will see some integrated fixed towers that
provide the Border Patrol agents advance information in terms
of on the approach of anybody seeking entry, either over or
through the primary fence.
And one interesting piece when you just look at this type
of technology, what it does for us, it frees up the amount of
Border Patrol agents that, absent that type of technology and
infrastructure, would require a lot more Border Patrol agents
on every shift to patrol those areas.
Chairman Carper. All right. Well, thank you for that
testimony. Thanks for sharing these photographs with all of us.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
witnesses.
Mr. Fisher, I agree with you. I think all of us are in
agreement. I have been down on the border for the last 30 years
and there have been significant improvements, but we really do
not know how significant they are. As you said, you cannot rely
on apprehensions as the only measurement. But the fact is, we
have no measurements. We have no measurements now.
Let me read to you a quote from the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report of last December. Quote,
``Border Patrol is developing key elements of its 2012-2016
strategic plan needed to define border security and the
resources necessary to achieve it, but has not identified
milestones and timeframes for developing and implementing
performance goals and measures in accordance with standard
practices in program management. Border Patrol officials stated
that performance goals and measures are in development for
assessing the progress of agency efforts to secure the border
between the ports of entry, and since fiscal year 2011, DHS has
used the number of apprehensions on the Southwest border as an
interim goal and measure. However, as GAO previously testified,
this interim measure does not inform program results and,
therefore, limits DHS and congressional oversight and
accountability.''
My question to you is, I agree with you that apprehensions
are not the only measurement, but we have no other measurement
right now. In fact, incredibly, in testimony before the House,
Mr. Borkowski told Republican Representative Candice Miller,
quote, ``I do not believe that we intend that the Border
Conditions Index (BCI) will be a tool for the measurement that
you are suggesting.''
When are we going to have these measurements of
effectiveness as the Government Accountability Office says that
we need, because if you do not believe that apprehensions are
the answer, then what is the answer that we have right now at
our disposal in order for Congress to make a judgment?
Mr. Fisher. Thank you, Senator. I will list two things in
particular. The first thing is what we call the effectiveness
ratio. At the end of the day, one of the things that is really
important to us is not just the apprehensions. We want to know,
to the extent that we are able through technology and agent
observations, we want to know how many people come across the
border, and of that number, how many people do we either
apprehend or turn back. That allows us to understand flow----
Senator McCain. So have you developed the metrics and the
standards or not?
Mr. Fisher. We have, sir.
Senator McCain. You have?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator McCain. You have?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator McCain. And we are using them?
Mr. Fisher. We are at the tactical and the strategic level
trying to understand where it makes sense to capture that,
because not in all areas----
Senator McCain. I am not asking where it makes sense. What
can I, what can the Members of this Committee have as a basis
to determine the level of border security?
Mr. Fisher. Well, one of the things that we are doing and
rolling up at the strategic level is----
Senator McCain. Are you sharing that with Congress?
Mr. Fisher. We are just starting to, sir.
Senator McCain. Oh, you are starting to.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator McCain. OK. Well, that is----
Mr. Fisher. This has been an evolution over----
Senator McCain. That is good to know.
Mr. Fisher. Since Rebecca Gambler's report in GAO, this was
something since that report and during their study, things that
we have been working within the headquarters and in the field,
quite frankly, on doing better.
Senator McCain. That is fine, that you are doing that. You
are not informing Congress. This Member has certainly not been
informed. Certainly no Member of this Committee has been
informed, that I know of. And we have to make judgments,
particularly since we have pending an incredibly important
piece of legislation before the Congress of the United States.
I hope that you can get that information. I hope you can
establish those metrics. And I would be more than happy to hear
from the Government Accountability Office that you have done
so. As short a time ago as last week when I talked to them,
that has not happened.
Mr. Fisher. Well, it is in the final stages of development,
Senator. I can tell you that.
Senator McCain. Well, it is certainly gratifying to know,
because that is certainly not what was testified before the
House by Mr. Borkowski, whoever he is. In fact, I think the
Arizona Republic had a very interesting article, I mean
editorial, that basically we do not have the metrics and we
need the metrics and we need them very badly if we are going to
consider overall immigration reform. And when the Secretary of
Homeland Security says, well, we do not need a trigger, that
gives us a degree of skepticism as to how forthcoming we are
going to be.
Apprehensions are up this year around the border, right?
Mr. Fisher. Approximately 13 percent compared to last year,
sir.
Senator McCain. Thirteen percent up. That may have
something to do with an improving economy and a perception
south of the border of two things, one, that there is a job
market, and two, that sequestration is having an effect on your
operations, and that is my next question. Is sequestration
harming to some degree your ability to carry out your assigned
duties?
Mr. Fisher. It is, sir, in some degree, yes.
Senator McCain. Mr. Dinkins.
Mr. Dinkins. Absolutely.
Senator McCain. It would be helpful if we could get from
you for the record the specific areas where your ability to
carry out the border security mission has been impaired,
because, obviously, that is of incredible importance and
significance.
Mr. Dinkins, on March 7, I sent a letter to Secretary
Napolitano asking about what was reported to be 3,000 detainees
who were released from ICE detention facilities around the
country. I have received no answer. Can you tell me how many
were released?
Mr. Dinkins. Sir, I cannot tell you because it is outside
of my chain of command and so forth. I am over the
investigations portfolio and not the detention or removal----
Senator McCain. Whose jurisdiction does that fall under?
Mr. Dinkins. That would be my counterparts. So, within ICE,
we have the Director and Deputy Director; and then myself who
is over Homeland Security Investigations; and Gary Mead, who is
actually----
Senator McCain. So you do not know the answer to the
question?
Mr. Dinkins. I do not know the answer, sir.
Senator McCain. General Alles, you are familiar with VADER
radar.
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir.
Senator McCain. You have seen it in operation in Iraq.
Mr. Alles. Yes. I have seen it in operation in Arizona. I
am familiar with some of its Department of Defense (DOD)----
Senator McCain. I have seen it in operation in Iraq. It
seems to me that this is an incredible technology tool. Do we
have plans to acquire more of that?
Mr. Alles. Sir, currently, in the current appropriation
bill, there is money for two more systems. We do have plans to
get two more. We would like to get to an objective of six of
those systems.
Senator McCain. Would you supply for the record what is
necessary to have VADER coverage for the border?
Mr. Alles. For the entire border, sir?
Senator McCain. For the entire border.
Mr. Alles. I would have to calculate it and get back to
you.
Senator McCain. That is why I said, would you submit for
the record.
Mr. Alles. All right, sir.
Senator McCain. Now, what is preventing the use of UAVs
along the Southern border to be used in high-traffic areas 24
hours a day?
Mr. Alles. Part of that, as all things, is funding, sir. We
need to do some things inside of my organization, Air and
Marine, to get more operational utility out of the systems. The
other part of it, of course, is I have to have more VADER
systems. What I have right now is a lone system from the Army.
Senator McCain. Given your experience and background, do
you not believe that VADER plus drones could be absolute vital
tools in attaining effective control of our border?
Mr. Alles. I think, sir, it will help us characterize what
the border looks like. The end piece of this is quite
complicated and large, so actually getting full operational
control of the border is difficult. This will help us see what
the movement looks like in a more comprehensive way.
Senator McCain. Well, seeing is the first step in getting
border control, please. And I have seen both UAVs and VADER
radar in action, including the Battle of Sadr City and other
places, where it has been extremely effective. Detection is the
first step that we need. So would you supply for the record the
requirements that would be necessary for VADER and UAV, VADER
across the border and UAVs that would be necessary in high-
traffic areas.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me 1 second, in
Arizona today, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA)
will say that there are guides sitting on mountaintops in
Arizona guiding the drug smugglers up all the way from the
border up to Phoenix, where it is distributed through most of
the country. Do you agree with that assessment? Mr. Fisher, or
whoever wants----
Mr. Fisher. Yes, Senator. I am aware of those networks and
their capabilities in Arizona.
Senator McCain. And the cost of an ounce of cocaine has not
gone up a dollar in the last 5 years. That is the ultimate
indicator of whether we are restricting the flow of drugs or
not, and that is part of the equation as far as border security
is concerned that I think we need to pay a lot more attention
to.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for your interest
and involvement and your visit to the border out of your very
busy schedule. We appreciate your understanding and
appreciation of the challenge that we face in the Southwest.
And I thank the witnesses.
Chairman Carper. Thank you for letting me come down and for
spending that much time with me.
The point that Senator McCain is making here is apparent to
all of us. If we want to be able to say that we have a more
secure border, how do we measure that and be able to say not
just that we are apprehending fewer people, that it means we
have a more secure border? That is counterintuitive. So it is
one of a number of measures we can use, but it cannot be the
only one.
I said this to some folks down in Arizona when I was there.
I said, maybe if we had the ability to actually quantify the
number of folks who are trying to get across the border. We
will say it is 100. The number that go back, turn-backs, we
will say maybe it is 10. Then to be able to measure, as we do,
the number that are detained when they come across, and then do
a little bit of arithmetic--as Bill Clinton would say, a little
arithmetic--and figure out how many came across but got away.
What I hope we can do is work toward a system. Not just
folks on the ground. Not just in the air. Not just ground
support radar. Not just intelligence. But an approach--this is
an oversimplification--but an approach that actually enables us
to measure that so that we can say with some certainty that the
borders are more secure. Not just we have the pictures you are
showing, and they are pretty compelling, but to actually have
the numbers to back that up. All right. That is an
oversimplification, but I think that is where we need to go.
And with the kind of technology that Senator McCain is talking
about, maybe we can get there. Senator Tester.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER
Senator Tester. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank all the folks who testified for their testimony.
Since before 9/11, I have been aware--a change of focus to
the Northern border now for a second. Since before 9/11, I have
been aware of opportunities for smuggling drugs across the
Northern border with low-flying aircraft. I have long thought
that deployment of military-grade radar would be very positive
along the Northern border. I was encouraged--to intercept the
low-flying aircraft.
I was encouraged that DHS entered into an agreement with
the Canadian Government in 2011 to begin receiving Canadian
radar feeds. Can you provide me, and whoever, it may be you,
Mr. Alles, but can you provide me an update on how this
initiative is going, the effectiveness of those feeds as far as
your ability to determine what is going on, on the Northern
border?
Mr. Alles. Those feeds are fully integrated now into our
Air and Marine Operations Center in Riverside, California, and
those are combined with the hundreds of Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) radar feeds we receive from across the
United States and military radar feeds. So those are
integrated. They very much give us a much better picture of
what the air flow looks like across the Canadian border. So, it
has been a great advantage to us in terms of air security, sir.
Senator Tester. And is that air flow able to be monitored
24/7?
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir. That is able to be monitored 24/7. I
should qualify. In the low-altitude arena, you are going to
have areas that have gaps.
Senator Tester. How low is low?
Mr. Alles. Low would be something down 5,000, 2,000, 1,000
feet.
Senator Tester. OK. So that is not--to be honest with you,
some of the area where there are mountains, that is low, but
truthfully, a lot of the area that I am talking about, the
rising elevation of the ground is not much. So you can be right
on the deck with a 182 Cessna, for example.
So the question becomes, from your analysis, are we still
talking about anything under 500 feet we cannot determine?
Mr. Alles. If they are at low altitude, sir, we are going
to have a difficult time picking them out.
Senator Tester. OK. So we are not where we need to be, are
we?
Mr. Alles. Well, I think in terms of risk reduction, we
certainly have reduced the risk to ourselves on the Northern
border by integrating the feeds that we currently have. Nowhere
across the United States do we have coverage that probably
extends all the way down to the ground.
Senator Tester. OK. Well, I mean, I just think that--and I
will say this again--I hope that there are opportunities to
expand this, whether it is done through cooperative agreements
with the Canadian Government or whether it is done by
ourselves. But the bottom line is that--and I live 75 miles
from that border on very flat ground that you could probably
flood irrigate without moving much dirt, to be honest with you.
That is how flat it is. And these planes can come across the
border. They can land in these little airports, put in a credit
card, fill up their plane, and they can go anywhere they want,
and that is a concern to me.
If it is a concern to me, I hope it is a concern to you,
and I hope there are proposals to be put forth to deal with
that situation, whether we are talking about drugs or weapons
of mass destruction, whatever we might be talking about. So I
just put that forth as an opportunity to move forward in a
positive way.
Mr. Dinkins or maybe Mr. Fisher, or maybe both, or Mr.
McAleenan, maybe all of you, on a recent trip to the Northern
border, I spoke with some Customs and Border Protection agents
who were frustrated by some jurisdictional issues with the
folks at ICE. In one case, the CBP had actionable intelligence
to make a number of arrests and was ready to move forward, but
ultimately they had to defer to ICE because the matter was
qualified as an interior enforcement. At the end of the day, as
we talk about immigration reform here--at the end of the day,
nothing was done, and the folks who could have been arrested
and sent back to their country because of being unpapered were
not.
Can you clarify how CBP and ICE are currently handling
overlapping jurisdictions or even gaps in regard to the arrests
of undocumented individuals?
Mr. Fisher. I would be happy to, Senator. In a couple of
locations we are getting better at that. I will tell you--a
place like South Texas--we, along with ICE and law enforcement
partners are sitting down in advance of an operation and doing
what is called joint targeting.
Senator Tester. OK.
Mr. Fisher. We will bring all the intelligence components
in and all the law enforcement components, including the U.S.
Attorney, and we will understand better about those networks
and those organizations than we ever would individually. And
then we are identifying what is the best enforcement approach.
In some cases, it is going to be an investigation. In some
cases, it is going to be an interdiction. And we need to get
better at that as we move forward.
Senator Tester. But what about the issue--and you can jump
in if you would like, Mr. Dinkins--what about the issue of, and
I do not remember what the mile is, whether it is 50 miles or
100 miles or 75 or something, but what about the issue where
there is actionable intelligence to move forward. ICE does not
have the manpower to deal with it and Customs and Border
Protection is saying, ``That is not your jurisdiction. I do not
want you fooling around with this.''
What are we doing with that, because, quite frankly, if
that is happening with any sort of--I mean, it is a problem and
we have to fix it. And so what are we doing, agency to agency?
The President always talks about, we have to quit working in
silos, and I agree, we need to work more as a team. What are
you doing when there is a problem like that? Is there an
opportunity for agents to make you aware of it, or the
supervisors aware of it, and are the supervisors instructed to,
you know what, if there is actionable intelligence, go after it
and do it. If it is out of our gourd, get hold of ICE and tell
them we are doing it, or vice-versa?
Mr. Dinkins. Senator, I can tell you, Mr. Fisher and I have
established some very good communications all the way down to
the field level. So an incident like you just mentioned----
Senator Tester. Yes.
Mr. Dinkins [continuing]. I have not heard about in, quite
frankly, years.
Senator Tester. OK.
Mr. Dinkins. So I am not sure if they are referring back
to, maybe, the old days or recent----
Senator Tester. No. I am aware of the situation. I am aware
of the facility that was being built and it is relatively
recent. It is within the last year.
Mr. Dinkins. OK. But I will say that--we have
communications not only at the field level, between the chief
and the special agent in charge, but also, we have an advisory
group that comes together to make sure that those issues do not
come about. Because, from an ICE perspective, if I do not have
the agents and resources to do it, we are not telling people
not to do it. What we are asking for--is that we are making
sure we are coordinating, and we are having a seamless
communication between what gets done.
Senator Tester. OK, and I appreciate that. I think that, in
the end, when it comes to these things--and it was not a
Customs and Border Protection issue because it was far enough
away from the border where they could say, ``No, it is not my
job.'' But on the other side of the coin, if ICE cannot do it,
and there are other issues with manpower and money with ICE,
because Montana is a big State and we have a 550-mile border
with Canada in Montana alone, there has to be some ability--and
I guess this is a question for the folks on the ground, whether
they are working in ICE or whether they are working in CBP--to
be able to say, look, this is what is going on and we are not
doing anything about it without being reprimanded. Is that
there?
Mr. Fisher. Sir, I will tell you that I have instructed all
the field commanders and the supervisors that make those day-
to-day judgments and decisions about deployments and managing
risk, and ultimately, I leave it up to them in terms of being
able to respond----
Senator Tester. OK.
Mr. Fisher [continuing]. And Border Patrol agents generally
will not say, ``It is not my job.'' What they will do is try to
understand what their priority mission is, and without
degrading the priority mission and border protection, in cases,
we will be able to respond.
Senator Tester. Super.
Mr. Fisher. In other cases, we will not, sir.
Senator Tester. And I just appreciate that, and I would
just say--and my time is long gone, but I would just say that
this really is an issue, from my perspective, that deals with
leadership, and if you guys make it known to your leaders, mid-
level management folks, that this is important to you, my guess
is that it will work out a lot better.
I am concerned about sequester, too, and overtime, and I
have several other questions I want to introduce for the
record.
Once again, thank you guys for your service. I very much
appreciate it. We have more work to do, but I think you guys
are fully capable of meeting our needs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Thank you, Senator Tester.
Senator Ayotte, you are next, and if Senator Landrieu does
not show up or Senator Johnson does not return, Senator
Baldwin, you are right after Senator Ayotte. Thanks for joining
us. Senator Ayotte.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE
Senator Ayotte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the witnesses for what you do to protect
our country. We really appreciate it.
General Alles, I had a question for you. What is the
current protocol for CBP to inspect cargo ships arriving at a
seaport? The reason I raise it is because I understand right
now in New Hampshire, and, obviously, we have a seaport in the
Portsmouth area, that ships arriving during the night are being
held at sea as CBP agents are unable to board them to inspect
the cargo for hazardous materials as they would customarily do.
So you get there at night, you wait, and they are not boarding
until the morning.
And one of the concerns I have and the concerns I have on
the ground there is that this delay in inspecting the ships
could create an unnecessary risk. And, obviously, if somebody
has contraband on board or they even have people that should
not be on board because they are there illegally, that gives
them an opportunity to sneak off during the night, until the
inspectors come in the morning.
So can you help me understand what the policy is, why this
is happening, and get your thoughts on it.
Mr. McAleenan. Senator, that will be my area of
responsibility.
Senator Ayotte. OK. Sure.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you for the question. We have
extensive protocols for arriving vessels into our seaports. In
terms of the crew and passengers on board, we are aware of who
they are up to 96 hours before arrival and will have vetted
them through all of our targeting databases prior to arrival.
We also have mechanisms to receive information on the cargo
coming in on these vessels that has been addressed prior to
arrival.
I can look into this specific question in New Hampshire and
get back to you. The hours of operation, generally, we have
core hours and we have regular expectations for the vessels
that call on our ports in terms of when we will be able to be
there. If they are being held, that was probably an effort to
ensure the security of the crew. As you noted, any potential
contraband in cargo before it was offloaded.
Senator Ayotte. I would appreciate your looking into this
issue for me, because when I was over there visiting, what I
heard is this is a change in policy, so it has not been done
this way in the past. And that is why on the ground level, what
I am hearing is a lot of concerns about it being done
differently and a belief that it gives opportunity for criminal
activity to flourish or to undermine what we are all trying to
accomplish. So if you can followup with me, I would really
appreciate that, so I can understand, because from the
perspective on the ground, it is a change in policy of what has
happened in the past.
Now, obviously, if this is an issue of resources because of
sequester or whatever the issue is, I just need to understand
and what your thoughts are on it. So I appreciate the followup
on that. Thank you.
And also to followup, Senator Tester asked you about the
Northern border, and so whomever is the most appropriate to
answer this question, and I certainly appreciate the slides
that we saw that focus very much on the Southern border and the
challenges that we have there. My State, of course, borders 58
miles with Canada, in addition to our seaport that we just
talked about as a port of entry. And we also have a port of
entry on the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. So a lot of
places that certainly we focus on in New Hampshire.
Can you help me understand what the biggest threats are
with respect to the security along the border with Canada?
Particularly, I think about the border. We have a 58-mile
border, but there are obviously other portions of the border
that border Canada, and what are our challenges there?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, thank you for the question. In general
terms, when we look at our borders and compare it North and
South, one of the things that is different in terms of how we
identify a general threat on the Northern border really stems
from the fact that approximately 90 percent of the population
in Canada lives within 100 air miles of the border. And
differentiating that threat versus hundreds of people coming
across the border to the South, we have to look at it a lot
differently.
One of the things that we do with our law enforcement
counterparts in the region and with the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and others
within Canada is we have over the years worked jointly in terms
of the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBETs). They are
called the IBETs. And what we do is we come together
frequently. As a matter of fact, in many cases along the
border, it is steady State operations, where we are constantly
sharing information, bringing all of our resources together and
trying to understand what the broader picture is in terms of
threats in the region. And we have very good working
relationships with our counterparts in Canada.
And what we then try to establish is what are the emerging
threats and what is the best way to approach those from a joint
international standpoint, and then working with Jim and the
investigators and trying to fulfill either intelligence gaps or
identifying what additional resources that we may need to bring
into the particular area at any given point in time.
Senator Ayotte. So what are the biggest threats right now
with respect to the Northern border?
Mr. Dinkins. I think that goes back to, measuring border
security, and I can tell you what we are seeing is continued
persistence, interdictions and investigations; and what we find
is the Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) are involved
in the Northern border between Canada and the United States.
Hydroponic marijuana continues to be persistent, and the
laundering of those illegal proceeds from the United States
back into Canada. We have often seen drug trafficking
organizations, that predominately used to be involved in just
smuggling cocaine, and marijuana into the United States, but
now often engage with trafficking organizations from Canada
that then route it to the United States, ultimately for
distribution in Canada. And, there are intellectual property
crimes, as well.
So many of the same threats that we face as a Nation
everywhere, to some different degree and extent are seen along
the Northern border, depending on the type of situation.
Senator Ayotte. Can you tell me, on the apprehension
measure that you were all talking about, how has that changed
on the Northern border? Where are we if you look at historical
average on apprehensions? And so whatever metrics we are going
to establish on the Southern border, presumably, those metrics
would apply to the Northern border, as well, but can you tell
me about the apprehension one that you mentioned earlier?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, over the years, there has been very
little fluctuation in terms of apprehension numbers, and I
think you hit it right. The metrics utilized on the Southwest
border would not necessarily make sense in a Northern border
construct.
