Transcripts For CSPAN ICE Acting Director Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee 20240714

Ms. Roybalallard thank you for your patience and willingness to stay until 4 00 given the votes we had. We appreciate it. Today we welcome matthew albens, acting direct tore of i. C. E. As we continue to monitor the challenging situation on the southern border, we look forward. O hearing your perspective these laws need to be naggetted to increase security. Our own constitution, federal law and several International Agreements serve as the foundation for the rise in protections that need to be embodied in our efforts to address the humanitarian crisis we are currently experiencing. Unform, the rhetoric and the policies of this administration have made achieving that balance more difficult and by all indications has exacerbated our challenges at the border. We must be mindful of the limitations we face. We have barely cracked the surface of what the coast guard needs and to protect our interests in the arctic. It is an expensive option reserved for Public Safety and flight risk is a valid concern. When Public Safety is not a concern, i should use alternatives to detention. When used as intended, the appropriate Case Management alternative to detention have proven to be effective in mitigating flight risk and mproving compliance. I remain seriously concerned about substandard conditions at i. C. E. Detention facilities. In addition to what i have personally witnessed, we continue to get alerts from the media, the office of the inspector general, the Government Accountability office and advocacy organizations about detention facilities that do not meet i. C. E. s minimum standards but nevertheless allowed to continue operating. Preventing these inhumane conditions can be changed if i. R. E. Makes clear that anything less is unacceptable and will have consequences. I will continue to work with you to ensure that this happens. On a more positive note, i want to highlight the good work that i. C. E. Does such as combatting Human Trafficking and smuggling and smuggling of fentanyl and other opioids. The subcommittee provided Additional Resources to Homeland Security investigation for these efforts. This is a great example of a mission where we have worked together to accomplish shared goals and we have sustained these efforts in our fiscal year 2020 bill. I want to follow up on the letter i sent you on july 12 about increased interior enforcement prayings. I requested that you submit for the record today some of the policies and procedures which i described in that letter. This kind of transparency is very important for us to better understand how i. C. E. s leadership expects its frontline officers and agents to operate. I understand you have submitted documents in response. I thank you for that and look forward to reviewing them and will follow up. Before i turn to the director for a summary of his written statement, the text of which will be included in the written record, let me recognize our Ranking Member for any remarks he wishes to make. Mr. Fleischmann im going to keep my remarks very brief as i know we have been delayed by votes. Welcome director. Thank you for your time and your testimony before the subcommittee today. There has been a lot of change n leadership, positions in the department in recent months and reassuring to me to have an acting director with your years, really decades of experience at the helm. Thank you for leading this Law Enforcement and Homeland Security agency. I very much appreciated the other day with you and your staff to visit and update to help me understand where we are and where were going. I thank you for your hard work. I look forward to working with you and look forward to your testimony today. Yield back. Ms. Roybalallard the order in which members will be based on the seniority when present when the hearing was called to order alternating between majority and minority members. To ensure that everyone has a. M. Will opportunity to ask questions, please stay within the five minutes per round. Good afternoon, chairwoman, Ranking Member and distinguished members of the subcommittee. As you are aware, the United States is currently facing an unprecedented National Security and humanitarian crisis at our southwest border. Over the past year, the number of aliens has increased significantly. Today however, im here to address other parts of the immigration system that need funding as the need for legislation to help put an end to the border crisis. The fact is, the majority encountered are released into the United States for removal proceedings and Immigration Courts have a backlog of 900,000 cases and growing. The agents are responsible for managing these cases and the three million aliens currently on i. C. E. s docket. Many have not appeared and violated the terms of their release and the alternative Detention Program and failed to appear for their hearings. The result is that the border crisis has become a National Crisis which requires a strong interior component. The reality is for immigration laws are enforced at the border d fail to provide adequate resources, and if ordered removed are actually removed, the entier system will break down. This failure will serve will allow additional aliens to enter the country. With this in mind, i ask in providing i. C. E. The funding it needs to address the humanitarian crisis and Public Safety crisis. While we are focused on the interior, the Current Situation at our border impacts our agency and its resource requirements. C. B. P. Encounters include more than 390,000 Family Members and and this represents 52 of all southwest border encounters. In the last few months i. C. E. Has been forced to release 215,000 members of family units into the interior of the United States due to the flores Settlement Agreement. We have been over burdened by apprehensions and congress failure to fund i. C. E. At i. C. E. Requested levels. We are detaining 53,000 single adults and 8,000 are awaiting processing. Due to its very limited detention capacity, erm we must have detention facilities with those who pose a National Security or flight risk. Based on increased enforcement, additional capacity and transportation funding is needed. To ensure the National Security and Public Safety of the United States and the faithful execution of immigration laws passed by congress, officers may conduct actions against any alien who is present. These are not indiscriminate