For instance, if you are looking at, as the Chairman
indicated, effectiveness ratios, we want to know how many
people came in and how many people did we apprehend or turn
back. Well, that makes sense in areas where that threat has
been established as high levels of activity. It would not
necessarily, in my judgment, be a good value measure in areas
where we do not see a lot of that type of activity. But
nonetheless, there are metrics that we would need to establish
to be able to baseline the extent to which our border is secure
in those areas.
For instance, it would be known and likely criminal
activity that is coming in between the ports of entry and how,
then, do we work as an international force to be able to
disrupt and dismantle those networks along the way. That would
make sense in an area in the Northeast, perhaps.
Senator Ayotte. And I know that my time is up, but I
appreciate your all being here and for your testimony. Thank
you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks for those questions and for you
being here.
Senator Ayotte. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. All right. Senator Baldwin, good to see
you, another State with a Canadian border, as I recall.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN
Senator Baldwin. Lake Superior, so international waters.
Chairman Carper. There you go.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Coburn.
I want to thank all of you for your service to our country
and for being here today, and I hope that you will convey to
your hard-working agents our indebtedness for what they do to
focus on territorial integrity and our economic security, too.
I thought I might be the only Senator who was deviating
from the focus on the Southern border, but I guess all politics
is local and so my questions actually focus on a couple of
issues that are of particular concern to the people of the
State of Wisconsin.
We have a large manufacturing base in the State of
Wisconsin and we have several major shipping ports in
Milwaukee, Green Bay and Superior. And so I wanted to take this
moment to inquire about the relevant Customs and Border
Protection responsibilities in these areas. And if I do have
time after that conversation, I do want to ask a question about
potential effects of border surveillance on constitutional
civil liberties of American citizens.
But, first, manufacturing represents a large share of
Wisconsin's economy and many jobs in my State are supported by
manufacturing, and my constituents and I are very concerned
about unfair trade practices, dumping practices by other
countries, and particularly China. I have heard concerns about
two techniques that are regularly used to avoid import tariffs,
mislabeling goods and falsification of country of origin
through transshipment.
And so I wonder if you can address for me CBP's views on,
first, how great of a problem are these and other such tariff
evasion schemes? Second, what is CBP doing to detect these
efforts and how effective have you been and how can you improve
even more? And third, I recognize that the Department of
Commerce and International Trade Commission play in this same
arena, so I am curious to hear how CBP is integrating its
efforts with those other key players to ensure full
enforcement, such as real time information sharing.
I think I will throw this out to you, Deputy Commissioner
McAleenan, and then others can pitch in if you have other
points to make.
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Senator. An important question,
and really one of the critical responsibilities of CBP is to
protect the trade and the U.S. businesses that rely on it.
In terms of the problem of trade fraud and
misclassification or mislabeling, that can be done for several
reasons, as you noted, to avoid dumping and countervailing duty
regulations, to just seek a lower charge on a duty, and to try
to increase a market share. This is a problem that we are very
focused on. As you noted, it is one that is interagency in
nature. We partner very closely with ICE, and I will ask my
colleague, Mr. Dinkins, to chime in on our joint efforts there,
because we really reinvigorated our trade fraud efforts with
the investigative partners.
But in terms of what we do day to day at the ports of entry
we rely a lot on our targeting systems, our advanced data and
our ability to detect suspect trade practices and validate
those through examination. We have what we call our compliance
measurement efforts, which include verifying a sampling of
trade from a variety of sources to make sure it is compliant,
and compliance rates are very high nationally, but we maintain
that effort to make sure we are not missing anything. And we
also try to focus our examinations on those higher-risk source
countries and higher-risk importers to take action.
But I think we have had some significant successes in the
past 2 years as we have built our efforts with ICE, and I think
Mr. Dinkins can talk about the Intellectual Property Rights
Center, which is really doing commercial fraud more broadly,
and how we are coordinating with them.
Mr. Dinkins. Yes, ma'am. And this is something, an area
that over the last few years, especially with the economy the
way that it has been and the struggles that we have had, to
ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect the U.S.
businesses that are playing by the rules.
I could go on and on, because we have done so much in the
last 2 years, but I think that one measure that will tell you
the level of seriousness that we are taking on this, not only
from Customs and Border Protection but also from ICE Homeland
Security Investigations--is that this past year, in fiscal year
2012, we dedicated more resources and spent more time on
criminal investigations in commercial fraud than we did any
time in my 26-year career, which started with 16 of those 26
years being with U.S. Customs. So as for investigative hours
and resources--we have spent a lot of time.
We are using our best practices and experience that we are
getting from our criminal investigations, and sitting down with
Kevin's folks in his Office of Trade to actually say, ``OK,
well, what are the criminal organizations trying to do and what
loopholes and vulnerabilities are they trying to exploit? ''
Then we share that information so we can generate additional
targets and so forth.
One of the big cases is ``Honeygate,'' we called it. It
involved honey coming out of China. We changed, really,
collectively, between our two agencies, the way that industry
operates to this day.
Senator Baldwin. Tell me a little bit about your metrics.
Obviously, you do not inspect 100 percent, so how do we know
how we are doing?
Mr. McAleenan. In this area, I mentioned our compliance
measurement effort, which does do that random sampling of trade
coming across, looks for any violations in that, whether it was
a mislabeling issue, fraud issue, improper classification, and
so forth. And so we know from those assessments that we have
well over 95 percent compliance across all trade. And also,
those assessments help inform areas that are of higher risk.
The other key metric we utilize is the number of
participants in our Trusted Trade Program, the Customs Trade
Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT), and an interrelated
smaller program for those very large high-volume importers that
have accounting practices that they have aligned with our
collection process, called the Importer Self-Assessment
Program. The CTPAT now account for 55 percent of the total
trade. These are companies that we have validated their supply
chain. We are very familiar with their security measures. We
are very familiar with how they interact with Customs and the
trusted relationship they have with CBP.
So I think those are the two key metrics that we use to
assess our trade fraud efforts and how compliant the trade
community is.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit two additional
questions for the record, but I have run out of time.
Chairman Carper. I will be happy to have you do that and
ask our witnesses to respond promptly, if they would.
Dr. Coburn has joined us. Please, Dr. Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Well, I apologize for not being here for
your opening testimony and the questions that were there.
First of all, let me personally thank you for your service.
You do not get a lot of kudos. You get a lot of complaints but
not a lot of kudos, and I just want to formally recognize your
service and dedication to what you do.
And I may ask some questions that have been asked. If they
have been asked, just tell me and we will stop.
One of the things I have heard is since we have had the
discussions ongoing on immigration reform, the attempts at
border crossings have increased--non-border crossings have
increased. Is that accurate?
Mr. Fisher. I am sorry, Senator. Could you repeat that,
please?
Senator Coburn. Yes. Since the last 3 months, since we have
had a discussion ongoing in Congress about immigration reform,
the reports I have from some of my contacts have said that the
number of attempted crossings has increased. Is that accurate?
Mr. Fisher. This particular year, yes, sir. We have seen an
increase in attempted entries between the ports of entry. We
are actually up in terms of apprehensions about 13 percent. The
reasons and modus behind that are varied, some of which is
hearing sequestration, some of which is hearing immigration
reform, and some of it is hearing they just want to come and be
joined with their families. There is a whole host of reasons
behind that, sir.
Senator Coburn. And I know you have had a lot of questions
on metrics, and according to the testimony that 90 percent is
what you are looking at in terms of control. What happens to
the other 10 percent? Who we are seeing crossing the border now
illegally, what percentage is non-Mexican, and other-than-
Mexican?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, I will answer the second one first. It
is approximately 30 percent. So when you look at the
individuals that we are apprehending, approximately 30 percent
of those individuals are from a country other than Mexico.
Chairman Carper. Say that percent again. What percent?
Mr. Fisher. It is approximately 30 percent, sir. About one-
third of individuals that we are apprehending this year are
from a country other than Mexico.
Senator Coburn. And of that 30 percent, what percentage are
Latino but not Mexican? In other words, what percentage of
people coming across the border are not from South America,
indigent South Americans?
Mr. Fisher. I do not have the exact number, Senator, but it
would be very small. In other words, the vast majority of that
30 percent are from three primary countries in Central America,
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Senator Coburn. Right. So will you get back to me on that
number?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator Coburn. OK. Thank you.
The other question I have for you, you all each know more
about your area than any Member of Congress. You are
responsible for it. The ins and outs. If you were given the
flexibility under the sequester to manage your areas of
responsibility by prioritizing what is most important down to
what is least important, would any of you have any difficulty
doing that?
Mr. Fisher. No, Senator.
Senator Coburn. Anybody else?
Mr. Alles. No, sir. I think we are working through the
issues.
Senator Coburn. Right. But the point is, regardless of what
we have said in the past, you are the key people. What is most
important, what is second most important, what is third most
important. If we were to give you that flexibility, would that
not make your job easier with sequester?
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, sir. I think, unequivocally. The one
area that we should note, at the office level, much of our
budgets are made up of salaries and expenses.
Senator Coburn. Right.
Mr. McAleenan. So the flexibility is kind of diminished
just by the percentage and the composition of the budget.
Senator Coburn. But as a whole, you actually could be more
effective under this sequester if we gave you the flexibility
to manage your operations the way people in the private sector
get to manage theirs when they are held responsible for an
outcome. You would agree with that?
Mr. McAleenan. That is a fair statement, Senator.
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir. I would agree, too.
Senator Coburn. Nobody disagrees with that.
How many of you are familiar with what the GAO has done
over the last 4 years in terms of looking at duplication and
combining all the reports the Inspector Generals (IGs) have
done and looking at duplication and waste and lack of metrics?
Have you all read that?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, I am generally aware of the effort,
but I could not speak to it in any depth.
Senator Coburn. Well, what I would suggest is you take
those last three reports--they have now finished the entire
Federal Government, each of your agencies are in there--and
look at it. And what I would like for you to do is look at that
and say, here is where we agree with them. Here is where we
disagree. Here are the things we think they have made in terms
of recommendations that are positive and we are going to act on
it. Here are the things we think are a waste of our time. They
may have some little savings, but it is not a good expenditure
of dollars to go after those savings.
If you all would do that for me, that actually puts a check
for me back on GAO. They are not always right. They are pretty
good, but they are not always right. So one of the things my
staff and I get to learn is when we get feedback from you based
on what their assessments are in your particular areas. And if
you would do that for me, I think it would prove very
beneficial for our Committee in terms of helping you.
Our job, and I think Senator Carper has led exceptionally
well on this, our job is to help you. It is not just to be
critical. Our job is to say, what are our goals? Where is the
money? How effectively are we doing it? And can we make any
difference on this Committee in terms of streamlining, making
you more efficient, and making you more effective?
With that, I will submit some questions to the record that
I would appreciate that you get back to me on. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Let me ask some questions, and initially,
I am just going to ask you to raise your hand or not. How many
think the border is far more secure than it was a half-dozen
years ago? Raise your hand. [All raising hands.]
Far more secure. How many think that we can do a whole lot
more to improve it--a whole lot more? [All raising hands.]
OK. How many think that we can do a good deal more? [All
raising hands.]
That is different than a whole lot.
Senator Coburn. What is the difference between a good deal
and a whole lot?
Chairman Carper. There is a difference. A whole lot is a
whole lot.
Senator Coburn and I were once at a hearing on the Finance
Committee and we had before us a bunch of witnesses who were
talking about deficit reduction, something that he and I care a
lot about. One of the guys who was testifying was the former
Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Blinder. He was Vice
Chairman when Alan Greenspan was the Chairman, and he talked
about health care costs as the 800-pound gorilla in the room on
deficit reduction. Unless we get our arms around health care
costs rising, we are never going to really do a good enough job
on deficit reduction.
I asked him in the Q and A, what do we need to do in order
to get health care costs under control? And he said, I am not a
health economist. I am not an expert on this. Here is my
recommendation. Find out what works and do more of that. Find
out what works and do more of that. And later on, I suggested,
well, maybe find out what does not work and do less of that,
and he said, yes.
We need to find out what works, and it has led to the
improvement that you all have shown us today and talked about
today. We find out what works and what we need to do more of.
We need to understand, as well, what does not work so well,
what has marginal value, and maybe do a little bit less of that
in the budget-constrained world.
I am told that we now spend more money on Border Patrol
and, I think, on the folks at Customs and Border Protection,
than we spend as a government on the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI), Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA), Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), all
combined. It is a huge amount of money, a huge investment that
we are making. And we need to make sure that we are getting our
money's worth out of those forces on the ground. What can we do
as force multipliers in the air, on the sea, in terms of
intelligence? So here is what I want to ask.
Going back to what Alan Blinder told us, find out what
works, do more of that, what else do we need to do? These VADER
systems that we talked about, we have one of them. It is on
loan. DHS does not even own it. It is on loan by, I think not
by the DOD, but I think maybe by the company that developed it.
I am told they cost about $8 million apiece. Can somebody
confirm that for us?
Mr. Alles. That is roughly correct, sir, yes.
Chairman Carper. And can they be used--just talk about the
number of platforms they can be used on.
Mr. Alles. Well, the only platform we have it integrated on
right now is the Predator. We are looking at manned platforms
that would give us more flexibility. We have not done that work
yet. The Army actually is doing some work on that right now. We
are going to piggyback on that work, because they are doing it
on an aircraft that is similar in type to ours. So when they
finish that, we will try to piggyback on that same work.
Chairman Carper. OK. Well, if I were a bad guy trying to
get through with, whether it was drugs or trying to get through
with people, I would certainly try to find out what the drone
schedule is and the days that you are up, the days that they
are not. Try to find out which one the VADER is on and the ones
that are not.
And one of the lessons that I took back with me is we need
to resource the drones so that they can fly almost throughout
the week, 24/7.
The second thing, we need to figure out how the C-206-- a
smaller airplane, older airplane--how can that be used
effectively in this effort? Can the VADER be mounted on a C-
206? Does that make sense? Can a VADER or some other system be
mounted on the lighter-than-air units that we have and we
deploy in Afghanistan and other places along the border?
Talk with us about which of those applications of
technology actually make sense, could be cost effective, and
enhance the effectiveness of the thousands and thousands of men
and women that we have arrayed across our borders, from one end
of the Mexican border to the other. General?
Mr. Alles. So, from my standpoint on the VADER system, sir,
as you noted, it is a lone system, so we would like to procure
more of those systems and also integrate them on manned
platforms.
And then the other piece of this, too and I think you
obviously saw the Cessna 206 when you were out there, is a low-
cost platform. The actual sensor on it costs probably five
times as much as the aircraft. But we are looking at putting
more of those sensors on lower-cost airplanes because it gives
us better efficiencies and helps us in terms of our flying hour
program. So it is a money saver for us.
Chairman Carper. Let us just drill down on that, the C-206.
I did not ask the cost of the drones, the cost of acquiring and
operating them; we will leave that to another day. But you
mentioned the VADER mounted on the drone might be about $8
million.
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir.
Chairman Carper. The system that the surveillance system is
on, the C-206 aircraft----
Mr. Alles. That was about a million-dollar ball that is on
the aircraft.
Chairman Carper. All right. And the cost of the aircraft?
Mr. Alles. I would have to get back to you----
Chairman Carper. Just roughly. Under a million?
Mr. Alles. Maybe a hundred-thousand.
Chairman Carper. It is peanuts compared to what we spend
around here.
Mr. Alles. Yes.
Chairman Carper. How do we figure out how to use the 206 in
a way that complements the use of the drones and the lighter-
than-air?
Mr. Alles. I think that also gets back to the operational
integration piece, which is what we are really working on with
VADER. That is the one we have to get right in the Arizona
area. The Joint Field Command we have out there now is working
very hard on that particular operational integration and
starting to enjoy some success with it.
Chairman Carper. All right. One of the things we have not
talked about is intelligence, and I want to take maybe a minute
on that. Before I do, you have over here Senator Landrieu, who
chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee that deals with Homeland
Security. This is the Committee of jurisdiction. We have a guy
here who chairs Armed Services and has led that Committee,
along with Senator McCain, for a long time. You have literally
in this Committee, those who serve on this Committee and in
other areas, some of the folks who can actually make sure that
the additional resources that are needed can be provided.
I do not know that we are ever going to get to that simple
example that I cited earlier, where you figure out, do we have
100 people approaching the border? Yes. Be able to say, yes,
with some certainty, we do. Did 10 of them turn back? To have
some certainty, yes, we can do that. We know how many people we
apprehend out of that 100. And if it is 80, then it means 10
got away. My real question is, is it a fool's errand to think
that we can develop the technology, combine that with our
ground resources, a multi-layered effort in technology, and
actually be able to make those kinds of calculations? I think
that is the metric that we would all say, I believe in that.
And the other stuff that I think the Department is working
on that I know just a little bit about--we talked about it here
today and I have talked about it with my staff--I am not sure
that is going to convince anybody that the border is really
more secure.
So is it a fool's errand to think that we can actually put
together this multi-layered technology, human resources and so
forth on the ground, in the air, lighter-than-air, different
aircraft, different platforms, different kinds of sensors? Is
it just not realistic, or is it realistic?
Go ahead, Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher. Senator, it is realistic, and I think you have
hit it right on the head. You are on the right track and we
would love to work with you and your staff as we get smarter
about what we are learning about the technology and what that
gives us in terms of being able to report out those specific
variables that you are talking about.
Chairman Carper. Anybody else before I yield to Senator
Levin?
Mr. Alles. I was just going to make a comment, sir. I
think, as Chief Fisher mentioned before, part of this, though,
we are going to want to use the technology we have--VADER is an
example, synthetic aperture radars or links are an example to
help us characterize and decide where the investment makes
sense.
Chairman Carper. Yes.
Mr. Alles. So to think that we are going to do it along the
entire link, I mean, it would be fantastically expensive. So I
think that would help us. I think that is an area we look at,
as we talked before, about where it makes sense threat-wise.
Chairman Carper. Good. As my dad always said, use some
common sense and we will try to do that here.
And I want to say again to Senator Levin, my heartfelt
thanks for not just the great hospitality that you extended to
me when I was up in Michigan along the Canadian border, but
just to share your expertise and insights with me. It was a
terrific visit. I really appreciate it.
Senator Levin. Well, we appreciate your taking the time to
come to the border with Canada, which is an amazing border in a
lot of ways, and some of those ways you were able to personally
witness, and we are just grateful that you would take the time
to get kind of a hands-on experience of our borders, whatever
borders there are.
I want to just focus on the Northern border issue. This is
what the GAO said in their report. A few years back, a number
of us asked the GAO to report on border security, and this is
some of what they said in their report. Historically, the
United States has focused attention and resources primarily on
the U.S. border with Mexico, which continues to experience
significantly higher levels of drug trafficking and illegal
immigration than the U.S.-Canadian border. However, the GAO
says, the DHS reports that the terrorist threat on the Northern
border is higher given the large expanse of area with limited
law enforcement coverage. There is also a great deal of trade
and travel across this border. While legal trade is
predominant, DHS reports networks of illicit criminal activity
and smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and weapons between
the two countries.
Now, there is a huge gap in terms of our resources that are
allocated to the Northern border versus the Southwest border.
There was growth, in the last 10 years, in the number of Border
Patrol agents, which nearly doubled from 10,000 to 21,000--but
that growth was concentrated at the Southwest border where
almost all of the added agents were sent. So the added agents,
10,600 went to the Southwest border.
Now, there is a huge disparity there. We have tried to get
into this at times. Despite the fact that the terrorist threat
is greater at the Northern border than it is at the Southwest
border, nonetheless, we see this huge gap in terms of
resources, both the ones that began, were there before 2004,
and the ones that have been added since.
So, Mr. McAleenan, let me ask you, why is this? Given what
the findings of DHS have been, that the terrorist threat is
greater on the Northern border, the amount of trade is far
greater--Canada is our No. 1 trading partner, and that means
the risk to that trade is greater because there is more trade--
why this huge disparity? Why does it continue? In fact, why
does it grow?
Mr. McAleenan. Senator, thank you. I will let Chief Fisher
speak to the significant percentage growth in Border Patrol
agents on the Northern border in the past decade, but speaking
for the ports of entry and the Office of Field Operations, you
are correct. The encounters with terrorist watch listed
individuals are higher on the Northern border than on the
Southern border, but we are very focused on that threat. And
our partnership with Canada has changed dramatically in the
last 10 years, both in terms of our intelligence and
information sharing, our benchmarking and our targeting
approaches, and a whole series of programs in terms of joint
Integrated Border Enforcement Teams that we participate on. We
are co-located, working together. This is a serious focus for
us, and I do not think at the ports of entry, for sure, the
resource levels are in any way diminishing our ability to
address our anti-terrorism mission.
Senator Levin. OK. Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher. Senator, we had approximately 300 Border Patrol
agents along the 4,000 miles in the Northern border prior to
2011. We are at about 2,212 Border Patrol agents across that
border. We maintain that level of staffing as our mandatory
minimum staffing levels. And as Mr. McAleenan mentioned, our
cooperation with Mexico, or, I beg your pardon, with Canada,
has increased over the years, both in terms of our enforcement
and intelligence sharing.
But I will tell you, if we do have any specific
intelligence on whatever that threat is which increases our
capability between the ports of entry to respond accordingly to
that threat, we will move Border Patrol agents from anywhere
along the United States borders, whether it is North or South,
to be able to mitigate and minimize the impact and risk that
the threat may pose to this country.
Senator Levin. So we rely basically on better intelligence
cooperation between ourselves and Canada?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, that is correct, not exclusively, but
that is certainly a key indicator for us to be able to identify
those threats, emerging threats, that may be coming toward our
borders.
Senator Levin. And we have better intelligence cooperation
with Canada than we do with Mexico?
Mr. Fisher. I would not necessarily qualify it as better.
There are different programs that are set up independent of
what our relationships are with those countries, things that
are based on treaties, things that are based on what we can or
cannot share. But I will tell you, what we do on the Northern
border with Canada, although we may not do it in the same
manner, we would certainly do that with our partners in Mexico,
as well.
Mr. Alles. Senator, I would just make the comment from my
standpoint on the air side, we have a substantial air presence,
but most of what I see security-wise up there really falls in
our cooperation with ICE in terms of intelligence development,
case development, and really targeted enforcement to provide
security.
Senator Levin. There are entry points. There are walking
paths. There are boats. We have lakes up there that are huge
where there is boating going on all the time. It seems to me
that it is a much easier border to cross illegally than the
Mexican border. We are building a fence where we have, what,
seven or eight times as many agents there as we do on the
Northern border. To say that the Northern border is porous is
to exaggerate. The porosity, it is not porous, it is
nonexistent in places. There are hills and mountains right
along the border where people just walk across and back without
any awareness of it.
And what the GAO has found, and I think what the DHS has
acknowledged, is that this border is a source of a greater
terrorist threat than the Mexican border. It seems to me that
this should be considered the No. 1 problem we have, more than
illegal immigration, which we are acting on in so many other
ways.
My time is up. I do have a question that I will submit for
the record, Mr. Chairman, about the so-called Administratively
Uncontrolled Overtime (AUO). Has that been inquired about
today? I will save that for the record, since we have
apparently appropriated funds to continue that overtime, what
the plans are of the agency in that regard. But, again, I will
submit that. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thank you, Senator Levin.
Senator Baldwin, any other questions you would like to ask?
Senator Baldwin. I will submit them for the record.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thanks so much for joining us today
and for your interest and participation.
Senator Coburn, I have a couple more questions I am going
to ask, but Dr. Coburn, do you have anything else you would
like to add or take away?
Senator Coburn. No.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thank you.
A few more and we will be out of here within 10 minutes, I
promise.
One of the things that struck me in the time I spent with
Senator Levin up on the Canadian border was the work that we do
with the Canadian Government, sharing resources, their ability
to move across the border, Canadians into our country, us into
theirs. They are working in a collaborative way in teams, the
amount of intelligence that we share with one another. And we
talk about force multipliers on the Southern border, on the
Mexican border, what those might be. But one of the great force
multipliers in this work that you all do is, obviously,
intelligence. And if we are going to use the kind of VADER
systems and other kind of air systems and marine systems to
better allocate and deploy our ground forces on the border, one
of the best ways to do that is intelligence.
So I am going to ask you, if you can, to just compare for
us the degree of helpfulness of information and intelligence
sharing on the Northern border, compare that with what we have
to work with on the Southern border. To the extent you can,
compare and contrast. Is there anything we can learn for
deploying our Southern resources on the Mexican border from
what we are doing up North, sort of lessons learned? Please.
Mr. McAleenan. I will start and defer to my colleagues for
any additional response.
I think what we are trying to do in terms of the ports of
entry is really move our assessment of risk as far back in the
travel cycle and supply chain as possible. So that involves
getting intelligence from the intelligence community on the
threat, the origin of the threat globally, how that threat
might move toward us. And really, if you are looking at the
Canada and Mexico collaboration, that is trying to understand
who is trying to get into Canada and Mexico and to share
information with them in terms of what we are seeing as the
threat and to really benchmark what we call our targeting
approaches. That is how we look at the data on people and
things moving into the United States, similarly, into Canada
and into Mexico, to try to pick out those people and goods that
might present a risk.
And so we are doing very similar things with both countries
in terms of working together in their targeting centers with
our National Targeting Center to share that information, to
benchmark how we approach the threat, and to identify it. And
that intelligence collaboration and sharing is going very well
in both borders.
Chairman Carper. Others, please.
Mr. Fisher. Senator, thank you for the question. We
continue to learn how important information and certainly
intelligence is and our ability to protect this country. And as
we learn things that we may have implemented on the Southern
border in terms of collection or dissemination, we certainly
try to apply that on the Northern border.
But one of the most important characteristics, at least
from our standpoint in implementing our strategy, is
recognizing that, one, there is a convergence of transnational
criminal organizations and terrorism. That is something that
kind of changes the landscape in terms of how we have to
continue to learn from DOD and others, the intelligence
community, in terms of how they can support our ground agents
on the field and being able to pre-deploy resources to be able
to minimize risk. And one of the ways that we have understood
how to do that better is to work with the intelligence
community through our own Office of Intelligence and certainly
through the Department and telling those analysts and
collectors what is important to us.
Historically, we never did that. We did not talk in terms
of having priority intelligence requirements. Heck, we did not
even have an intelligence cycle. So as we are starting to get
smarter about that, we have identified what our intelligence
are. And we took----
Chairman Carper. So this reminds me of the old adage in
business, ask your customer.
Mr. Fisher. That is right. Yes.
Chairman Carper. You are the customer.
Mr. Fisher. Well, I think----
Chairman Carper. One of them.
Mr. Fisher. I grew up in an organization that I was always
complaining as a Border Patrol agent that nobody is giving me
any intelligence, right. And then when I got a little bit more,
perhaps, wiser in my years and recognizing that nobody knew
what I wanted because I never told them. And so this is kind of
a common theme that was built within our new strategy that
really says, OK, it is up to us to really understand what is it
that we need.
And, by the way, I cannot make the same mistakes that I did
when I was running the Border Patrol Intelligence Division
years ago, because when I found out--they said, hey, we need to
know what your intelligence requirements are, I took a lot of
smart people and we developed about a 30-pound binder and we
handed them 247 intelligence requirements and then I sat back
and waited, recognizing that this is not the way to do it,
either.
And so we are learning each and every day on how we work
within the intelligence community, and we learn from our
cooperation and efforts with the Department of Defense on how
we can better do that. And we are, each and every day and each
and every week, we are getting better about identifying what
the intent and capability is of those individuals who wake up
each and every day and think about nothing but to do harm to
this country. That is our priority mission and we are getting
better in that regard, sir, and I appreciate your leadership in
helping us do that.
Chairman Carper. Yes, you bet. Thank you. General Alles.
Mr. Dinkins. Sir, I think you brought up a--I am going to
jump in here, Randolph--but I think you brought up a really
good point, because we have been talking a lot about the
physical border and the security measures, and I can tell you,
it has drastically changed, as you have seen. Like I said, I
was in Detroit 10 years ago. If you had known that a person was
going to cross with drugs, there was a good chance he was still
going to get through because we did not have the resources or
technology at the border to actually be able to run people's
names. You might get the license plate run in time, and that
was it. After 9/11, we shut it down by just running people's
name. It caused a 12-hour back-up. Now, that same thing takes
about 12 seconds. So that has changed.
But, also, we have pushed the border out much farther with
engaging our foreign counterparts and international partners so
that we know the threat before they get here. Very shortly
here, you will be able to--if somebody is sitting in a cave in
a place that wants to do us harm hits ``enter'' on a visa
security application--that is going to be vetted that night,
and we will know the threat before we even schedule an
interview at the consulate office. So technology has really
changed a lot, as well as our international footprint which
provides that intelligence. Because if I get investigative
leads and I can tell Air and Marine about those leads; they are
going to have better success at utilizing those limited
resources and man hours to fly to make an interdiction.
So, it is a continuous cycle that we create, and I think
all four of us have dedicated 100 percent to it.
Chairman Carper. OK. Do you want to add anything, General?
Mr. Alles. I was just going to mention, we do share pretty
heavily with the Mexican Government in terms of air tracks. We
have Mexican officers in the Air and Marine Operations Center,
so if we have nefarious tracks crossing either way, we
coordinate interdictions on those tracks. So that is actually
quite good cooperation.
On the Northern side, it more falls to our links with
Northern Command and the North American Air Defense Command.
Chairman Carper. OK. This is a question that kind of flows
from the work that Senator McCain and seven other Senators are
doing, trying to lead the way to a thoughtful, comprehensive
immigration reform proposal. A key requirement for us to be
able to come to that kind of agreement is really based on what
we are talking about here--our border is more secure. What is
working? What is not working? What more can we do? You are our
customer, in a sense, just like you are a customer of the
intelligence agencies that you were talking about earlier.
But my question, would comprehensive immigration reform
make it easier to secure the border by creating some additional
legal pathways for some--not all, but for some immigrants--thus
making it a little easier to focus on the criminal threats? We
think a lot about risk and trying to be sensitive to risk and
deploying our resources where the risks are greatest, but how
would you respond to that question? I do not care who goes
first.
Mr. McAleenan. I think, in a word, yes.
Mr. Fisher. I agree, Senator. Yes.
Chairman Carper. OK. General?
Mr. Alles. Yes, sir. It certainly makes sense to me.
Mr. Dinkins. Absolutely, sir.
Chairman Carper. All right. OK. Let me just close with--
Tom, anything you want to say in closing?
Senator Coburn. No. I want to talk to General Alles
afterward.
Chairman Carper. OK. All right. A thought or two in
closing, just to, again, reiterate how much we appreciate your
service and the service of those men and women with whom you
work and lead. This is important work, important to our
country. I believe we are making progress, and you have shown
us some pictures that would certainly suggest that. The metrics
that we are using, while they are imperfect, I think tend to be
encouraging.
I think one of the reasons why the apprehension is going up
is the economy is stronger. Two, some folks who live to the
South of us think that comprehensive immigration reform might
just pass, and I think that is moving some people, as well.
But in terms of the questions, are borders more secure than
they have been in the past, I think it is clear that they are,
and we have heard that again reiterated today. Are we doing
everything that we can do? No. Are we doing everything that we
should be doing? No. Are there a number of steps we can take to
do an even better job? Yes, and you have given us some
indication of what those might be.
Do we have the ability to pay for them? Well, not really.
We are running a budget deficit of $500 billion this year. The
President's budget comes out today and it is designed to keep
us on a path to rein in the deficit. But we need some
additional revenues. We talked a little bit about how user fees
might be helpful to enable us to deploy the resources that we
discussed here today. And we had a chance to talk about what
better intelligence and better use of intelligence can be
helpful as a force multiplier.
But I leave the hearing understanding the difficulty, the
complexity of the challenges that we all face, not just you,
but us, as well. But encouraged that we are learning. We are
getting smarter and using pretty good common sense that will
enable us to get us closer to the goal that we seek.
One of my favorite sayings is, the road to improvement is
always under construction, and that certainly applies here. But
the road is improving, and we still have some work to do, and
to the extent that we can work on it together, continue to work
on it together, we are going to make a whole lot more
improvement. And in doing so, I think we may lay the foundation
for a thoughtful, comprehensive immigration policy that will
actually reduce the desires and need for people to make these
illegal entries into our country.
With that having been said, the hearing record will remain
open for 15 days for the submission of additional statements
and questions. If you get some questions, and I am sure you
will, please respond to them promptly and we will look forward
to continuing to work with you.
All right. With that, this hearing is adjourned. Again,
thank you so much.
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
BORDER SECURITY: EXAMINING PROVISIONS IN THE BORDER SECURITY, ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITY, AND IMMIGRATION MODERNIZATION ACT (S. 744)
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Landrieu, Baldwin, Heitkamp,
Coburn, McCain, Johnson, Portman, and Paul.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER
Chairman Carper. Good morning, everyone. The hearing will
come to order. Dr. Coburn and I are delighted to welcome all of
you today.
This is the third of a series of hearings that this
Committee is holding to examine the gains in security that have
been made at our borders over the past decade and to review
what impact immigration reform may have on those borders.
During our two previous hearings, we heard testimony from
experts, including some folks at this table today, and from
frontline personnel about the dramatic improvements we have
seen in portions of our southern border region since the last
time that Congress debated immigration reform 7 years ago, in
2006.
In recent years, we have made substantial investments in
border security. I believe those investments are for the most
part paying off. In 2006, the Border Patrol was averaging more
than 1 million arrests of unauthorized immigrants each year--1
million per year--and the unauthorized population living in the
United States had reached an all-time high of 12.5 million
people.
Since then, we have added more than 9,000 Border Patrol
agents, bringing their overall staffing level to more than
21,000. We have also constructed some 600 miles of new fencing
and deployed sophisticated cameras, sensors, and radars across
a good part of our border with Mexico. In part because of these
investments, apprehensions of individuals attempting to cross
our borders illegally are at a 40-year low, and the
unauthorized population in our country has actually decreased
by about a million people.
Despite all these developments, we are still facing
challenges. All too often, however, these challenges have deep
roots in our own domestic policies and the socio-economic
conditions of our neighbors. One of our witness noted that we
look to the border to solve problems that do not originate
there. I could not agree more. We need to focus on the
underlying causes of illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
The expert and frontline witnesses at our hearings earlier
this year were all in agreement that passing immigration reform
would make our borders more secure. It will do so by addressing
several of the root causes of illegal immigration, providing
workers and employers with legal avenues to fill the jobs that
our economy needs to thrive, and allowing our border officials
to focus their efforts on criminals rather than on economic
migrants.
I believe that the bill we are examining today represents a
significant step toward achieving that goal. It will increase
our security even as it provides a fair, practical, and tough
path to citizenship for many--but not all--of the millions of
people living in the shadows today. I want to commend eight of
our colleagues--especially Senator John McCain, a Member of our
Committee--who have worked tirelessly, and I think fearlessly,
to craft the bill on which we are discussing today. I look
forward to debating that bill on the Senate floor later this
spring.
The goal of today's hearing is to review the bill's border
security provisions, which are in this Committee's
jurisdiction. We have before us an excellent panel of witnesses
from frontline agencies. We have asked the witnesses to give us
their assessment of the bill, to tell us how they would
implement the border provisions, and to let us know what they
believe they may need--or that we may need to add or to change
to that bill.
There is an old Chinese proverb--and some of you have heard
me say this before--that goes something like this: ``Tell me, I
will forget. Show me, I may remember. Involve me, and I will
understand.'' That is why I have tried to visit as much of the
border region as I can. Three years ago I visited the
California border--many of you have, too--and over the past 3
months, I have been privileged to go down to the border in
Arizona with Senator McCain, Representative Michael McCaul, who
chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, and with Janet
Napolitano, our Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). I have been up to the Canadian border with
Senator Carl Levin. We have been over to Texas just in the last
week checking out some of the area in the eastern portions of
that country. We have a lot of people coming across the border
that are not from Mexico. They are coming from places other
than Mexico, as you know.
But I have personally witnessed the challenges that our
brave men and women working on the frontlines face every day.
Some of you have, too. We have witnessed the terrain they are
dealing with that varies widely along the border region, from
the dense urban landscape of the border near San Diego, to the
desolate and rugged desert and mountains of Arizona, to the
lush vegetation and winding lengths of the Rio Grande Valley in
Texas. We have some places along the border, on the Rio Grande,
where we actually looked to the north was Mexico, and you
looked to the south was Texas. A pretty amazing realization,
and lush, almost hard to penetrate vegetation along much of
that river.
Based on what I have seen, I believe there is no one-size-
fits-all solution for securing our border. The high-tech radars
that work so well in Arizona today will not penetrate much of
the dense foliage along the Rio Grande in Texas that I saw last
week. The drones that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
flies work great in some areas, but can barely fly in others
when the winds exceed 15 knots, which is often. Achieving the
goal of persistent surveillance set by the bill we are
examining today, then, will be challenging and costly. However,
it is not impossible.
There are, for example, a number of common-sense steps that
we can take to get better results along our borders. One of
them should be identifying and deploying what I call force
multipliers that are appropriate for the different sectors
along our border. In some parts of the border, these may be
advanced radar systems on drones. In others, it may be camera
towers or systems that are handheld or mounted on trucks. We
need to systematically identify the best technologies with your
help and those of your colleagues so that we will make our
frontline agents more effective and provide them with the help
that they need to be more successful in a cost-effective way.
One specific thing I have seen firsthand is that an
aircraft without an advanced radar sensor onboard to help
detect illegal activity on the ground is of very little value.
Far too many of the aircraft we deploy in support of the Border
Patrol are not fitted with cameras or sensors that have been
proven effective. In McAllen last week, where I visited, we are
flying three different types of helicopters, but only one of
them is outfitted with these kinds of technologies. The other
two are largely ineffective. We have to be smarter than this.
By comparison, in Arizona I saw an inexpensive single-
engine C206 airplane that had been fitted with an advanced
infrared camera system, which had proven to be extremely
effective and inexpensive to operate. However, the Border
Patrol has 16 more of these C206 aircraft that do not have any
advanced sensors on board and are barely used. In fact, they
are almost worthless. We need to fix that. And it is not all
that expensive. We also need to continue to develop and deploy
cost-effective technologies, such as handheld devices that I
have seen that allow Border Patrol agents to see in the dark or
enable our officers at our ports of entry to more efficiently
process travelers and goods.
Investing in our ports of entry will also be an incredibly
important part of improving border security and our economy as
well. I am pleased, then, that the proposed legislation we are
discussing would provide some 3,500 new officers at legal
border crossings nationwide. These officers represent a
worthwhile investment for the country, helping to secure our
borders even as they facilitate the trade and travel that our
economy so badly needs. These 3,500 new officers cost a fair
amount of money, and we have an obligation to figure out how to
pay for that. And I believe those who have been working on this
legislation that is before us today have been working on that,
and the Administration has, too. There are some good ideas.
Hopefully we will implement those.
However, there are some things that I believe may be
missing from the immigration reform bill. I plan to work with
all of our colleagues here in the Senate to address them. One
of the largest issues we are facing today is growing
unauthorized immigration from Central Americans who transit
through Mexico. I want to hear from our witnesses about what we
can do to address this issue, not just address the symptom of
the problem, which I saw firsthand in a detention center with
1,100 mostly Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans, a few
Mexicans, last week in Texas. One thing that we may need to
explore is how to make it easier for our border officials to
work with and train their Mexican counterparts in order to help
Mexico secure its own borders.
Finally, I also believe that the Department of Homeland
Security needs to do a much better job of measuring its
performance at our borders and that these performance measures
must be made available to Congress and to the American people.
If we have not heard anything else in these hearings before, we
need to be able to measure what we are doing, what you are
doing. We need to be able to do that in an objective way that
people understand, that we understand, and that you understand.
The bill we are discussing today would make one such
measure--we call it the ``effectiveness rate''--public. And
while this is a good first step, I believe there are a number
of other metrics concerning our activities at and between the
ports of entry that should also be made publicly available. I
look forward to exploring these questions with our panel and
believe our country stands to benefit enormously from the
tough, practical, and fair policies laid out in this bill. I
especially look forward to working with Dr. Coburn and all of
our colleagues on this Committee.
Dr. Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Thank you. I want to welcome you all here.
I am excited to hear the discussion and interchange between
what our Inspector General (IG) has said are problems and the
answers to those problems.
I think the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and
Customs and Border Protection have a difficult job, oftentimes
thankless, so I want to thank you now for what you do. It is
hard.
I am concerned with the immigration bill coming forward and
the additional responsibilities that are going to be placed
through that bill, if it were to become law, on the capability
of the agencies to actually carry it out. And the reason I am
concerned is because there are so many areas where we are not
effective today. And although we have an immigration problem,
what we really have is a border control problem and a visa
problem and a guest worker problem. And it is important that we
fix the real disease, not the symptoms. We do not have a secure
border today, and we know that by the apprehensions. Even
though they are less, it is still not secure. And I have a lot
of concerns coming forward with the immigration bill. We will
wait and see what happens in the markup. I think we made a
mistake and we should have asked for sequential referral on it,
because so much of it is going to impact the agency that is
under the direction of this Committee.
Nevertheless, I am very appreciative of the hard work of
those giving testimony today, and I especially want to thank
Anne Richards for her hard work and the outlining that she has
done. We have some other concerns, especially on the drone
program. We have inquired and not received adequate answers yet
in terms of the privacy protections. We have had that letter in
for, I think, over a month and have not gotten appropriate
answers or satisfactory answers to those questions. And that is
one of the things that has to be a part of any drone program.
I look forward to your testimony. Again, I thank you for
your efforts. And I think what Senator Carper has put forward
is we really want to work as a Committee to help you accomplish
your jobs, not throw up roadblocks but actually find out what
the real problems are, what we can do about it, but also hold
you accountable for the things that you can be doing that you
are not doing today as outlined by the IG.
So thank you, Senator, and I appreciate our panelists.
Chairman Carper. Thank you.
Let me just dovetail, before I introduce our witnesses, on
what Dr. Coburn has just said. Some of you have heard me tell
this story before, but most of you have not.
About a year or two ago, I was walking into the Special
Olympics basketball tournament in Delaware. We were having it
at the University of Delaware Bob Carpenter Center. And I
walked in with one of the best high school basketball coaches
in our State. We were walking in and I said to him, ``Coach,
you have been doing this for a long time, coaching basketball.
Who are the best players? Who are the best players on the team?
Is it the person who is the best shot, the best rebounder, the
best dribbler, the best passer? Who in your mind is the most
valuable player?''
And he said, ``The most valuable player on every team I
have ever coached are the players who make everybody else
better.''
Think about that. The most valuable player on every team he
has ever coached are those who make everybody else on the team
better.
We do a lot of oversight on this Committee and I think we
are pretty good at it, getting better. But part of our
responsibility is to find out how we make you better and the
people that work with you better, the thousands of people that
are down on the Mexican border, from California all the way
over to the Gulf of Mexico and all up on the northern border as
well. How can we make those people, your colleagues, better?
That is what we are about.
All right. With that having been said, I am going to
introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is the Hon. David
Heyman, Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of
Homeland Security. Nice to see you. As head of the Office of
Policy, Mr. Heyman leads a team of experts to provide strategy
and policy development for the Department. Prior to his
appointment in 2009, Mr. Heyman served in a number of
leadership positions in academia, government, and the private
sector.
Our second witness is Kevin McAleenan. Acting Deputy
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In this
capacity, Deputy Commissioner McAleenan is the chief operating
official of Customs and Border Protection. He previously served
as the Acting Assistant Commissioner of the agency's Office of
Field Operations, leading its port security and trade
operations. Welcome.
Our third witness is Michael Fisher--nice to see you, sir--
Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. Chief Fisher is responsible
for planning, coordinating, and directing enforcement efforts
to secure our Nation's borders. Prior to his current position,
Chief Fisher served in a number of leadership positions within
the Border Patrol, which he first joined in 1987. The Chief is
joining us today for questions and answers and will not be
giving an oral statement.
Our next witness is Daniel Ragsdale, Deputy Director and
Chief Operating Officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. Prior to this assignment, Mr. Ragsdale served as
Executive Associate Director for Management and Administration
at the agency. Previously, Mr. Ragsdale worked at the former
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's Office of General
Counsel and served as an attorney in New York and in Arizona.
Our final witness is Anne Richards, Assistant Inspector
General for Audits at the Office of the Inspector General
within the Department of Homeland Security. She joined the
Office of Inspector General in 2007. She was previously
Assistant Inspector General for Audits at the U.S. Department
of Interior from 2005 to 2007. And from 1984 to 1999, she
worked with the U.S. Army Audit Agency.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here, and we
will now turn to Assistant Secretary Heyman for his opening
statement. Please proceed. Your entire statement will be made
part of the record, and we look forward to responding and
asking questions. Thank you. Thanks for joining us.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DAVID F. HEYMAN,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Coburn, and Members of the Committee. It is my distinct
pleasure to be here today, this morning, along with my
colleagues from ICE and CBP and our Inspector General's Office.
It is also almost 4 years exactly to the day since this
Committee gave me the honor and privilege to serve our Nation
here at the Department of Homeland Security. Thank you for your
continued support.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Heyman appears in the Appendix on
page 322.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to begin by commending the work of the
bipartisan group of Senators who have put forward the current
bill that we are discussing today. We all recognize that our
immigration system is broken and that we can no longer ignore
the problem. We need a system that meets the needs of law
enforcement, businesses, immigrants, communities, and our
economy. This legislation will attract skilled workers,
encourage economic growth, and bring persons living unlawfully
out of the shadows, making them right with the law, ensure that
they pay penalties and back taxes and regularize their status.
I applaud the Congress' efforts, and I look forward to
continuing to work with you on this issue.
The focus of this hearing is border security and how it
relates to this bill. One of the principal missions of the
Department of Homeland Security is to secure our Nation's
borders, to prevent the illegal entry of people, drugs,
weapons, and contraband while expediting legitimate trade and
travel. I think it is important for the public to appreciate
the extraordinary breadth and vitality of our U.S. borders and
the work that DHS does every day securing them. So let me begin
by describing an average day at our borders.
On a daily basis, DHS processes over 1 million inbound
travelers entering the United States by air, land, and sea. We
pre-screen over 2 million passengers before they fly into, out
of, within, or over the United States. We patrol over 3.4
million square miles of U.S. waterways and 5,000 miles of
diverse terrain on our northern and southern borders. We screen
all cargo coming to and entering the United States. We manage a
Trusted Traveler program with over 1 million individuals
enrolled. We process well over 700 vessels in the maritime
environment delivering goods to our businesses, homes, and
communities. And we verify the identities and vet hundreds of
thousands of visa applicants and individuals seeking to enter
the United States every day.
In the process of all of this work, ICE, CBP, and our U.S.
Coast Guard will seize over 20,000 pounds of drugs at or near
our ports of entry. We stop over half a million dollars daily
of counterfeit currency from entering our financial system. Our
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit will arrest over
100 individuals who have violated immigration or customs laws.
And we will remove and return an average of 1,200 individuals
daily who are unlawfully present. That is what we do daily, 24/
7, 365 days a year.
It is essential to note, however, that the way we manage
border security today has changed significantly over the past
10 years. During the last 4 years in particular, the Obama
Administration has made crucial investments in border security,
adding personnel, improving technology and strengthening
infrastructure.
As Secretary Napolitano has previously stated, our borders
have never been stronger.
First, we have made our ports of entry much more efficient,
facilitating lawful trade and travel.
Second, we have expanded our partnerships with the Federal,
State, and local partners and territorial law enforcement as
well as with the private sector.
Third, internationally we continue to improve partnerships
to deter illegal smuggling and trafficking and improve
intelligence and information sharing so that we can identify
threats well before they reach our shores.
The numbers speak for themselves. In 2004, the Department
had a total of 10,000 Border Patrol agents. Today we count
21,000. At the southwest border, we have increased our Border
Patrol agents by nearly 94 percent. And in the northern border,
we have 2,200 Border Patrol agents. We have increased the
number of CBP officers (CBPOs) who secure the flow of people
and goods into our Nation to over 21,000 officers, up from
17,000 in 2003.
As my colleagues with me today will tell you, these
enhancements have resulted in greatly improved enforcement
procedures, trade facilitation, and outcomes.
In order to support a modern immigration system, the
Department also understands that we must have the ability to
effectively track not only who enters our country, but also how
and when they exit. For two decades, the Federal Government has
worked to obtain accurate and timely data on individuals who
have overstayed their period of admission to the United States.
However, the United States did not build its border, air,
and immigration infrastructure with exit processing in mind.
Airports do not have designated exit areas for departing
passengers or specific checkpoints where a passenger's
departure is recorded by an immigration officer, as you have
seen in other countries. So it has been a challenge. Even so,
over the past decade, DHS piloted various programs in 15
airports to try to achieve such a system. We found that the
limitations of existing technology plus the lack of
infrastructure for departing passengers would drive the cost of
a program to nearly $3 billion or more, while disrupting air
travel for passengers and airlines alike.
Secretary Napolitano found that to be unsatisfactory, and
in 2010, she directed the Department to enhance the existing
exit system to a level of fidelity equal to or nearly equal to
a biometric system while continuing to pursue a more cost-
effective solution in the future.
Over the past 3 years, I am pleased to say that the
Department has taken steps to implement affordable measures to
achieve those goals. Through enhancements to our current
system, which electronically matches the information on an
individual's passport at arrival and departure, DHS can now
identify and target for enforcement those who have overstayed
their period of admission and represent a public safety/
international security threat. We take action against those,
and, moreover, we continue to move forward with building a
biometric system and advance the requisite technologies to be
integrated into the system when it is cost-effective and
feasible to do so. This marks a significant step forward.
Let me conclude by saying that over the past several years
the Department has made substantial gains in border security.
We have significantly reduced the flow of illegal immigration.
We now have a historic opportunity to strengthen our economy,
improve our security, and address illegal immigration. It is
time for common-sense reform of our immigration system.
I thank the Committee for their work on this today. I look
forward to working with you and to answering your questions.
Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks, Mr. Heyman. Mr. McAleenan.
TESTIMONY OF KEVIN K. MCALEENAN,\1\ ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER,
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. McAleenan. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking
Member Coburn, and distinguished Members of the Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and appear
before you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. McAleenan appears in the Appendix
on page 322.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On behalf of the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, Chief Fisher and I appreciate the Committee's
leadership and commitment to ensuring the security of the
American people, and we look forward to discussing the progress
we have made in strengthening the border and how comprehensive
immigration reform will build on our successes and improve the
security and safety of the United States.
With your support, CBP has made historic investments in
border security, adding more personnel, technology, and
infrastructure; making our ports of entry more efficient to
lawful travel and trade; deepening partnerships with Federal,
State, tribal, local, and international law enforcement;
improving intelligence and information sharing to identify
threats sooner; and strengthening entry procedures to protect
against the use of fraudulent documents. We have deployed
proven, effective technology to the border, tailored to the
operational needs of our agents on the ground, and strengthened
our air and marine interdiction capabilities.
Today, after 10 years of investments in training and
equipment and improved information sharing, our border is more
efficiently managed and stronger than ever before.
The framework articulated in the comprehensive immigration
reform bill has the potential to advance these efforts further.
The bill would continue to strengthen security at our borders
as well as it would hold employers more accountable if they
knowingly hire undocumented workers. It would also modernize
our legal immigration system, providing lawful pathways for
important categories of workers for our economy. CBP will
continue to work with Congress on these much-needed reforms
that will help make our border more secure.
We are now more capable than ever in our efforts to secure
the border between ports of entry. We have doubled the number
of Border Patrol agents; deployed surveillance systems, both
static and mobile; we have improved intelligence collection and
provided critical situational awareness in support of our
agents and officers on the ground.
Primary fence and vehicle barricades in strategic locations
have limited the options available to smuggling organizations
to operate, and aerial platforms with advanced technology have
substantially increased situational awareness, enhancing the
way we deploy our resources on the ground and leading to
increased operational effectiveness on the southwest border.
Additionally, over the past 2 years, advanced assessment of
enforcement data has produced programs such as the Consequence
Delivery System, which has allowed us to reduce the percentage
of apprehensions that result in a voluntary return from 41
percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2012. Moreover, Consequence
Delivery has contributed to the reduction in the overall rate
of recidivism from a 6-year average of 24 percent to 12 percent
today.
At our ports of entry, we have increased the number of CBP
officers facilitating the secure flow of people and goods into
our Nation from approximately 17,000 customs and immigration
inspectors in 2003 to more than 21,000 CBP officers and 2,300
agricultural specialists today.
In fiscal year (FY) 2012, CBP officers arrested 7,700
people wanted for serious crimes, including murder, rape,
assault, and robbery. Our officers also stopped nearly 145,000
inadmissible aliens from entering the United States through our
ports of entry.
To build on these successes, the Administration's fiscal
year 2014 budget includes a request for 3,477 new CBP officers.
Of this amount, 1,600 are requested through appropriated
funding, and legislative changes to user fee collections are
recommended to fund an additional 1,877 officers. These new
officers will support economic growth and promote the creation
of new jobs.
A recent study released by the Center for Risk and Economic
Analysis of Terrorism Events at the University of Southern
California has found that an increase in staffing at ports of
entry has an impact on wait times and transaction costs and,
therefore, on the U.S. economy. According to the study's
results, the new CBP officers supported in the fiscal year 2014
budget request could generate an estimated 115,000 new jobs
each year and increase the gross domestic product (GDP) by up
to $7 billion.
To build on these successes, efforts to strengthen security
at our borders must continue as threats evolve. This bill will
enable CBP to continue to expand the use of proven
technologies, to secure the land and maritime borders,
strengthen and enhance capabilities at ports of entry, and
combat illicit border activity. Immigration reform will allow
us to build upon the progress we have already made and
strengthen our ability to assure a safe and thriving border.
Thank you once again for inviting us to appear today. Chief
Fisher and I welcome the opportunity to discuss the significant
progress that CBP has made in strengthening our Nation's
borders and answering any questions you may have. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks very much.
Chief Fisher, I understand you are not here to testify. I
would just ask: Do you approve this message?
Mr. Fisher. Without reservation, Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Thanks very much. OK, good.
All right. Mr. Ragsdale, you are on. Thanks. Welcome. Glad
you are here.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL H. RAGSDALE,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S.
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Ragsdale. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Coburn, and Members of the Committee. Thank you
for the opportunity to testify today on the ongoing efforts to
adopt important reforms to our immigration system.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ragsdale appears in the Appendix
on page 322.
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ICE is the largest investigative agency in DHS and the
second largest in the Federal Government. The men and women at
ICE every day play a critical role in securing the border and
carrying out smart and effective immigration enforcement
policies.
Since its creation 10 years ago, ICE has made tremendous
strides and realized considerable law enforcement results. For
example, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations has made over
34,000 criminal arrests in fiscal year 2012. This record number
represents an increase of nearly 30 percent over 2009. Many of
these convictions came in areas directly tied to our border and
our Nation's immigration system, namely, document and identity
fraud, customs violation, human smuggling, and trafficking.
ICE HSI has also developed the Illicit Pathways Attack
Strategy (IPAS). This initiative supports the Strategy to
Combat Transnational Organized Crime by focusing on
international organizations engaged in narcotics, weapons,
human smuggling and trafficking, cyber crime, and illicit
finance.
ICE has also set records in our civil immigration
enforcement. We have done this by setting and carrying out
smart, clear priorities. For instance, this year ICE's
enforcement and removal operations removed a record number of
individuals from the country. Fifty-five percent of those
individuals, more than 225,000, had been convicted of felonies
or misdemeanors. Yet another record of 96 percent fell into our
full priority categories. These successes could not be achieved
without the implementation of smart and effective and efficient
policies issued by Secretary Napolitano and Director Morton.
We were also proud of our key partnerships across the
Federal Government. For example, I note ICE's Office of
Professional Responsibility's (OPR) ongoing and strong
relationship with our colleagues at CBP. For example, in 2010,
ICE and CBP entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
regarding investigations into CBP employee misconduct. This
collaboration was not available before the MOU and has
solidified ICE's commitment to fostering CBP's awareness and
involvement into criminal investigations involving CBP
employees. Our existing relationship has laid the groundwork
for continued success in the critical area of ensuring the
integrity of the workforce at the border. Maintaining this
relationship will be critical following any reforms that
involve increased staffing levels at the border.
In addition, ICE plays an important role in investigating
cases referred from CBP. Since fiscal year 2009, referrals have
increased 4.1 percent at the ports of entry and 25 percent
between the ports of entry. This relationship between our two
agencies has made America safer.
All of these successes are the result of reasonable
immigration policies and priorities. Even at this time of
budget uncertainty, we are using our resources in a smart,
effective, and responsible manner. In order to build on these
gains and further enhance national security, public safety, and
border security, we must update our immigration laws.
The adoption of reforms like those in the current bill will
allow our agents and officers to better focus on those who
threaten public safety, border security, and provide us the
tools we need to crack down on those who cheat the system by
hiring illegal labor.
We at ICE look forward to working with you to modernize our
immigration laws in a manner that strengthens the system. Thank
you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to
answering any questions you have.
Chairman Carper. Mr. Ragsdale, thanks very much.
Ms. Richards, good to see you. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ANNE L. RICHARDS,\1\ ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL
FOR AUDITS, OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Richards. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Coburn, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me
to testify today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Richards appears in the Appendix
on page 328.
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You asked that we focus on the steps we believe the
Department will need to take to ensure that the metrics in the
Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration
Modernization Act are verifiable and enforceable. In preparing
our testimony, we reviewed the results of audits and
inspections of both border security and immigration programs. I
will highlight only a few of those reports in my statement this
morning.
In the last 10 years, DHS has made progress in coming
together as a Department and in accomplishing its fundamental
missions, including securing our borders. However, numerous
challenges remain.
To implement this proposed legislation, DHS will need to
fully assess its current status, methodically identify needs
and requirements, and meticulously plan and execute future
acquisitions and operations. This effort will require both time
and resources, but ultimately the Department should be able to
master this challenge.
Today I will highlight three overarching issues that we
identified in our audits and inspections that the Department
will need to address to achieve the goals and standards set
forth in this act: data reliability, planning, and systems
modernization.
The first issue I would like to discuss is data
reliability. To evaluate its performance and carry out certain
actions in the proposed act, DHS will need complete, accurate,
and up-to-date information. In our reviews, we identified many
programs and systems that did not have complete and accurate
data. We also identified instances in which DHS did not have
data that it needed from other entities.
For example, in a December 2011 report, we determined that
ICE officers making decisions about detentions or release of
criminal aliens did not always maintain accurate and up-to-date
information in the case management system. Late last year, we
reported that in the Systematic Alien Verification for
Entitlements Program (SAVE), immigration status information was
sometimes outdated and erroneous, so some people were
mistakenly identified as having lawful immigration status when
they did not have it. This could mean that some individuals
would be given benefits that they were not entitled to receive.
In our audit of the Free and Secure Trade (FAST), program,
we found that CBP could not ensure that Mexican participants
are low risk because Mexico does not share information to
assist CBP in continuously vetting and monitoring participants'
eligibility. Also, ineligible drivers may have continued to
participate in the program because CBP used incomplete data for
the continuous vetting process.
The second overarching area the Department needs to address
is planning. To fully accomplish the actions laid out in the
act, such as increased surveillance on the southern border, the
Department will need to have an effective planning process to
identify operational requirements. For example, the act
requires 24/7 monitoring of the border by unmanned aerial
systems. The Department will need the operating requirements,
including knowing the necessary quantity of aerial vehicles,
ground support, maintenance, fuel, and where those resources
will be needed. The Department has established directives and
policies for planning, but does not yet have detailed plans
completed for unmanned aerial systems.
Last, the Department will need to address some longstanding
business and information technology (IT) systems challenges and
continue to pursue additional technologies to address border
security issues. Although DHS is taking steps to upgrade and
integrate its business and IT systems, including those related
to immigration, it has not yet succeeded in fully transforming
them.
For example, in a report issued in late 2011, we noted that
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)'
transformation has been delayed and that it continues to rely
on a paper-based process to support its mission.
In addition, DHS needs to seek out and adopt new
technologies that will take into account the needs of various
components and enhance its ability to secure our borders. Last
year, in reviewing CBP's Strategy to Address Illicit Cross-
Border Tunnels, we concluded that it had not been able to
identify any existing effective tunnel detection technology.
CBP is actively working to identify new solutions for tunnel
detection.
We have identified a number of challenges that DHS must
overcome to secure our borders and establish effective
immigration policies and processes. Some of these challenges
are a result of differing legacy systems and programs that need
to be integrated and coordinated among the components and with
stakeholders outside of the Department. Other challenges are
related to inadequate strategic planning, performance measures,
and data and information that cannot be relied on to make sound
decisions.
Based on the Department's and the components' responses to
our numerous reports, it is clear that they are diligently
working to address these issues. However, it takes time to
correct the underlying conditions. Competing and changing
priorities and funding uncertainties also affect the
Department's ability to address these issues. For these
reasons, overcoming these challenges will take considerable
effort. But we believe that the Department will continue to
improve and achieve its goals. The Office of Inspector General
will continue to work with DHS and Congress on these issues.
Our goal remains the same: to develop solutions that strike a
balance between protecting the integrity of mission
accomplishment and fostering innovation that increases the
Department's transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. I welcome
any questions that you or the Members may have.
Chairman Carper. Ms. Richards, that was very helpful
testimony. Thank you. Thank you all.
I want to just go back. I think Dr. Coburn mentioned the
words ``underlying illness,'' not just the need for us to
address symptoms of problems, folks that are undocumented
coming across our borders, but coming here documented and
staying beyond their legal limits. We need to focus while we
work on the symptoms, which are more visible and which we talk
about a whole lot, but think about the underlying causes. And
we are part of the problem.
I do not remember what it was that the Project on
Government Oversight (POGO) used to say, but POGO used to say
something like, ``We have seen the problem, and it is us.'' And
in no small way, we are the problem. We have a huge trade in
illegal drugs in this country, and they have to come from some
place, and we cannot shut them down internally. We try to, but
part of the number of those come across our borders from the
south, some from the north, some comes across with people
getting across a river, some across deserts, others on
airplanes, on ships, on boats, you name it. The drugs come
north, the guns go south. And that is a big part of the
problem. We have a couple of former Attorney Generals (AGs)
here, and they know of what I speak.
The second thing is we have employers in this country who
are knowingly hiring illegal aliens, and in some cases they try
to hire Americans to do a certain kind of work. Americans do
not want to do it. And one of the things we need to do is to do
a better job, an ever better job of making sure that those that
are knowingly hiring illegal aliens are stopped. And to the
extent that we can punish them severely, identify them and
punish them severely, we need to do that. We need to send a
message.
The other thing that we need to do is do a better job
working with intelligence, not just from the north but
certainly from the south, and countries, too, Mexico and in
Central America to better be able to deploy our forces along
the border. So those are some of the--almost like symptoms that
I will say--those are really some of the underlying causes.
Some of the underlying causes. People I met with in the
detention center in McAllen last week, most of them are the age
of my boys, early 20s, late teens. They are just looking for a
better way of life. We squeeze the balloon in northern Mexico
for the drug cartels, and when we squeeze a balloon, it pops
out someplace else, and it is popping out in places like El
Salvador, places like Honduras, and places like Guatemala, and
a lot of the people that are streaming north are coming because
of the mayhem, the murder and mayhem in their countries now,
and we are part of that problem. So I just think it is
important to have that as a predicate for what we need to do.
My story earlier about the basketball coach who said the
best players are the ones that make everybody else better? Now
I want to ask you to tell us how we can make you better. All
right. A couple of examples. I am an old Navy OP-3 mission
commander, spent about 23 years active and reserve in the
airplane. Our job was to hunt for Red October in all the oceans
in the world, throughout the cold war, and we still do that,
not in just OP-3s today but in OP-8s, a new airplane. And I am
going to talk about the C206s that we are sending out, or other
aircraft or helicopters we are sending out, without any
surveillance equipment. It just defies belief. The aircraft
that I flew in all those years, we would go out, if we were
tracking a diesel submarine, we would have the ability to, one,
detect them when they came up with our radar, detect their
scopes or detect them on the surface. We had the ability to
detect their emissions if they were running their diesels. We
had the ability to hear them. We had the ability to listen for
their acoustic signature, to look at it visually. If they
turned up their radars, came up to make sure that it was clear,
then we could pick that up as well. We had any number of ways
that we could find and track the Russian subs.
When we send out a C206 and we have a pilot and we do not
have an observer on board and we do not have anything that is
looking down, any kind of this sophisticated equipment, that is
crazy. And to say that we have more than a dozen of them that
are down on the southern border of Texas with no surveillance
equipment, I do not get it. And we have the same problem with
our helicopters. We have these drones, we have four of them
that we heard about when I was down with Senator McCain in
Arizona, and we were told that of the four drones we have, we
do not resource them. They can fly, two of them--during the
course of a week, they fly 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, and
if the winds are over 15 knots, we do not fly them at all. That
just does not make any sense.
Senator McCain. And the bad guys are aware of the schedule.
Chairman Carper. And they have spotters on the top of
mountains, hills, in America. I mean, if they were on a
mountain in Afghanistan or if they were on a mountain in Iraq
or something like that, we would take them out. And for some
reason, we cannot take them out in our own country. It just
defies belief.
We are going to have a lot of money, thanks in no small
part to this guy right here, to try to make sure that we have
the resources, you have the resources to do some of the things
that I have just been saying. All right. You are going to get
this money. What are you going to do with it? Mr. Heyman. Along
the lines of some of what I just said, what are you going to do
with it?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Senator. I think you have identified
a number of issues that are reason for the need for
legislation. And if you look at the work that we have been
doing particularly over the last 4 years, what you see in the
trend lines is that we are moving in the right direction.
One of the things the bill does is it builds on the
continuing deployment of proven and effective technologies that
help address the drug trafficking and the illegal immigration
issues. With the resources and the provisions in the bill, we
will be able to do more of that, and the border will be more
secure.
You mentioned the challenges in the workforce. That is
absolutely true. The workforce issues present, in fact, a
magnet for illegal immigrants to come here, and we need to
develop a system where employees check to see if somebody is
lawfully present. We have that. It is called E-Verify. It is a
priority of the Administration to make workforce validation
universal, and that is in the legislation. That will be helpful
as well.
And so I think if you look at the very specific issues that
you have addressed, you will find provisions within the bill
that help us get to that direction.
On the specific issues of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(UAS) and the----
Chairman Carper. C206.
Mr. Heyman. Let me turn to my chief over here.
Chairman Carper. Chief Fisher, go ahead. Take about 1
minute, and then I am going to yield to Dr. Coburn.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Specifically with the 206--
and I know I am speaking for General Alles as we work hand in
glove in terms of what our requirements are on the ground, and
the Assistant Commissioner for the Air and Marine Operations
is, in fact, taking a look at current capability that we have
from the air platforms and shifting those into other platforms
where, one, they would work and, two, we could operate those at
a lower cost. They are currently looking, both in terms of
safety and in terms of flight readiness, to be able to do that
testing and to get those deployed immediately.
Chairman Carper. All right. Dr. Coburn, thanks.
Senator Coburn. Ms. Richards, how would you characterize
DHS's track record in planning and executing major
sophisticated border security programs?
Ms. Richards. The Department has concentrated a lot of time
and effort recently on taking some significant steps to improve
their acquisition and program management processes. I would
have to say that, based on our work and the Government
Accountability Office (GAOs) work, their track record has been
admittedly lackluster to date. Again, however, I would say that
they have put a lot of time and effort into putting the
skeleton in place so that they can make major improvements on
this process. We have not yet had an opportunity to audit an
acquisition that has been through the entire process.
I would also like to say that part of the problem is the
perception that the process is not as important as the end
result. We have had program managers tell us things like life-
cycle cost estimates just gather dust once we have completed
them because the information is not used as the program is
ongoing for things like budgeting or obtaining money to
continue to run the program.
So because those intricate, difficult-to-complete planning
documents are not viewed as valuable over the life of the
program, they might be getting less attention than they should.
Senator Coburn. Well, that is a question of leadership. In
terms of your findings on current border operations, what
challenges do you anticipate that DHS will have in terms of the
new responsibilities and the execution of new strategies with
this current proposed bill?
Ms. Richards. The additional requirements do put additional
responsibilities on an already stressed organization. As I said
in my testimony, they have the capabilities, but they need to
take the steps carefully and in order. They need to make the
plans of what they are going to use the equipment they are
purchasing for and then purchase the right equipment and make
sure that they have it properly outfitted and that they have
the support in place for it.
Senator Coburn. So going back to what Senator Carper said,
we have these 202s, I think you----
Chairman Carper. 206s.
Senator Coburn. 206s. One of them has mounted technology.
Why is there one with mounted technology and the others with
none? And why is it, in terms of the answer we just heard, we
are looking at that when, in fact, what we already know is the
answer? Is it a monetary problem? Is it an execution problem?
Is it a management problem? And if they cannot do that, how are
they going to handle the new requirements coming to them in a
new immigration bill?
Ms. Richards. Sir, we have not looked at that program
specifically. In some of the other programs that we have looked
at, there does sometimes seem to be--quick to follow the letter
of what they have been asked to do, get some drones, so we get
some drones, without really thinking about what it is going to
take to be able to operate those drones in the current
environments. And it is a planning issue as well as a
management issue, sir.
Senator Coburn. OK. According to your office, DHS has
failed to close out 47 separate recommendations of recent
reports by the IG related to border security work. That comes
from a table listing all your recent audits and open
recommendations. Can you run through the closeout numbers for
the Committee? How many recommendations have they closed? How
many have they not closed on border security?
Ms. Richards. Sure. Thank you. That table had a total of 16
reports with 47 open recommendations. There was a total of 51
reports that we identified that had recommendations for border
security and immigration processes. There was a total of 259
recommendations in total, so you can see that a great number of
the recommendations have been not only agreed to but
successfully implemented. I do not have the percentage myself.
Senator Coburn. Of these 47, what are the major ones that
you would put as a priority for this Committee, so we know that
you think these should be done first, second, third? And you
can answer that later if you would rather, if that is too
difficult for right now.
Ms. Richards. Sure. I cannot go through all of the 47. I
would say that we are particularly concerned about the
recommendation on the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We also
have concerns about the recommendations on the FAST Program,
the one to develop a process to assess the effect of the FAST
Program on the security issues at the ports of entry.
We have other recommendations that were not strictly on
border security, but that were on a wider view, such as our
recommendations on interoperable communications that we also
think are very important for the Department to act on as part
of this process.
Senator Coburn. So if you were to create a to-do list for
the agency, what would be No. 1, what would be No. 2, what
would be No. 3?
Ms. Richards. In the terms of this proposed legislation,
completing the planning process for the UAVs would be No. 1
from our recommendations that stand already. Looking at the
legislation in its entirety, there is a lot of money to be
spent or planned to be spent to increase technology at the
border, and I would like to see them do a good job of planning
all of that before they spend the money.
Senator Coburn. OK. Director Heyman, what do you think
about that in terms of especially the comments on UAVs? This
country has a lot of technology that we have invested through
our experiences overseas in terms of UAVs. Why is it difficult
to get to the point where we actually have good technology
associated with them? Why is it hard to get to where we need to
go? Is it financial? What is it?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Senator. There are a couple things I
would comment on. One is that Border Patrol has put together
for each of the sectors a technology plan, and within that
technology plan, they have to consider not only what their
strategic objectives are and how they accomplish them in the
unique environments of each of the different sectors; they have
to figure out what technologies match it, the procurement, the
deployment schedules, and all of those things. And I would
commend Mr. McAleenan's discussion on that because this is
exactly what the IG is interested in. They want to make sure
that we are planning, that it is unique to the sector, that we
have oversight on that. And in the last year, I think there has
been significant progress on that front.
In terms of the UAVs in particular, we have actually stood
up a UAV working group within the Department. It includes not
just the operators but also the policy folks, the privacy
folks, the civil rights and civil liberties. We are making sure
that the integration of the technology meets our interests both
from a policy and a privacy perspective.
Senator Coburn. All right. My time has expired, Senator
Carper.
Chairman Carper. Senator Johnson please proceed. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Heyman, you mentioned our exit policy. Before I
get into other border security issues, I would like to just
talk a little bit about the Boston city bomber. As best I can
understand, we have a system that should be tracking that and
should be pinging, and we have the Treasury Enforcement
Communication (TEC) system, where suspect No. 1, I guess, was
pinged and that information came in to an individual in the
Department of Homeland Security. Can you just describe that
process to me?
Mr. Heyman. Sure. What you have is an IT system that in
advance of a person's departure or arrival to or from the
United States, usually somewhere around 72 hours in advance of
that, sends a message called the Hot List, if there is an
individual to take a look at or take a second look at. This is
all done by CBP and the customs officials. In that case, if
there is an active case or something that deserves an
additional look from the Federal Bureau of Investigations
(FBI), for example, it is sent to the specific Joint Terrorism
Task Force that is overseeing that, and that is what happened.
Senator Johnson. OK. Now, in this specific case, Tamerlan
Tsarnaev was actually pinged, and somebody in the Department of
Homeland Security did receive that information, correct? An
individual?
Mr. Heyman. Correct.
Senator Johnson. Did that information get disseminated
anywhere, or did that just dead-end right there?
Mr. Heyman. I do not have the specifics on that, but that
individual serves in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force so the
process is basically that they all share that information. When
you are serving on it, you are sitting next to each other, and
you are all working together.
Senator Johnson. So has the Department really evaluated
what happened there? Do you have an answer on that? I mean, can
you provide that to our office?
Mr. Heyman. There is a briefing for you and your staff on
Friday, a classified briefing. They will go into all those
details, yes.
Senator Johnson. OK. Thank you.
Let me just talk in general, the history of border
security. I think we have really made a pretty long attempt
here, since the mid-70s, mid-80s, to try and secure the border,
apparently with some progress. But we continue to say, well, we
need more resources. I think in one of our first hearings with
Secretary Napolitano, I asked her, ``Well, how much would it
cost to secure the border?'' And her response was, ``We have
enough resources.''
I think this bill is going to be spending another $4.5
billion. What do we spend per year on border security right
now, approximately? Does anybody know?
Mr. McAleenan. I think if you combine the CBP and ICE
budgets--that is a number I have seen before--it is upwards of
$15 billion.
Senator Johnson. OK. Do you think another $4.5 billion is
going to make any further impact on that? I mean, are we just
going to continue to throw resources at the problem?
Mr. McAleenan. I do not think so. I think the framework
laid out in the immigration reform bill targets some of the key
areas, some additional capabilities with technology for
surveillance between ports of entry and the southwest border,
additional officers at ports of entry, which is an area where
we have seen tremendous growth in trade and travel in all
environments that we need to keep up with to make sure we can
secure and facilitate it appropriately; and addressing legal
immigration pathways as well as employers in the interior. I
think those are investments that will advance border security
and move us forward.
Senator Johnson. I know the bill lays out a process where
the Department, I guess, lays out another plan for securing the
border. Do we not have that plan? Do we have to do this again?
I mean, how many times have we developed a plan for trying to
secure our border?
Mr. McAleenan. I do think we have a good foundation for
that plan, as Secretary Napolitano has stated. I think in the
context of the bill, providing a specific road map that can be
measured against and evaluated seems like an important aspect.
Senator Johnson. Are we just doing more of the same, Ms.
Richards? I mean, you talked about planning. We hear this all
the time. I have been here now a little more than 2 years, and
I hear the same bureaucratic answers over and over again:
``Well, we have to plan, we have to execute, and, of course, we
always need more resources.'' But it does not seem like we have
made all that much--we certainly have not secured the border.
Maybe we are making progress. But we always hear we are making
progress. Are we really?
Ms. Richards. Well, I would like to differentiate between
the plan to secure the border that you are talking about and
the planning that I was talking about in my testimony, which is
much more detailed, having to do with the equipment and the
personnel and getting to the nitty-gritty, where the rubber
meets the road resources to the right spot on the border when
they need it. The planning that I am talking about is if you
are going to buy a certain kind of aircraft, what does it need
to be on the aircraft and how many do we need and how many
pilots do we need and how many mechanics do we need? That is
the kind of detailed planning that I would like to see the
Department do before they spend the money that is identified in
this legislation to implement the broader plan of securing the
border through greater surveillance and technology.
Senator Johnson. So the Department spends approximately $50
billion per year. We are not doing that planning now with the
$50 billion we are already spending?
Ms. Richards. I, of course, can only speak to the programs
that we have audited, and in those programs we find that they
are not doing a good job of doing those detailed plans before
they spend the money.
Senator Johnson. I have sat through hearings now for a
couple years, and we continue to hear about spotters on
mountains. Why don't we take those people out? Why do we
continue to have spotters for the drug lords in America sitting
on top of mountains providing that information? What prevents
us from taking them out?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, I will take that question. First of
all, the environments in which we operate within our mission
space is a law enforcement environment, very much different in
terms of rules of engagement and what we can or cannot do in
the comparative that the Chairman talked about in places like
Afghanistan and Iraq. The rules of engagement, what we call our
use of force, applies to individuals on the street or whether
they are up on mountaintops. So it makes it a little bit more
difficult in terms of what we actually do once we have
identified them to actually get to them. We have plans in
place. We, in fact, have removed many of those spotters. We are
continuing to degrade the capability of those organizations
that utilize spotters up on those mountains. But it continues
to be a significant threat and a continued persistent on our
part to be able to mitigate that.
Senator Johnson. Just a quick estimate, how many spotters
are there? How many have you taken out?
Mr. Fisher. I do not have that number off the top of my
head.
Senator Johnson. How many have you taken out? I mean, you
say you have taken some out.
Mr. Fisher. A dozen, sir.
Senator Johnson. OK. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Thank you.
Next to question, in order of arrival, is Senator Landrieu,
who may be back; Senator Baldwin will be next, followed by
Senator Heitkamp, Senator McCain, and Senator Paul. Senator
Baldwin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
start by thanking the men and women who serve in our Department
of Homeland Security, some risking their lives at times on very
dangerous terrain to keep our borders secure.
I am encouraged to see the bipartisan product of S. 744.
There are some encouraging provisions of the bill. It addresses
border security, family reunification, employment verification,
high-skilled workers, farm and guest workers, and pathways to
legal citizenship for undocumented individuals. If done right,
immigration reform will create jobs, strengthen businesses,
bolster security at our borders, and keep more Wisconsin
families together. Our responsibility is now to ensure that we
keep America both safe and as promising as it ever has been.
My question is about the trigger mechanism in this bill,
and I would like to hear from any of you who wish to comment.
As I understand it, the first sections of S. 744 require a plan
to establish ``effective control'' of the border, and until it
is operationalized, other major parts of this bill will never
come into effect.
To be deemed as having ``effective control,'' the
Department of Homeland Security must have to establish
persistent surveillance and pull together a plan with an
effectiveness rate of 90 percent or higher and 100 percent
monitoring.
Can you please flesh out for me as much as you are able how
likely it is that we will be able to operationalize this plan
given the resources allocated and the massive scope of this
job? And are the timelines contemplated in the bill long enough
to formalize a plan of this magnitude?
Mr. McAleenan. I will start and then ask my colleague Chief
Fisher to engage as well.
We think the bill is a significant advance to border
security across the board with the investments proposed, and we
do believe that we can operationally execute the bill with the
standards incorporated in it.
I think Chief Fisher can elaborate on persistent
surveillance and the 90 percent effectiveness, but we do intend
to accomplish those goals.
Mr. Fisher. Thank you, Senator. First, let me take your
first part on the persistent surveillance, and I will kind of
walk through, and if I miss any, please let me know.
On the persistent surveillance, it is very similar to how
we operationalize today. So I think of it in two terms. One is
in areas where we need eyes on all the time, and so there are
sections along the border where our field commanders and agents
have assessed that there is always going to be a vulnerability,
think in terms of urban areas or even in the fringes, where we
know that if a person is not there or if a camera is not there,
people are going to exploit those areas. So we have identified
those areas over time that we do, in fact, need in a true sense
persistent surveillance in either technology or Border Patrol
deployments.
In other areas, a vast majority of those other areas where
we know based on intelligence, where we know based on agents
patrolling those areas, that the activity is so low, persistent
surveillance for us takes a form of situational awareness, and
the way that we measure that right now and capture that is a
whole host of things. I will just give you a couple of
examples.
One would be Border Patrol agents doing periodic tracking
on the ground on those areas, Border Patrol agents that are
very adept and experts over time at trying to identify who is
coming into the country. We have tens of thousands of untended
ground sensors that tell us basically what activity is
happening in that area, and we aggregate that information and
do analysis over time to see if, in fact, the shifts in traffic
are moving in the different areas. And there are other things
both in terms of the unattended--not the unattended ground
sensors, but the unmanned aerial systems, utilizing synthetic
aperture radar to do what we call ``change detection,'' in
other areas where we have just recently, as of the beginning of
March, started utilizing--and, again, we are really in our
infancy of understanding this from others within the
Government--geospatial intelligence. So we are looking at to be
able to cover in a persistent surveillance either areas where
we have high degree in eyes-on deployments of personnel and
technology, which will always need to be there 24/7, and what
other areas where we do and utilize technology in the air to be
able to identify those areas.
The second piece, as it relates to the effectiveness rate,
the way that we calculate effectiveness is quite simply the
following: it is the number of apprehensions plus the number of
turnbacks. So these are individuals, the turnbacks are
individuals that have made an entry and have turned around and
gone back to the country from where they came. You take the
apprehensions plus the turnbacks, and you divide that by the
overarching entries, the total amount of entries that actually
come in. That is our effectiveness rate.
So three things generally happen when somebody enters in
between the ports of entry, and two are good. We apprehend them
or they turn around and go back. The third one, which is not so
good, which we always try to minimize, is the amount of got-
aways, people that have made the entry, we have detected them
either through technology or through agent observation, and we
try to continue to work that traffic, and in some cases they
either load out or get away from us, and they are not either
apprehended or turned back. That counts as a got-away. And so
our ability is to make sure that effectiveness is higher in all
areas, and we believe that at or above 90 percent is an area
within those corridors that we should set the goal at 90
percent.
The last point on the timeliness, is the timeliness in
terms of the implementation sufficient? And I believe it is.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thanks, Senator Baldwin.
Senator Heitkamp is next when she returns. Senator McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I especially want
to thank you and the Ranking Member for taking the time out of
your schedule to come to the border. I invite my colleagues on
the Committee to take the time to visit the Arizona border or
the Texas border, whatever border of our southern border they
choose to. I think it is the best way to make anyone aware of
the immensity of the problem and the difficulty and the
challenges that, frankly, our brave men and women who are
serving on the border go through. And I want to thank both of
you, and I invite my colleagues as well.
Mr. Fisher, apprehensions are up this year for the first
time in a long time. I think you testified before 13 percent?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, Senator, that is correct.
Senator McCain. Which means that the economy has something
to do with people's desire to come across the border. Is that a
valid assumption?
Mr. Fisher. In part it is, sir, yes.
Senator McCain. And part of it is the word has gotten south
that sequestration has reduced our ability to surveil and there
may be comprehensive immigration reform. Is that true?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir. There are many motives for
individuals still coming across the border.
Senator McCain. But for the first time in years, it is up.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir, approximately 13 percent.
Senator McCain. And we should be very cognizant of that.
I do not mean to be parochial, but I think you would agree,
especially for drug smuggling and other areas, especially the
Tucson Sector is the most trafficked and most difficult and
least secure part of the entire border. Would you agree with
that, Mr. Fisher?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir; South Texas being a close second.
Senator McCain. And in our bill, by the way, for my
colleagues, there is a provision to prosecute--criminal
prosecution for anyone who transmits information--i.e., these
people on the mountaintops--to facilitate the drug traffickers.
I want to talk to you for a minute about technology, Mr.
Fisher. When you are down on the border and it is 120 degrees
and you are sitting in a vehicle next to a fence, your
efficiency drops rather significantly in a relatively short
period of time, which is why so many of us emphasized the need
for technology and sensors, and, of course, the Stuxnet, I
guess it was called--no, the Boeing fiasco is such a disgrace,
the loss of $787 million in an effort to provide sensors across
the border. And I hope we learned lessons from that, I say.
And there is a new radar called the vehicle dismount and
exploitation radar (VADER) that was developed in Iraq to detect
people who plant the improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It
even tracks people back. How are you doing on that radar?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, we are still learning every day. As
you well know--and you probably had the briefing down there, so
I do not want to be redundant--the VADER system was relatively
new to our fleet in terms of technology and giving us the
capability that we have not seen before along the border, at
least in my 26 years. And we are still learning the best way to
implement that system.
Senator McCain. Well, we have recommended--and I think it
is language in the bill--that you consult with the army people
who went through the whole evolution of this radar and how to
use it most effectively. And that is not to kill people, but
surveillance and detection--it is a marvelous advance in
technology, which brings me to the UAVs. We have problems with
the UAVs not only as far as numbers are concerned, but also
interference with airspace that is being used by the military.
How are we doing on that? Maybe I should ask Mr. McAleenan.
Mr. McAleenan. I will check on the interface with the
Department of Defense (DOD). I mean, we----
Senator McCain. But you know it is a problem. The airspace
being used by both the Border Patrol and the military has
caused significant difficulties in getting clearance for the
UAVs. Is that not true?
Mr. McAleenan. Well, deploying new unmanned technology
domestically has had some challenges. We work closely with the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and DOD to----
Senator McCain. But this is about specifically the ranges
that are being used by the military aircraft, which complicates
it a lot more. I hope you will report to us on that.
Ms. Richards, you say other challenges related to
inadequate strategic planning, a dearth of performance
measures. Would you give us, the Committee, perhaps in writing,
what ideas and thoughts that you have about how we can improve
the performance measures on the border? There is a lot of
concern about that.
Ms. Richards. I would be happy to, sir.
Senator McCain. Thank you.
On the issue also, Mr. McAleenan, there is a problem with
the Native Americans because of tribal sovereignty. Would you
agree, Mr. Fisher, on that issue, especially the Indian
reservation on the border?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, it does, like many communities, take
an ongoing dialogue to be able to make sure that when we are
operating in those environments, along with those communities,
that there is an ongoing collaboration, integration, and
certainly communication, and we continue to----
Senator McCain. But up until now it has been a real
problem.
Mr. Fisher. It has been challenging in terms of being able
to deploy technology, that is for certain, yes, sir.
Senator McCain. Mr. Heyman, $4.5 billion is a lot of money,
and there is also a provision in the bill that if after 5 years
we do not have this effective control, another $2 billion will
be spent. How confident are you that after the expenditure of
the funds that are authorized and appropriated in this
legislation, we will be able to take the measures necessary to
assure the American people that never again will there be a
third wave--never will there be a third wave?
Mr. Heyman. Senator, I think that the legislation provides
a number of different tools and devices as well as the
appropriations. The reason it is called ``comprehensive'' is
because it addresses a number of areas having to do with
immigration reform. As a consequence of that, I think because
of the worksite enforcement, because of the technology
deployment, because of the streamlining of immigration laws, if
you put all of that together, our ability to have better
control of the borders I think will also improve. And so we are
confident that it is the right formula.
Senator McCain. Well, in conclusion, Mr. Heyman, Senator
Johnson pointed out that there are some obvious areas,
particularly on student visas and humanitarian visas, that need
to be looked at. I think it would be appropriate, I would say
to Senator Johnson, for this to be part of the amending process
if--it is either existing laws are not being enforced correctly
or we need new legislation and regulations to prevent the kind
of occurrence where people can leave the country and only one
agency detects it and then he comes back and nobody is alerted.
Hearings are going to be held on this, but I believe it would
be appropriate, Mr. Chairman, as we go through the
comprehensive immigration bill, that we look at the errors that
were made in the Boston situation and, most importantly, the
areas that may require--and I emphasize ``may''--additional
legislation to prevent that reoccurrence.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. Sure, and I thank you for that suggestion.
Senator Heitkamp has rejoined us, and you are recognized.
And next I think would be Senator Paul.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you all for the work that you do and thank your staffs
for the work that they do under very difficult situations, and
on tough terrain, as Senator Baldwin said.
We will not get comprehensive immigration reform unless the
public has confidence in what you do--unless the public
honestly believes that this will be a sea change; that they
will, in fact, see competent technology deployed, competent
personnel deployed; and that they will see an absolute
commitment to making sure that this happens, that this is not
just something that we do because it is going to make us feel
good that we do it. And we know that typically on borders there
are two types of people who are crossing: those who come to
work, those who come to pursue a better life, maybe join
relatives; and then there is the criminal element. And we
cannot downplay the criminal element because we see it
certainly on the southern border, but we also have a great deal
of concern on the northern border.
And so I want to, just for a minute, in the small amount of
time that I have, focus a little bit on the northern border.
Because one of my concerns in looking at this, even though I am
anxious to see your plans and anxious to make sure that this
works, I am concerned about redeploying assets that we
currently have on the northern border to the southern border,
and what that means in terms of the impacts on protection in
the northern border. And we know that at least one, maybe two
of the September 11, 2001 bombers did not come in through the
southern border. They came in through the northern border.
And so explain to me, I think, Chief Fisher, you are the
person that I understand the best because I am a former AG in
North Dakota and worked very closely with Border Patrol. I
always had a great relationship with them and felt like the
collaboration that we had really kept people in my State much
safer.
Explain to me what the plans are in terms of maintaining
security on the northern border and deployment of resources so
that we do not lose focus of what is happening to the north.
Mr. Fisher. Thank you for the question, Senator, and first
and foremost, to your earlier point, I am committed to border
security and protecting this country, so whatever the bill ends
up being and passed, we will implement that and we will make
sure that our commitment to protect this country is not
changed, regardless of what happens. So I wanted to make sure
that I made that point, and I am speaking on behalf of the
21,000 men and women who do that each and every day. And thank
you for that compliment, by the way.
To your second point--and it is really interesting, and I
am glad you brought up the northern border, because so many
people think that the border is only the southern border. And
earlier, before my first deployment to the northern border,
which was in Detroit many years ago, it was different
challenges, as you well know.
It is a constant evaluation, whether you are looking at the
southern border or the northern border. Threats are always
dynamic. They are going to constantly change, and our ability
not just every year to come up with a new plan or an
implementation, we are constantly assessing all threats each
and every day, and we are lifting and shifting resources along
the northern border and the southern border against those
threats. The whole idea of our strategy is to put our greatest
capability against those greatest risks.
Specifically on the northern border, over the last few
years--and you will recall, prior to 2000, we had approximately
300 Border Patrol agents to cover about 4,000 miles of border.
That is a very daunting task if you are the only Border Patrol
agent in many locations and you have to patrol hundreds of
miles. And we leverage that by continuing to work with State
and locals. We do the integrated border enforcement teams with
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and State and locals.
We use that as a force multiplier and in a lot of locations, we
do not need thousands of Border Patrol agents. We leverage the
information. We do integrated planning and execution, and then
we increase our ability to do two things: flexibility, which is
the key in any implementation on this bill; and the second
piece is for us to be able to rapidly respond to those emerging
threats in advance, and our ability to do that on the northern
border is in some cases more critical than it is on the
southern border.
Senator Heitkamp. Mr. Fisher not to ignore the rest of you,
but I think I am most familiar with the work that you do, and
obviously, in North Dakota, we consistently have intel meetings
where we share--the Royal Canadian Mounted Police come down,
and we spend a lot of time talking about what do you know, what
is coming across, where do you think the gaps are. And I think
you raised a very important part, a very important issue, which
is: How do we collaborate? How do we expand our opportunities
by including local, State, and maybe other governments' police
forces, other governments' efforts in a collaboration so that
we can leverage all of these resources?
And so I hope as you move forward with these plans that we
do not just look at it from the standpoint of high-tech
technology, because we know that there are two ways we can do
intel: One is from the sky and the other is just listening on
the ground and what is moving.
And so I am very interested in finding out what the plans
are related to collaboration with local and State officials and
law enforcement.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, Senator, and I was recently in Grand Forks
and got a briefing, went out with the agents. I am not the
expert there, but I would love to work and give you and your
staff a briefing, a little bit more detailed briefing about our
deployment strategies and methodologies specifically in that
area.
Senator Heitkamp. Yes, and my point in all of this, as we
look at immigration reform, I think it is always the look is to
the south.
Mr. Fisher. Understood.
Senator Heitkamp. And I want to make sure that, in that
very important work looking to the south, we do not forget to
pay attention to what is happening at the northern border.
Mr. McAleenan. And if I might add very briefly, Senator, on
the northern border the CBP officers that are specified in this
bill as well as in the Administration's fiscal year 2014
budget, a number of those would go to ports of entry on the
northern border. They are deployed based on our workload
staffing model where the greatest need is, both in terms of
traffic and threat.
Mr. Heyman. And I might also add, the opportunity here to
talk about our partnership with Canada, you mentioned State and
local, but we have an extraordinary partnership with Canada
that the President put forward in his Beyond the Border
Initiative that has allowed for a sea change in how we work
with them. There is a 34-point plan that we are working
through--increased infrastructure investments, joint
operations, shared information that is allowing us to be a
force multiplier, in effect, for what Canada is doing.
Senator Heitkamp. And just very quickly, I am familiar with
Beyond the Border. I am familiar with the attempt to not logjam
commerce in the interest of law enforcement, and all that needs
to be balanced. But, again, we are very concerned in North
Dakota and all across the northern border that we not lose some
focus that we have had on the northern border.
Mr. Ragsdale. And if I could just add also, the Border
Enforcement Security Task Forces, our operational platform that
we work with our State and local partners, is a critical piece
of the strategic, not only on the southern border but also on
the northern border.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you so much.
Chairman Carper. We appreciate your getting our focus back
up to the northern border, Senator Heitkamp.
If you look at the membership of this Committee, it
includes a number of Senators whose States do border Canada. It
includes Senator Levin from Michigan, Senator Tester from
Montana, Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin, Senator Johnson from
Wisconsin, of course, Senator Heitkamp, and also Kelly Ayotte
from New Hampshire. There is no shortage of people who are
going to be interested in making sure we do not forget about
that northern border.
Senator Paul, good to see you. Please proceed.
Senator Paul. Mr. Chairman, thank you for bringing this
distinguished panel here. I for one am for immigration reform.
I think we should embrace immigrants as assets, people who want
to come and find the American Dream. If you want to work and
you come to our country, I think we can find a place for you.
That being said, I am worried that the bill before us will
not pass. It may pass the Senate, it may not pass the House. I
want to be constructive in making the bill strong enough that
conservatives, myself included, conservative Republicans in the
House will vote for this, because I think immigration reform is
something we should do.
In this bill, I am worried, though--and this is similar to
what Senator Johnson said--that it says, well, you have to have
a plan to build a fence, but you do not have to build a fence.
And if you do not have a plan to build a fence, then you get a
commission. I do not know what happens if the commission does
not do anything. That is the story of Washington around here.
To me, it is a little bit like Obamacare, and I hate to
bring that up, but 1,800 references to the Secretary shall at a
later date decide things, we do not write bills around here. We
should write the bill. We should write the plan. We should do
these things to secure the border. Whether it be fence, entry-
exit, we should write it, not delegate it, because what is
going to happen in 5 years, if they do not do their job--it may
not even be them. It may be somebody else who does not do their
job in 5 years, and the border is not secure, we will be blamed
for the next 10 million people who come here illegally.
The work visa program has to work. We have to make it work.
That is where the illegal immigration is coming from because
people are not getting their work visas.
With national security, I sent a letter earlier this week,
and I do not know if you have had a chance to look at it,
Senator Carper, but in that letter, I asked that we mark this
up. National security is a big part of immigration, and it is a
separate part, and we should go through detail after detail,
but then vote on amendments in our Committee to add to the
immigration bill.
And some say, ``Oh, you are doing this just to kill the
bill or slow it down.'' No. I want the bill to be better so we
can pass it. I think the stronger this bill is, the better
chance we have of passing it. My goal is to pass the bill.
I am concerned about two things in particular: refugees and
student visas. Student visas, as was mentioned, had to do with
some of the September 11, 2001 hijackers. Right after September
11, 2001, we passed a program called National Security Entry-
Exit Registration (NSEERS) program, and we had it for about 10
years. It has been defunded now and no longer exists. We looked
at 25 countries more carefully, and we were absolute about it,
and thousands of people were sent home who were not in school,
who were not doing the right thing, who were not obeying the
rules we had set up.
I am disturbed really that the FBI investigated this young
man, this Tsarnaev boy, and then they did not know he was
leaving the country. He was on a Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) list. We said all the billions and trillions we spent on
homeland security was so the FBI would talk to the CIA. And I
am concerned that--I do not know if they were talking, but for
some reason, it does not appear as if we knew he was leaving
the country. Once he left to Chechnya, he needed another
interview. And I do not fault them for interviewing him and
maybe not catching him the first time, but how many people did
Russia refer to us? Was it 50,000 people that they wanted us to
look at or was it 10? If it was 10, we should have spent a lot
of time with those 10, and we should have been monitoring them
just because Russia thought they were a problem on them
leaving. I would do it with a judge's warrant because I believe
in due process, but I still would do it.
So I would have hearings, and my purpose of this is to
specifically ask Senator Carper and Senator Coburn to consider
having hearings where we actually physically take control of a
part of the bill and do national security hearings, have
amendments, not to defeat the bill but to make it stronger, to
look at how many refugees we can process. And if we are
bringing in 200,000 refugees, maybe we need to bring in 100,000
or 50,000. Maybe the number has to be smaller so we can manage
it.
In my town of Bowling Green, two refugees came in, and
their fingerprints were on an IED. They immediately started
buying Stinger missiles. Fortunately, it was from the FBI and
we caught them, but they got into the country even though their
fingerprints were on a bomb.
I think too many people are coming in too quickly without
enough review and that we need to target the review to the
countries that seem to have hotbeds of people who hate us.
But I would like to see an orderly fashion where we do not
just say, oh, come up with a plan, if you do not have a plan,
we get a commission. That is where I see it now. If it is not
any stronger than this, I do not see it getting through the
House.
So I would only beseech the Chairman to consider whether or
not we could actually have here--and I would welcome a comment
if you would like to make a comment with that regard.
Chairman Carper. Thanks very much for your question and
really for, I think, the good intent that you bring to these
issues.
First of all, on the issue of sequential referral, I have
asked our staffs about this. Senator Coburn said earlier today
that he would like to see a sequential referral of the bill to
our Committee. And my staff advises me today that, in order for
us to do that, we have to ask unanimous consent--the
parliamentarian has made the decision that the bill be referred
to another Committee. We have to ask for unanimous consent in
order for it to be referred to us sequentially. We are going to
explore that. We will explore that with the Democratic and
Republican leadership.
As you know, yesterday we tried to get unanimous consent
just to go to conference and to take the House-passed budget
resolution and the Senate-passed budget resolution, go to
conference and try to figure out a compromise to get our
deficit headed in the right direction. We could not get that
done. One person was able to object and to kill that. So we
need to find out for sure what the situation is there.
On the second issue, there are--let me just say with
respect to the tragedy that occurred in Boston, as much as we
mourn the death of three people and the mayhem that has touched
the lives of 250 other people who have been injured, a lot of
good was done by the FBI, by the CIA, by Homeland Security, by
the State and local police. We have asked a bunch of questions,
Senator Coburn and I asked page after page after page of
questions of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security that relate specifically to that. We are going to get
those responses. We are going to get them in a timely way. And
when we do, at an appropriate time, working together, we will
figure out when to hold hearings, with your input and others,
in some cases maybe classified hearings, in other cases
unclassified hearings. But the idea there is to, as I said
earlier, figure out what we can do to help, whether it is the
situation on the northern border, the southern border,
situations like in Kentucky, Boston, what can we do to make
more effective, better leverage the assets, human and other
assets, that we have. But I like your spirit, and we want to
work with you and with our other colleagues to figure out how
we can play the constructive role that I know we all want to
play.
We are going to have a vote here at noon, and I talked with
Dr. Coburn, and I think I am going to stay here and keep things
rolling. If we start the vote, he is going to go vote, come
back, and then I will vote and return. If anyone wants to ask a
second round of questions, we will have that opportunity, and I
would invite you to do that.
Let me just start my second round by acknowledging--we have
already talked about this--the job that is done along our
southern borders and our northern borders to try to slow, stop
the movement of people illegally, the movement of drugs and
contraband illegally, it is not easy. I was down there in
pretty good weather, but as Senator McCain says, sometimes the
temperature is 120 degrees. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it is
cold, especially up on the northern border. Sometimes people
are taking shots at you. Sometimes people are throwing rocks at
you. This is not an easy job for folks.
And I will say this: The people that I have met, both on
the northern border that are doing this work for us and the
people on the southern border, for the most part they are
enthusiastic, they are proud of the work they do. They are
intent on doing it better. They want us to figure out how to
make it more effective, and that is a big part of what we are
doing. So we applaud their service.
I want to come back, if I can, to the issue of technology
deployed along our borders to help, to serve as a force
multiplier. And we have talked about the VADER system. We have
four drones. One of them has a VADER system installed. It is a
borrowed system--a borrowed system from a private company. We
have a dozen or so--more than a dozen C206 single-engine
aircraft. I believe one of them is outfitted for surveillance,
to do sophisticated surveillance work. That is like my OP-3
airplane going out there without the ability to acoustically
detect submarines, visually submarines--well, maybe visually we
could--without radar, without intercepts. I mean, it is like
going out with binoculars looking for a submarine. And that is
what we are doing with our C206s, and too often it is what we
are doing with the drones that do not have the VADER system on
them.
We have deployed in places, I think in Afghanistan,
lighter-than-air, I will call them ``dirigibles,'' lighter-
than-air assets, blimps. Some of them can carry sophisticated
surveillance equipment; maybe some cannot. And we have the
ability to deploy land-based systems, whether they happen to be
handheld radars or handheld surveillance or truck-mounted where
you can elevate them or just ground-mount them. I think there
is something called the Tethered Aerostat Radar (TAR) system
which we have some of the ground-mounted, elevated radars and
observation posts. Any one of these by itself is not going to
work everywhere, and part of what we need to do is figure out
where the highest risk is and go after those first.
And, second, of the kind of technology and the assets that
are available to complement our ground forces, figuring out,
one, where is the greatest risk and which particular technology
is most appropriate in a given area of our border. It ain't
rocket science. And in the past we have had the real problem of
not having the resources. We are going to have the resources.
We have to fill this sense of urgency and providing those
resources and making sure that you have thought through, with
our input and certainly with the input of our appropriators,
led by Senator Landrieu, to make sure--and I think--it is Dan
Coats? Senator Coats, who are the Chair and Ranking Member of
the Appropriations Subcommittee.
The other thing I am going to say, and then I am going to
ask a question. Somehow we have to do a better job of conveying
not just to the folks in Mexico that want to come to our
country to work, but the people in El Salvador, Honduras,
Guatemala, and other countries where their lives are not very
pleasant right now, and it is because of squeezing that bubble,
squeezing that balloon, we are seeing a lot of the work, the
cartels heading south and making lives in those countries
miserable. And they are looking for a way to get out, and
Mexicans do not want them to stay in their country, so they
just come through Mexico, come on across our borders in places
that are tough to detect them.
Somehow we have to do a better job conveying to people in
those countries where people are still coming out, the other-
than-Mexicans, that it is a tough journey, there is a good
chance you will get caught. If we catch you, the experience you
are going to have in this country is not pleasant. And if you
come back again, it is going to be even less pleasant if we
catch you. We have to make sure that our employers know that if
you are trying to hire illegal aliens, you are doing it
knowingly, we are going to find you out and we are going to
punish you. We are going to find you and imprison you if it is
a repeat kind of occurrence.
And the other thing we need to do, we need to do a better
job of conveying to the folks that live in these countries
where they are coming north the risks that they face--the risk
that they will not get through, the risk that if they do, it
will not be a pleasant experience, the risk that they will be
shot, murdered, drowned, raped. We have to do a much better job
of conveying what it is really like. It is kind of like a
``Scared Straight'' approach for those countries, and we have
to be smart about the way that we do it.
Chief Fisher, right now what is our effectiveness rate in
high-risk border sectors as defined by the bill that Senator
McCain and others have worked on? Let me just ask you that.
What is our effectiveness rate in the high-risk border sectors
as defined by the bill?
Mr. Fisher. It is approximately between 80 and 85 percent,
sir.
Chairman Carper. All right. And just to make this simple
for people to understand, let us say we are at the border, we
are looking for people who try to get through, and what we
really need to make this work, I think, is the ability to--it
is almost like a quarterback coming out of the huddle. You can
look at the defense, and you see the whole field. But it is the
ability to see the whole field, and that is folks coming to our
border, and to be able to almost count them, almost have the
ability to count them. And we will say on a good day you can
see 100 people coming. And we need to know not only how many
are coming to cross our borders; we need to know how many are
going to be turned back, and that is not easy to do, but it is
not impossible. We need to know how many we have apprehended.
And then the rest are those that are got-aways. But we need to
measure better three things: one, how many people are trying to
get across the border; two, how many people are turned back;
and the rest sort of takes care of itself.
And part of our challenge is to figure out how to measure
those that are trying to get across and those that turn back.
The rest we can figure out. But I think some of the technology
we are talking about can do that.
Let me followup on my question, Chief, by asking this: How
close do you think we are to achieving persistent surveillance
in some of those sectors?
Mr. Fisher. Along the southern border, taking into
consideration both the eyes-on 24/7 and some of those areas in
the urban areas, and with situational awareness, it is going to
take probably at least another year or two as we continue to
mature both in terms of systems that we have, optimizing that
capability, and continuing to see and leverage geospatial
intelligence to try to understand how that may help us in the
situational awareness area.
And if I could, Mr. Chairman, I want to qualify my earlier
statement in terms of--I was trying to reconcile the way you
asked the question in terms of the way the bill is identified
in those high-risk areas. There is one area in South Texas
specifically that is not within that range that I stated
previously, that 80-85 percent----
Chairman Carper. Which one?
Mr. Fisher. South Texas, which basically takes into
consideration the area, I believe, that you recently saw down
in Rio Grande Valley.
Chairman Carper. Rio Grande, yes.
Mr. Fisher. That one is actually below 80. It is about 78,
79 percent. So I do not want to be misleading in my earlier
statement.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thanks.
Dr. Coburn, I am going to run and vote. I will be back.
Senator Coburn. [Presiding.] Let me go back to you, Chief,
for a minute. How do you come up with the denominator? You told
us how you calculate an effectiveness rate--where is the
character quality of the denominator?
Mr. Fisher. The denominator----
Senator Coburn. You do not have that, actually, do you? You
do not know every attempted crossing into this country.
Mr. Fisher. I do not.
Senator Coburn. That is right. So, therefore, the
denominator is meaningless if you do not know the numbers.
Mr. Fisher. The entries, which is the denominator, sir, is
basically the apprehensions plus the turnbacks plus the got-
aways. In areas where we have dense deployments, both in terms
of personnel and technology, we have a better accounting of
what the flow is at any given time.
Senator Coburn. Well, but wait a minute. That is the
apprehensions, the turnbacks, and the got-aways. That has
nothing to do with the ones you do not know.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir, and that is where the geospatial
intelligence, utilizing our organic resources, helps us
understand.
Senator Coburn. I know, but here is the point I want to
make----
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator Coburn. If that legislation is going to pass, that
denominator is going to have to be determined in finite terms
and that is where the geospatial is going to help you, right?
Mr. Fisher. It will, Senator. It is my belief that it will,
yes.
Senator Coburn. And do you not agree, if you have a varying
denominator, then you are not going to have a constant look at
what your percentage is going to be? So you have to know what
that denominator is. For 90 percent to mean something, that
means the denominator has to mean something, and it has to be
real. And it cannot just be what you know. It has to include
what you do not know today in terms of crossings. Correct?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, I do understand your point. First of
all, the denominator always fluctuates. It fluctuates on a
daily basis, and it fluctuates depending upon the section of
the border.
Senator Coburn. But you are missing my whole point. You do
not really know the denominator.
Mr. Fisher. Across 4,000 miles to the north and 2,000
miles----
Senator Coburn. No, you do not know.
Mr. Fisher. I do not know.
Senator Coburn. OK.
Mr. Fisher. I stated that.
Senator Coburn. So my point is, if the American public
listens to this, we are going to determine the border is secure
on a number that you do not know. You are going to give us a
number, a percent, but the bottom number is--you are not going
to know it. And that is a hole in terms of the requirements of
this bill, and that is going to have to be addressed before
this bill is going to be able to pass.
Mr. Heyman. Senator, if I may, one of the things that the
bill I think intends to do is to put great investments in some
of the technologies the chief was talking about. We do have
some fidelity over that number right now. The technology
development and deployment that will be envisioned by the bill
will build us greater capability for surveillance and detection
for the----
Senator Coburn. I understand----
Mr. Heyman [continuing]. Greater fidelity. You never have
100 percent fidelity----
Senator Coburn [continuing]. But, remember, the emotion on
immigration has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the
rule of law. And first of all, where did we come up with 90
percent says your border is controlled? Where did that come
from? Why do we think that 90 percent says the border is
controlled if 10 percent is not?
Mr. Heyman. Senator, one of the things that I know
Secretary Napolitano has said it is important not to just focus
on one number. As a general practice, we have looked at the
border from a number of different factors, whether it is
apprehension, crime rates, or otherwise. And I think in some
sense it is like the economy. We do not use just one number to
measure how good our economy is. You do not just look at GDP.
You look at consumer confidence, consumer spending. You look at
jobs rates and things like that.
I think as we are looking at the borders, as a general
principle we should also be looking at----
Senator Coburn. I know, but that is not what the American
people are expecting. We are considering creating a path to
citizenship in this bill, and it is based on the fact that the
border is going to be controlled. That is the thing that is
going to certify the ability to move forward on those other
areas. And if, in fact, the American people cannot trust that
the border is controlled, you are not going to be able to pass
this bill. So you are going to have to help us figure out how
to do it.
And I would disagree. GDP measures our economy. It is the
final result of consumer confidence, employment, investment,
and everything else. We do look at GDP because that is the
factor, that is the ultimate number. First of all, why is 90
percent considered effective control of the border? I would
like for somebody to explain to me why 90 percent is effective
control of the border. And, No. 2, how are you going to come up
with an effective denominator? Because you are not going to
sell the vast majority of Americans on immigration reform until
you sell them the confidence that we have it under control and
that the number does not vary; and if it does vary, we know
that number is an actual number, a real number, not a
guesstimate.
Mr. Fisher. Senator, I will answer, take a stab at your two
questions.
First, the 90 percent, when I was with the staff developing
the implementation for our new strategy, we were setting
strategic objectives, and one of the measures against the
strategic objectives specifically about being able to protect
this country, is we stated at or in excess of 90 percent. It
was not 90 percent. In other words, we were setting a strategic
goal to be able to take the capabilities that we have had over
the last few years and how do we optimize that capability and
how do we measure that. That has been an effort, an ongoing
effort for the last 3 years. It is not the only metric. It is
taken with a whole host of other measures that we look at to
assess risk. It is not just about 90 percent. So 90 percent was
the minimum, and when I was asked the question previously--
actually, my staff asked the question, ``Well, Chief, why is it
at or in excess of 90 percent?'' And I said, ``Basically, it is
because it is an A.'' It is an A. If you are going to set a
goal for border security and national security, anything less
than, at a minimum, 90 percent would be untenable in terms of a
goal.
Senator Coburn. Why 90 percent? Why not 98 percent? In
other words, here is my point. If we are going to get
immigration reform through, if you are going to get it through
the House, we are going to have to do a whole lot more on what
is the definition of a controlled border than what is in this
bill.
Mr. Fisher. I agree with you there, Senator, yes.
Senator Coburn. Or we are not going to get it. It is not
going to happen. You are not going to have the votes for it. So
if, in fact, we really want this to happen, we have to start
addressing this now. And you cannot have any false observations
on this.
The political reality is the American people want to know
the border is controlled, and when we say 90 percent it is
controlled, they are saying, well, that means 10 percent of it
is not. That is the first thing that goes through most
Oklahomans' heads, so why is 90 percent the number?
So I do not know that the number means that much. I agree
with you. The fact is why don't we have a secure border. And
what is a secure border, and how do you measure that? And that
is one of the questions Senator McCain asked the Secretary.
What does it mean? What is a secure border? And how do we
demonstrate that? Where are the metrics that actually show
that? I will not spend any more time on it.
Mr. Heyman, let me ask you, you said in your opening
statement--and I do not think you meant this, but you said it.
``We screen all cargo.'' Did you mean to say we screen all
cargo?
Mr. Heyman. Yes, Senator. Screening has to do with our--we
take a look at all cargo coming into the United States. We
evaluate it for its risk, and we make a judgment at that point
what is the next step. Some of the cargo that is high risk we
will then----
Senator Coburn. Screen.
Mr. Heyman [continuing]. Scan. And then there is
terminology here, so screening has to do with the vetting in
effect of all of the cargo that comes to the United States----
Senator Coburn. Well, that is a very different meaning than
what your testimony actually implied, because the American
people need to know right now we are not screening all cargo.
Mr. Heyman. We screen all cargo. We do not scan all cargo.
Senator Coburn. We make a judgment about whether or not it
should be scanned, and that is what you are calling
``screening.'' And that is very much different--because there
is no assurance there. It is an assurance on the judgment of
somebody--of whether or not the cargo should have been scanned
and should have been investigated more. I just want to be real
clear because I do not want the American people--as a matter of
fact, Congresswoman Hahn is very concerned about that, and we
are working with her on it in terms of screening cargo and port
security related to that. So I just wanted to clear----
Mr. Heyman. Yes, we do----
Senator Coburn [continuing]. The nomenclature up. I
understood what you meant, but the American people will not.
When you say we screen all cargo, they are thinking all the
cargo has been checked to make sure that there is no problem
with it.
Mr. Heyman. We do have a risk-based approach where we make
sure to evaluate all cargo against potential risks, and we
triage that to say which ones do we need to inspect, which ones
do we need to open, and we do that for all the cargo coming
into the United States.
I just wanted to make another point on--I know we finished
the discussion on metrics. I might want to just add one other
point on that.
Senator Coburn. OK.
Mr. Heyman. Because if you look at one of the things we are
doing, where we are today after years of work and investments
on border security, we do have, in effect, a net zero
immigration flow, which is another net metric that people could
look at. And I think one of the things that is really
important, as I was saying, is that there are a lot of things
that are important as we talk about border security, whether it
is the border crime rate, whether it is seizures at the border,
whether it is immigration flows. And we will work with you on
this because it is important.
Senator Coburn. Well, they are all better, and I
congratulate you, because I think all the agencies have done a
much better job. We have better numbers than what we have ever
had before. I do not disagree with it. The question is whether
or not it is adequate, because if we had 98 percent control,
and the 2 percent control were terrorists, we would not think
that was control. So it is not just the number. It is who is in
that number that got away that we did not catch that could
actually cause us harm.
So it is important you help us refine this as this goes
through the legislative process so that we can actually build
that assurance in there.
Mr. Heyman. We will work with you, sir. This is too
important not to.
Senator Coburn. I have one other question. When somebody
leaves the country that is here on a visa, that is pinged back
to a list, correct? Everybody that is leaving this country on
an outgoing visa.
Mr. Heyman. Yes.
Mr. McAleenan. That is correct.
Senator Coburn. So why is the entry-exit visa so
problematic in terms of cost that when we are already having
this going to a central computer, why--explain the technologic
problems and the cost problems that you said in your opening
statement? Because I do not get it. If we are already capturing
the data but we are just not using it on the exit visa program,
why not?
Mr. Heyman. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the
opportunity to elaborate on that.
What I was describing in my opening statement is the
congressional requirement post-9/11 which asks for a
biometrically based system, which is one which uses either
fingerprints or iris scans and things like that. That is what
is costly. The ability to deploy that, where you deploy it in
the airport and how you deploy it and the labor cost is where
that $3 billion cost comes from.
That is where Secretary Napolitano said, well, we have to
have something in place now. We cannot wait for the costs to go
down, although we should continue to research that, and we are.
Senator Coburn. Right.
Mr. Heyman. And so she directed us to do an electronic
entry-exit system based upon the current biographical
information. So we take your information from your passport
when you enter. It goes into the database. And when you depart
the country, that is matched. A match indicates that somebody
has left. A non-match past the duration of one's visa
requirements means that you are an overstay or a potential
overstay, and we have to look into that.
Up until a couple years ago, the systems that do all of
that, which there are many across the Department, and that look
at resolving whether somebody is, in fact, an overstay, that
was all done manually. And we have in the last 2 years
automated that process, linked up the databases to do the
vetting for national security and public safety, moved that
into a place right now, as of April of this year, where near
real time now we are sending on a daily basis to ICE for action
the folks who have----
Senator Coburn. Overstayed.
Mr. Heyman [continuing]. Likely overstayed. So that is a
much more cost-effective way of doing it.
Senator Coburn. I agree.
Mr. Heyman. It is electronically based, and it is in place
today. We will be improving it over the next year.
Senator Coburn. Thanks for clarifying that. Senator
Johnson.
Senator Johnson. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Coburn.
First of all, I truly want to thank you for your service. I
realize these are enormous challenges, extremely difficult. And
I also agree with Senator Paul. The purpose here is we need to
fix our legal immigration system. We need to solve this
problem. I want to see an immigration bill pass. But certainly,
as I talk to members of the public, there is a high degree of
skepticism about securing the border, and I am concerned about
this particular bill where it is more focused on a process or
more focused on who is going to certify whether the border is
secure as opposed to actually passing a bill that secures the
border. So I would kind of like to go back to where I started
my questioning in terms of the history of trying to secure the
border. We have been trying to do this now for 30 or 40 years.
We obviously have not succeeded, and, again, I am sure it is
because we have not tried, but what is the enormity of the
challenge? Have we simply not put the resources toward it? Is
it just too big a problem we will never be able to solve? And I
would kind of like to just go down the panel. Why haven't we
been able to? And, really, what are the prospects of actually
being able to secure the border in the next 5 or 10 years?
Secretary Heyman.
Mr. Heyman. Yes, thank you, Senator, and thank you for your
support of this legislation and the reform that will go
forward.
One of the things that this bill does which has not been
done in 30 years is it takes a comprehensive approach. You have
to address the number of things that are broken in the system,
and you cannot just address one of them.
To begin with, you have a magnet of jobs in the U.S.
economy that attracts individuals. These are jobs that are, in
effect, off the books because illegitimate travelers coming to
the United States who are not lawfully present can go to
businesses that are gaming the system by hiring people who are
legally present. The bill addresses that through----
Senator Johnson. But let me just stop you, because part of
the concern--I totally agree with you. You have really got two
demands here. You have the drug trafficking. You have the
workers that are required. Does this bill even come close to
providing enough temporary work visas to fulfill that demand?
Mr. Heyman. So there are a number of different ways you are
addressing this in the bill. One is to streamline our visa
opportunities for individuals to come here, whether it is
agricultural visitors, guest workers as it were, whether it is
high-tech employment or otherwise. That is one way of
satisfying it.
The other way is to take away the demand signal by saying
it is illegal to do that and every business be required to do
an E-Verify check to verify lawful presence in the United
States. So if you are coming here and you are trying to get a
job, you better make sure you are lawfully present.
Senator Johnson. What happens when people verify employment
and then businesses still cannot fill the positions? What
happens at that point with this law?
Mr. Heyman. When businesses cannot fill positions----
Senator Johnson. By the way, that is a common thread when I
am traveling around Wisconsin and I talk to employers. They
simply cannot fill good-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector
today. Even with high levels of unemployment, we are not
filling those.
Mr. Heyman. Yes, these are levels that are set in law. This
is a continuous debate and discussion year to year as
businesses continue to compete for the best labor that they can
get.
One of the things that I think we need to continue to do is
to invest in our own resources at home, our own labor at home,
particularly on the high-tech jobs, investing in science and
education that allows us to grow our own citizenry's skill sets
so that we can fulfill those jobs in the absence of
immigration.
Senator Johnson. OK. Let me move down the panel and just
kind of go back to my original question. What has prevented us
and what are the prospects moving forward?
Mr. McAleenan. First, I agree with the Assistant Secretary
on the need for a comprehensive solution. In terms of your
question, Senator, on the enormity of the problem, just to give
you a quick vignette that I think highlights the overall
picture, 225 million people are crossing our land border each
year, critical to our North American economy, our partnership
with Canada and Mexico. Prior to the creation of CBP, about 5
percent of those people were actually queried and checked in
the law enforcement system. They could cross with up to 6,000
different types of documents--State IDs, birth certificates,
you name it.
In 2007, 2008, and 2009, the Department of Homeland
Security implemented the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
The first step was a policy decision that only five documents
would be acceptable for crossing the international border. The
second part was implementing technology that would enable us to
check those documents quickly and make sure that somebody was
secure as they crossed the border. That is license plate
readers, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, and
new primary systems.
The implementation of that took hundreds of millions of
dollars and several years but has dramatically changed the
border. We now query well over 98 percent of all people
crossing the land border. We have reduced fraudulent document
attempts. We have increased arrests and increased security
without slowing down that traffic. That is the kind of thing we
have to do.
Senator Johnson. Let me quickly move on, because I just
wanted to ask one more basic question. Again, when Secretary
Napolitano was before us very early, 2 years ago, I asked her:
``Do you have enough resources? What would it cost to secure
the border?'' And she said she had enough resources.
I am not quite sure of that, so I do not know. Is it a
matter of resources? And then, second, have you ever been
tasked with the job of saying this is what we need to do to
secure the border, actually come up with the plan? I mean, if
we need more fence, this is how many miles of fence we have to
build, this is how high it needs to be, this is how it has to
be constructed. If we need more boots on the ground, this is
how many boots we need on the ground.
Have you ever been tasked with that? And if not, is that
your understanding of what is going to be required with this
bill? Finally come up with that plan which I guess I would be
kind of scratching my head if we have been trying to do this
for 30, 40 years, why don't we have that plan in place right
now?
Mr. Fisher. Senator Johnson, I came back to Washington, DC,
to serve again at the headquarters component 3 years ago, and
over the last 3 years--and it was something that Senator Coburn
mentioned, and really probably within the last 6 months,
specific hearings on asking the very question that even the
Chairman had mentioned: What does it mean to have a secure
border?
Now, we have defined that because, as we were transitioning
our strategy, we identified what that meant to us in our
implementation, and we will be able to adjust to that,
depending upon what the end state looks like. Within our own
strategy, when we look at the implementation, what is the end
state, it is not a static position. It is not something that on
1 day it is secure and the next day it is not. It is more
predicated on evolving threats and what that risk is at any
given time to this country.
And so the next question I was asked was: ``Chief, tell us
when the border is going to be secured.'' And my general
response to that is: ``When there are no more bad people
looking to come into this country illegally between the ports
of entry.'' That is the only time that I would feel comfortable
to come before this Committee and others and suggest that the
border is definitively secured. It is not an easy process. I do
not offer it even in the context of an effectiveness ratio,
that somehow this is a scientific method and that I can assure
the Chairman and this Committee or the American people that at
any given time we will be able--on 4,000 miles on the northern
border and 2,000 miles on the southern border, be able to say
with 100 percent certainty the amount of people that enter, and
of that number, how many people we apprehend. The terrain does
not allow it. The vastness within our borders does not allow
us. However, that does not mean we cannot accomplish that.
Senator Johnson. But, again, I understand that, but have
you ever been tasked with the challenge of laying out a plan? I
mean, basically a dream list----
Mr. Fisher. Yes.
Senator Johnson. And do we already have that in place? Can
we review that?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir. Our Strategic Plan of 2012-16 was
published last May when the first year of implementation--it is
certainly available to you and your staff, and I would love to
give you a personal briefing on that if you are interested,
sir, and to give you insight into what implementation looks
like to include the measures that we have been putting together
over this past year.
Senator Johnson. So if that is already in place, why are we
looking at this bill to develop another plan? I mean, why
aren't we looking at that and implementing that with this piece
of legislation?
Mr. Fisher. Our strategy, just to be clear, only takes into
consideration between the ports of entry. We are working within
both the CBP and the Department's strategic plan and the
guiding principles that are set forth in the Quadrennial
Homeland Security Review (QHSR). Those are all nested together.
That is why in the earlier question I felt comfortable that the
timelines within the current draft bill suggest that
implementation is doable, because a lot of that work is done.
It is just a matter of integrating those and then identifying
the definitive end state that defines whether or not the border
is secure or not and what those parameters or what those
indicators are to help us gauge whether, in fact, we do need
more resources, whether we have to shift resources from one
area to the other.
Senator Johnson. OK. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. [Presiding.] Those are all good questions.
I just want to say thank you so much for coming early and
staying late yet again--as we all are.
One of the things that I am just going to walk back in time
a little bit with you, if I could, before I ask another
question or two, during the 8 years I was privileged to be
Governor of Delaware, I would submit an operating capital
budget to the legislature, and my Cabinet was expected to
defend the budget. And if they went to a hearing and said,
well, Secretary X, Y, or Z, this is what Governor Carper has
suggested be allocated to your department, and for them to sit
there and say, ``Oh, no, that is not right. This is what we
really need,'' we would have been looking for new cabinet
secretaries. And for every President I have seen here since
Ronald Reagan right up through President Obama, there is a
similar kind of discipline at work. And if you have a chance as
a Cabinet Secretary to say, ``These are the resources we would
like to have, financial, human and otherwise,'' and when the
President submits the budget, you are expected to defend the
budget, whether it is a Democrat or Republican President. And
part of our job is to ask tough questions so that we can
actually ferret out where the real resources should be
allocated.
The fortunate thing here, we are going to have some money.
We are going to have some real money. We are going to collect
fees. There are a number of fees called for in the proposal by
the Gang of Eight, fees proposed by the President. We are going
to have some resources. And the key is for us to allocate those
resources where the risk is the greatest, where the payoff is
the best; and, second, to make sure that we are looking to see
what works and what is appropriate for a particular sector and
do more of that and find out what does not work and do less of
that.
Senator Johnson. If I could request, though, as long as
this plan is already in place, I think it would be an extremely
interesting hearing to have a hearing simply on that. Let us
take a look at the current plan that the Border Patrol actually
has in place, and let us evaluate that and see if we cannot
throw that into the bill.
Chairman Carper. And, actually, if you look at what is in
the Gang of Eight suggestions and the Administration, one of
the things that is in the plan for the Department is do not
just look at the areas between ports of entry, the big ports of
entry. Put some resources in the ports of entry, where you have
thousands of trucks, cars, vehicles, people, pedestrians coming
through, and so that is part of their plan, and actually I
think that is one of the things that we will do. But you are
right. This is a shared responsibility, shared by the
Administration, hopefully enlightened by our experiences, our
visits, our backgrounds and so forth, our staff, and I am
encouraged that we are going to do some really smart things.
Will it ever be 100 percent? I do not think so. Can it be
perfect? Probably not. But can we do a better job? You bet we
can. And our goal, I think, is if it is not perfect, make it
better. And we are getting a lot of good ideas here, and I
think there is just a good spirit here. I am encouraged with
what I am hearing and from both sides of this dais.
I have a couple of questions I want to ask, and, Senator
Johnson, you are welcome to stay longer if you would like. It
is your call.
I want to go look at the issue of visa overstays. Most of
us, most people you ask, most people in this country, do you
think--how serious a problem is it when people come to this
country, they are legal, they are here on a student visa, a
tourist visa, maybe a worker visa or whatever, and they simply
overstay, not just their welcome, but their legal limit? And as
it turns out, there are a bunch of people that fall in that
category, and my understanding is that number is rising. It is
not like 5, 10, or 20 percent of those that are here illegally.
We could be talking about as many as 30 or 40 percent.
Can anybody try to give me a number on that? Again, we are
calling them visa overstays. How significant a problem is it?
Go ahead.
Mr. Heyman. I will take that and, Dan, if you want to
comment, too.
Senator, you ask a great question. It is a question that
people have asked going back 20, 30 years, which is there an
interest in the Federal Government in publishing visa overstay
numbers, and we talked a little earlier--you may have been out
at a vote--about how we do identify and track overstays, what
is the system for doing it. It is basically matching an entry
and an exit record electronically and then running it against
some databases to ensure that the person has either left the
country or still resides in the United States.
That process for identifying and tracking overstays has
been one that has been long coming, and there have been a
number of requests by Congress to identify that system, to
develop that system. And it has only been within the last 2\1/
2\ years probably that we have actually been able to build a
system that allows us to have the fidelity of that data so that
we can actually publish it. It has not been published yet. We
have committed to getting those numbers out by the end of this
year for the first time in the government's history. We have
done that by an entire Department working together to automate
the system of tracking entries and exits, linking up the
databases, improving our matching algorithms, and we will be
able to publish that information later this year.
Chairman Carper. It would be nice if you could give us some
insights on that question before the end of this year.
Mr. Ragsdale, do you want to add something?
Mr. Ragsdale. I would just like to add, one of the
advantages of a comprehensive immigration reform perspective is
matching visa categories with the demand, having a worksite
enforcement regime where there is tough enforcement, so there
is not a magnet for folks to overstay, and then a codification
of priorities that, when folks overstay, we will be able to
quickly identify and remove them. So it is the balance that
this bill posits that we think could be effective going
forward.
Chairman Carper. OK. Are these overstays--here is an idea,
and Senator Johnson and I may have discussed this before, but I
just want to share it with you all here again today. In my old
job as Governor of Delaware, we used to start parenting
training literally when a newborn baby came into this world in
a hospital. We did followup parenting training in thousands of
homes, sending out parenting trainers to those homes,
especially in high-risk situations, to make sure moms and dads
had the skills that they needed. We provide I will call it, a
5-year calendar, like a Cliff Notes on how to raise your baby
in terms of checkups, immunizations, food, diet, all kinds of
things for the first 5 years, sort of like 5 years Cliff Notes
for raising your newborn baby.
We have much smarter ways to do this sort of thing now.
Johnson & Johnson has come up with something called ``Text for
Baby,'' and it is the ability to send to a new mom or dad on
their phone, using texting, reminders: You have a doctor's
checkup coming up in 2 weeks. Or you have a doctor's checkup
coming up tomorrow. Immunization, your baby should be getting
this immunization today, tomorrow, next week, next month. Just
all kinds of things using Text for Baby. Almost everybody,
especially younger people, have cell phones. They do a lot of
texting anyway. This is just a good tool, a very cost-
effective--sort of like a digital solution or digital successor
to what we were doing with paper 15 years ago.
One of the ideas that I heard when I was down on the border
somewhere on this was an idea that why don't we do a similar
thing with people who are here legally but not forever. They
are not here on permanent status. They are a student, they are
a visitor, they are a tourist, they are a worker. And just send
them a reminder, text them: You have a month to go on your
visa. You have 2 weeks to go. You have a week to go. You have a
day to go. And the idea that people know that we know that they
are here, we know that their time is running out, and we are
watching them, and that could probably do something positive.
We are talking about a lot of technology, of stuff up in the
air. There is one that might use the airwaves, but in a
different kind of way.
On ports of entry, we have already talked a little bit
about that. But we are talking about 3,500 new officers at
ports of entry. What can you all tell us about how those
officers might be deployed and what concrete improvements we
could expect to see in border security and legal trade and
travel? For instance, where are some of the longest crossing
delays on the southwest border? And how much could we hope to
reduce those times? Who would like to take a shot at that? Yes?
Mr. McAleenan. Thank you, Chairman. I will take a shot at
that. As a former Acting Assistant Commissioner for Field
Operations, and to Senator Johnson's question, have we ever
been asked what do we need resource-wise to secure and
facilitate legitimate trade and travel, that was the question
that we were asked with the workload staffing model and the
resource optimization strategy that we submitted with the
fiscal year 2014 budget. It identifies the need for 3,477
officers at ports of entry, and they would be deployed based on
the greatest need. That is determined by the workload, by the
enforcement results, and by growth of facilities, and also
risk. So it is a combined formula that is incorporated in the
model, and we have some significant wait time challenges, as
you noted, Mr. Chairman. In the air environment, we have seen
air traffic grow 4 percent a year for 3 years in a row. It is
expected to hit that mark again. We are going to see over 100
million international air travelers. And the wait times have
grown commensurate with that, even non-linearly above the
traffic growth. So we need to keep pace. We have available
booths, we have infrastructure at the airports, and we want to
put additional staff there to lower the wait times.
The sequestration experience gave us an example of what
happens if we cut staff. The wait times have gone up
dramatically in many of our major airports during peak periods,
and we would like to counterbalance that, not only getting back
to our current level but to go beyond that with the proposals
in the 2014 budget.
On the land border, being able to staff all booths at our
key crossings, not only during the peak period but leading up
to that peak and extending beyond it, will balance out our
ability to process that traffic, reduce wait times, like we are
seeing at San Ysidro, up to 4 hours right now on certain high-
traffic days. We need to get those down as we commit to our
trusted travelers getting a shorter crossing of 15 minutes or
less.
Chairman Carper. OK. In terms of best bang for the buck,
let me just followup on your response. Anybody else is welcome
to answer this. But in terms of best bang for the buck, force
multipliers, investments in whether it is in technology or
infrastructure at the ports of entry, best bang for the buck.
We saw gamma ray devices. We saw portable handhelds, that they
are able to--literally, as the truck came through, made the
entry of somebody sent to the officer who was going to later
talk to the driver. They literally had in their handheld pretty
much the history of the vehicle, their visits to the border,
the driver's visits to the border. Really impressive stuff. But
let me just say, just some of the ideas, technology ideas, it
could be handhelds, it could be others, the ability to detect
radiation in really smart ways, but what are some of the best
force multipliers with the technology and infrastructure that
we are looking at these ports of entry?
Mr. McAleenan. Well, you hit on two of them right there,
Senator: The mobile technology, we have a proposal in the 2014
budget for increased mobile technology. That takes our system
and support right to where the officer is doing the work, not
chaining them to a fixed terminal.
Additionally, the improved non-intrusive inspection (NII)
equipment, like our Z-portals where we can run vehicles through
at very low levels, but still be able to detect any anomalies.
And then the third thing that is in the budget that is
critical is the concept of pedestrian re-engineering, using
kiosks so that when a pedestrian approaches our officer, they
have already had their documents checked, they have already had
their system checks run, so we can process them about 30
percent faster, shorten those lines and get people moving more
quickly with advanced technology.
Chairman Carper. I would just say to Senator Johnson, my
time has expired, and I am going to yield back to you. But in
terms of your point earlier, we want the Department, if you
will, to tell us what their plans are. And I think what we are
hearing is something that actually makes sense to me, seems
intuitive, and it looks like we will have some resources. They
have a plan. A lot of this meets the common-sense test, so I
think we might be on to something here. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. I just have a quick question, and I have
not been down on the border with you, but that was one of the
first trips I did make, down to Nogales, and my impression was,
first of all, inadequate fencing. I could not believe--and we
did not have exactly the high ground there, either. But, we saw
the beautiful port of entry that was being constructed, but
certainly the input from the agents was, OK, we have the
infrastructure, we do not have the manpower. So just very
quickly to you in terms of your plan, you say you wanted
close--was it 3,400? Where are we at right now?
Mr. McAleenan. Our total staffing nationally is 21,775.
That is the----
Senator Johnson. But in terms of port of entry. You were
talking about a plan that you needed thirty-four--what, 3,474?
I cannot remember the exact number.
Mr. McAleenan. Yes, the numbers are very similar between
Border Patrol agents and CBP officers. It is 21,370 for Border
Patrol agents, 21,775 for CBP officers. So it would be a
significant increase, about 17, 18 percent of our staff.
Senator Johnson. OK, and that you think would actually
accomplish the objective?
Mr. McAleenan. That would help us catch up with the
tremendous growth in trade and travel and secure that in a much
more effective and efficient way.
Senator Johnson. So without percentages, just numbers, how
many additional agents do we need in the actual ports of entry
on the one hand and then in terms of controlling the borders in
between the ports of entry? Can you give me just numbers, what
do you think we need, versus where we are today?
Mr. McAleenan. Versus where we are today, we need an
increase of roughly 3,500 CBP officers.
Senator Johnson. OK, total. And that is ports of entry?
Mr. McAleenan. That is for ports of entry.
Senator Johnson. And what about in terms of in between the
ports of entry?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, a lot of that has to do with the
amount of technology that is going to be online here in
September--I am sorry, in the spring and in the fall, both in
terms of mobile video surveillance systems, we have the
integrated fixed towers coming online, scheduled for fall; we
have replacements for the remote video surveillance systems on
previous pulls on the border. So a lot of that, once we start
taking a look at getting that technology, then we take a look
at what is the response requirement going to be in terms of
Border Patrol agents. Once we have that last lay down on the
technology, we will be able to assess where we have those
Border Patrol agents.
And the other piece, which is really critical, is the
Deputy Commissioner mentioned the Border Patrol agent staffing
right now is 21,370. What is more important than just whether
that is the right number is do we have those agents in the
right locations given our risk assessment, and the answer to
that is no. I want to be able to have the flexibility and
mobility with those agents to move Border Patrol agents in
areas that we have already identified as low risk, and I think
given the measures in some of those areas like El Paso Sector
and Yuma Sector, be able to move Border Patrol agents from one
location to the other, which may not require an additional
increase of 21,370, but a re-evaluation of if we have those
Border Patrol agents in the right location.
Senator Johnson. So why do you not have the flexibility
now. Why not?
Mr. Fisher. For a couple of reasons. One is the money that
is required to move Border Patrol agents en masse. I am talking
hundreds of Border Patrol agents from one location to the
other. It was not available in 2013, and it does not look like
at this point it is going to be available in 2014. The other
thing is----
Senator Johnson. So it is a resource issue as opposed to
policy issue.
Mr. Fisher. Well, part of it is a resource issue. The other
piece, too, because the vast majority of Border Patrol agents
that I would want to move from one location to the other are
part of the bargaining unit, so it would require bargaining
unit negotiations. And the other piece also is that we just do
not have the ability overnight to move wholesale all of those
Border Patrol agents into those locations and maintain them in
that location for a long period of time. These would be
permanent moves as opposed to just a short 30-to 60-day
temporary assignment, which we do currently.
Senator Johnson. Now, I certainly understand when I ask
questions, do you have enough resources and people needed to
defend budgets, I mean, I get that. But I will still try
again--not in terms of dollars but manpower. I am just trying
to get some sort of sense if we have in total 42,000 agents
that we are talking about, right? 21 and 21. You need another
3,500 in the ports of entry. I mean, are we talking about just
thousands of additional agents? Or if we are going to really
secure the border--again, realistically--because my concern is
the American people have no faith that we will ever secure the
border. I am just trying to get to the point, how many boots on
the ground will it really take? Is it going to be 42,000? Is it
going to be 50,000? Is it going to be 100,000? Can you just
give me some sort of ballpark sense and actually kind of give
the American people a ballpark sense of what it is going to
really take to finally once and for all--and, again, it is
never going to be perfect, I understand, but basically to get
total operational control of the border, how many people will
it take?
Mr. Fisher. Senator, it is very difficult for me to answer
that question directly because it really depends on what do you
mean by ``truly securing the border'' and ``significantly
securing the border''? That has been, I think, a lot of----
Senator Johnson. Where you would be satisfied, where the
American people would be satisfied, so we are not looking at
another 10 million illegal immigrants 10 years down the road or
we are not going to be looking at another wave.
Mr. Fisher. Right, but I am going to go back to identifying
what the end state is going to be, and there is basically--let
me show you at least the pendulum in the discussion that I have
been involved with over the last couple of years, having come
back. One is those that when they talk about securing the
border, in their mind, right?--and I am not talking about
committees, by the way. I am talking about community members
that I have talked to, I have talked to Border Patrol agents,
and trying to get an assessment to be able to implement the
strategy and what the end state is going to be.
There are those that would suggest that we have to 100
percent with certitude stop and prevent everybody coming across
the border. If that is the end state and that is people's minds
of operational control of border security, I have no idea what
the boots requirements are going to be and the technology
requirement, not to mention the financial impact to be able to
achieve that end state. And even with unencumbered or
unrestrained resources, even with certitude, it is going to be
very----
Senator Johnson. How about with the goal laid out in this
bill, in terms of what we are talking about there? With that
goal, how many people?
Mr. Fisher. Right. My staff has actually been looking at
trying to identify what the requirements are going to be under
some of the draft legislation. Assuming that we look at, at a
minimum, 90 percent or greater in high-risk areas and giving
the flexibility to the Border Patrol and within CBP, to
reallocate those resources that we already have, and to make
sure that we optimize the capability that we have, whether it
is technology in the air, whether it is the integration of all
the technology, I would be at a better position to answer that
question once that is done. But I do not have that answer right
now, Senator, and quite frankly, I do not think it is just a
matter of another 4,000 Border Patrol agents and, therefore,
undefined we would be able to achieve the end state.
Senator Johnson. OK. I understand, but I appreciate your
working with me on this one.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Carper. I am going to just followup here real
briefly on Senator Johnson's question, and I want you to be
thinking about this. Sometimes when we hold hearings, our
witnesses have an opportunity to give an opening statement, and
sometimes I like to give them a chance to give a closing
statement. We normally give you about 5 minutes for an opening
statement. I will give you about a minute, each of you, for
just a closing statement. It could be kind of a reflection back
on some of the questions we have asked you, some of what you
have heard said or not said that you would like to just--and,
Chief Fisher, I will ask you to join us in doing this. This
would be an audible for you, but you are pretty good at that.
Going back to the very good line of questioning from
Senator Johnson, I do not know that there is one number for a
number of human bodies, personnel. I just do not know that
there is a good number. And I do not know that there is any one
technology, whether it happens to be a handheld, whether it
happens to be these detectors, these gamma rays that enable us
to look into trucks, big trucks, or whether it is our ability
to measure radiation coming out of vehicles.
I do not know that it is lighter than air. I do not know if
it is drones or C206 aircraft. I do not know that it is just
flexibility. I do not know if it is just money. It is all the
above. And we have an opportunity here to do an all-of-the-
above policy, and in a budget-constrained world, but in this
case we are going to have some resources here, and to ask this
question: What works? What do we need to do more of? Maybe what
do we need to do a little less of?
Part of the answer here is some of the flexibility, and one
of the things that is tough about it, if you think about it, if
you want to move folks who are on--the Border Patrol people
from the eastern part of Texas over to Yuma in Arizona, they
have families, most of them have families, and what is
difficult is you just cannot say, ``OK, we are going to move
you here from eastern Texas and put you over here in Yuma for
the next 2 years. And, by the way, I know you have two or three
kids and a spouse, but that is too bad.'' We just cannot do
that. So there is the human-side sort of factors in here as
well.
So those are just a couple of comments, but I thought it
was a very good line of questioning, and I appreciate your
bringing it up.
One last question I will ask, before I ask you to help me
give the benediction, and this goes back to metrics. There has
been a lot of discussion of metrics here, and I will not
belabor that, but I do have a question. Based on the data that
you have available, can you answer the question our expert
witness posed, namely, where are the vulnerabilities for
increased illegal immigration the largest: at the ports of
entry, between the ports, or through visa overstays? And maybe
if you can say of those three--ports of entry, between the
ports, or those who came here legally but are no longer in a
legal status--maybe give us some idea of which should be our
top priority in terms of vulnerability, maybe No. 2, maybe No.
3. And I do not know, Ms. Richards, it may not be a fair
question to ask of you. If you feel like you would like to give
it a shot, go ahead, but this is not why we brought you here.
Ms. Richards. Yes, I think I would defer to my colleagues.
Chairman Carper. Fair enough. Mr. Ragsdale.
Mr. Ragsdale. Just putting it into terms of risk, obviously
the people we know the least about would be sort of our
greatest concern for law enforcement, so I would imagine the
folks between the port of entry--we have certainly heard some
conversation about folks we know very little about, so
certainly that. At the port of entry, they obviously are
inspected and admitted, so we know more about those folks.
Similarly, with the folks that overstay and who was coming
through a port of entry. So I suppose if I had to rank them--
and, again, very difficult to talk in absolutes, but that is
probably the ranking.
Chairman Carper. OK. Good. Thanks. Chief.
Mr. Fisher. Mr. Chairman, with respect, I think I would
have the Deputy Commissioner talk in terms of CBP lest I show
my parochial answer and say it is in between the ports of
entry. [Laughter.]
Chairman Carper. OK. Mr. McAleenan.
Mr. McAleenan. To that point, Mr. Chairman, I think Deputy
Director Ragsdale laid out the different considerations and
different environments. Between the ports of entry is obviously
vast and uncontrolled, and we very much appreciate your visits
to the border and your engagement with our mission and our
personnel there. At the point of entry (POEs), it is a
controlled environment where we do have an opportunity to
question and query travelers entering so we know more about
them and more about their admissibility or not.
Obviously, I think Assistant Secretary Heyman has laid out
the efforts on the overstays along with Deputy Director
Ragsdale that are critical. That is why the bill attacking this
from all angles is the best way to move forward because it
needs to be a comprehensive solution.
Chairman Carper. Mr. Secretary, just very briefly, please.
Mr. Heyman. You have a choice between ports of entry or not
ports of entry, because people who have visas do come through
the ports of entry. And in the last few years, we have made
significant improvement in tracking, identifying, and
sanctioning those who are overstays, and we will continue to
make progress on that. We have real-time ability to revoke
visas, to put lookouts out, and to go after folks for law
enforcement purposes. So it is the people between the ports of
entry who are unlawfully present and who are willing to break
the law that we have the most concern about, and that is where
I would put my concern there.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thanks.
Ms. Richards, I am going to come back to you, and this is a
chance for you to give a closing statement, if you wish. And we
have not had the opportunity to ask you as many questions, so
you can take a minute or two, if you would like. But, again, we
very much appreciate your being here.
Ms. Richards. Thank you, sir. I think in closing I would
reiterate some of the points that I made earlier. The gentlemen
on the panel all talked about the various policies and
procedures and things that they are putting into place, the new
technologies, the strategic plan, the determination that they
are making on the number of agents that they need between the
ports and at the ports. And I go back to the necessity of doing
those plans very carefully and in full detail.
I think that is the way to success, for the Department to
think through what they are doing before they spend the money,
before they make a commitment to hire a certain number or have
drones versus manned aircraft, I think they need to really go
through the whole planning process very carefully first. And I
think that they will.
Chairman Carper. OK. Thanks. Mr. Ragsdale.
Mr. Ragsdale. Thank you. I would just note that the
comprehensive approach is a sensible way to go. We certainly
understand that bringing folks into earned status will be
helpful for the very reasons we just talked about in terms of
finding out who they are. Certainly a worksite enforcement
strategy that has penalties that are updated, as we see in this
bill, as well as some criminal and civil penalties that really
deter illegal conduct. And certainly also just the overall
balance of sort of the labor and the visas, not only the high-
tech but also the low-skilled so that magnet is diminished.
And then, finally, just making sure that the balance in
terms of resources and staffing for special agents in the
criminal investigative area as well as the civil immigration
enforcement side is all balanced so we take a comprehensive
approach.
Chairman Carper. All right. Thank you. Chief.
Mr. Fisher. Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer the first
question you posed at the beginning of the hearing, and that
was what would you do, how would you implement with the money
that would be perhaps attached both in the authorization and
the appropriations process. But before I answer that, I think
it would be fair to tell you what our end State vision is in
terms of our strategy.
One is when you look at Secure Border, what does it mean in
our current operation? It is one that reduces the likelihood of
attack to this country; and, second, provides safety and
security to the public.
Within that broad context, there would be three things that
we would continue to build within our implementation plan with
this bill. First and foremost, it would be our ability to
increase our detection capability, more so in the mobile
systems as opposed to the static systems. And we are also
leveraging with the Defense Department, with a Memorandum of
Understanding that was recently signed last year and starting
to get equipment that was previously purchased by the taxpayers
that we intend to use and test for our border security mission,
augmenting those things that we have already received within
the Department and deployed along with long-term detection
capability. That would be the first thing.
The second thing--and I would just like to reiterate it--is
flexibility to deploy and what type of technology and how we
deploy that in different areas. We have to have that
flexibility built in because it is not a static state.
And the third, let us talk about capability that we within
the Border Patrol have to get better at, and it may not be so
much in terms of dollars but proficiency, is our ability to
increase our analytical capability about what all the measures
mean and how do we take all the stuff that we collect and
leveraging both in terms of what the Department has in
experience and what CBP has, but building greater capability to
understand the analytical framework in which we design and
implement our operations to really understand what the measures
mean at the end state. But thank you for the opportunity, sir.
Chairman Carper. Thanks for coming back and joining us
today. Thanks so much. Mr. McAleenan.
Mr. McAleenan. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like to
agree with you first that I think we are on the right track,
that we have many of the fundamental foundational elements in
place across the different pieces of this, and this immigration
reform approach gives us a chance to bring it together in a
comprehensive way. And that is really what we need to do next.
I appreciate again your leadership and engagement with our
mission. I think Chief Fisher has very well covered the between
the ports of entry aspects of what we need to do next. Thank
you for the opportunity that you gave me to talk about the
ports of entry. We have just got to continue to transform our
processes there, be as efficient as possible. And we identified
our staffing needs. We need to apply them appropriately and
really between the ports implement that risk-based approach
with the flexibility that Chief Fisher spoke about. I look
forward to continuing to work with you and your Committee.
Chairman Carper. Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Heyman. Mr. Chairman, thank you on behalf of the
Department for holding this hearing and giving us an
opportunity to put forward what I think is a good story about
our border and our ability to secure it. We have made
substantial gains in border security over the last decade, and
particularly the last 3 or 4 years. We see that apprehensions
are at historic lows, 49 percent down in the last 4 years,
seizures at record highs, border crime significantly decreased
in border communities, and by all accounts, that is a good
story, and we should continue to move in that direction.
I think, look, the border is a living, breathing, permeable
membrane that allows us both to sustain our daily lives through
the goods and things that come through and the business
transaction, but also to protect us against those who would do
harm. We want to be able to expedite lawful trade and travel,
and we want to be able to interdict threats at the earliest
opportunity.
The Department of Homeland Security makes that a principal
mission. There is no single solution that is going to allow for
that complex and important mission to be accomplished. But I
think this comprehensive immigration reform bill provides the
best opportunity. Because there is no single solution, you need
a comprehensive approach. You need to address the magnet that
attracts people here for illegitimate work. We need to address
the visas that are perhaps out of line and have been for a
number of years. And we need to address the security and
continue to build on, as we have talked about here, the
technology deployment, the resources to secure the border. I
think this bill does that. It is comprehensive. If it were
easy, we would have done it 20 years ago, 10 years ago, today.
It is not, but this provides us the best path forward, and this
Administration supports it and will work with you to get it
done. Thank you.
Chairman Carper. Thank you very much for that statement.
I believe, in a closing comment of my own, I am reminded
that a couple months from now it is going to be blazing hot
down on the border. It will be 120 degrees. The sun will be
bearing down, and the men and women who are serving us will be
there to do their jobs. During times this year when we had
monsoon rains, very hard rains, they had a lot of drought down
there. But when it is raining hard or even hailing or whatever,
they will be there doing their jobs. If rocks are being thrown
at them, people taking shots at them, they will be there. Good
weather, bad weather, day and night. And we need to keep that
in mind and just to again express through you our appreciation
for the very good work that is being done, and sometimes in
very difficult circumstances, and for the most part done in a
very good spirit. People take pride in their work. I have been
really very favorably impressed, very encouraged just by the
spirit of the men and women that I have talked to, whether it
is California, Arizona, Texas, or up on the Canadian border.
Very encouraged.
We aspire--I know you do, too--to be nearly perfect in the
work that we do. That is probably not achievable here. I was in
places along the Rio Grande River last week where you could put
a Border Patrol officer every 50 yards, every 100 yards, and it
would be tough to be able to stop everybody from getting
through. Does that mean we do not try? No. We have to be smart,
think smart, figure out where the risks are, where the risks
are highest, allocate the resources that make the most sense
there.
We have an obligation here to ask tough questions. We are
stewards of the resources of our people in this country, the
taxpayers, and the good news is we are going to have some extra
resources. And the question is: How are we going to use those
resources? Where are we going to invest them? You can help us
decide how to do that, and you have given some great answers in
previous exchanges and, frankly, a number of other good ones
here today.
So as we close, let me just say I am not discouraged. I am
encouraged. And there is a very good spirit here in this
Committee, and I hear from the responses here that there is
actually the makings of a pretty good comprehensive, all-hands-
on-deck approach, all-of-the-above kind of approach that makes
a whole lot of sense.
The last thing I will say, I might be wrong, but I think
the people who say that if we had a smart, comprehensive
immigration policy in place, one that actually allowed people
to legally go from Mexico into to the United States to work for
a while and then go back, to go back home where a lot of them
want to go, anyway, that would be helpful.
To the extent that we had a situation where somebody comes
to this country to go to school, go to college, get a degree,
maybe an advanced degree, maybe in one of the science,
technology, engineering, math (STEM) subjects--and they
actually had the opportunity with an undergraduate degree or an
advanced degree, had a chance to stay here, the idea of
stapling that green card to their diploma, that is going to
help a little bit, too, in terms of those folks that overstay
their visas.
But I want to thank you all for joining us today. Thanks
for the work you do, and a special thanks to Anne Richards, the
real Anne Richards. I served as Governor with former Governor
Richards and had great affection for her, and we are delighted
that you could be here, and your presence reminds me of the
great service she provided for the folks in Texas and our
country.
I understand that the hearing record will remain open for
another 15 days, that is, until May 22 at 5 p.m., for the
submission of statements and questions for the record.
With that, we are going to adjourn this hearing. Thank you
all very much.
[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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