raids or sweeps. Insted, the operations are carefully planned based on person specific and focused on those who are a Public Safety threat. Approximately 90 of e. R. O. , administrative arrests are of aliens that had prior criminal convictions face pending criminal charges or who have be removed from the country and illegally reentered. That is a federal penalty. The crisis on the border negatively impaths the mission and thus the Public Safety of our communities. Resources dedicated to remove dangerous criminals from the streets have been redeployed. Resulting in over 14 decrease in criminal alien arrests this fiscal year. I. C. E. Has reassigned teams to help respond to the border crisis. The failure to increase funding over the course of the last decade has created a strain of our ability to target specific liens including those who went and sconded. It has failed to fund the necessary resources to make the program effective. The officers who search for aliens who fail to comply and those aliens detained. A. T. D. Will offer benefits for its costs. F. Y. 2020, the principal Legal Adviser is able to carry out statutory responsibilities. While congress has increased the number of d. O. J. Judges during recent budget cycles, local funding has not kept pace. More critically and most critically, i would like to highlight legislative changes that are needed. To be clear, the f. Y. 2020 budget request provides resources to address the symptoms of the crisis and does not solve the problem. Legislative changes are the only viable option to put an end to e current crisis, reducing cartels and criminal organizations of a major segment. Absent these changes, current laws will be exploited and the factor they create will result in more immigration. We ask you to terminate the flores Settlement Agreement and clarify the detention facilities. Amend the victims protection reauthorization act to provide for those who are not victims and do not express of fear returning to their home country. The standard has been ineffective in screening those and has further strained our system. Y requiring the release, seemingly Court Rulings and legislation are being exploited by transnational criminal organizes and human smugglers. They have to fight this activity, Homeland Security investigations has reassigned hundreds of special agents to Border Patrol facilities to ferret out family units. These same loopholes also encourage further illegal immigration as the record numbers indicate. These are not talking points. These are facts based on my over 25 years of Law Enforcement experience and they represent the major challenges currently faced by i. C. E. Every day the dedicated, courageous professional men and women of i. C. E. Work to promote Homeland Security and Public Safety by faithfully executing the laws established by congress to protect the integrity and credibility of our countrys borders. As well as our National Security and the safety of our communities nationwide. The increase in the flow of Illegal Migrants and the change in those arriving at our border are putting the migrants, particularly young children, at risk of harm from smuggle smugglers, traffickers, criminals and the dangers of the difficult journey, and are placing unsustainable pressure on our entire immigration system. Ultimately, to solve the border crisis, we must work collectively to ensure the integrity of our immigration system as a whole. Failing to adequately resource interior enforcement efforts creates nothing more than the appearance of border enforcement, creating a pull factor that drives more people to make the dangerous journey to the United States, incentivizes more illegal activity, and delays justice for those with meritorious claims for asylum. As a nation of laws, we owe it to the citizens of our country to maintain the integrity of our immigration system, especially when faced with a serious and ongoing National Crisis. Day in and day out the women and men of i. C. E. Have worked tirelessly with limited resources and an outdated Legal Framework to ensure the safety and security of our country. They have done this despite villenization, personal attacks and the toll it takes on their families and personal lives. They pay this price every day for simply doing their jobs under the law passed by congress. A crisis is at hand, a change is needed, and it is your responsibility as members of congress to act. Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I am honored and humbled to represent the more than 20,000 american patriots with immigration and Customs Enforcement. I ask that you provide the funding in the president s f. Y. 2020 budget. And i look forward to your questions. Ms. Roybalallard dr. Albence, as you know, we have a series of concerns about i. C. E. s ability to manage its budget within the means provided by congress. The lack of transparency into how i. C. E. Executes its budget also exacerbates our concerns. Under a continuing resolution, operations should continue at the level funded in the prior year appropriation. For the current year, that means i. C. E. Vudshud have maintained an average daily population of 40,520 during the c. R. Period. And yet for the first quarter, i. C. E. Used of depension i. C. E. s use of detention beds surged to over 46,000. And this was before the significant migrant surge at the border. During the period of the c. R. , did i. C. E. Make any attempt to operate within the funding levels identified by congress for custody operations, and if so, what specific actions did it take . Mr. Albence thank you, madam chairwoman. We continually look to utilize our detention resources in the most efficient manner possible. Instructions are standard standing instructions to our field offices, continually look at their populations to ensure that those individuals that are detained are the most appropriate for detention. Again, many of those individuals that are currently detained are individuals that congress has mandated must be detained by law. 74 of the individuals that are currently in i. C. E. Custody are subject to mandatory detention under the immigration and nationality act. The vast majority of those other individuals are individuals who have been who are Public Safety threats, who are gang members, or individuals who may not reach the mandatory detention threshold, but we have felt that theyre appropriate for detention and not appropriate for any sort of release back to the community. With regard to your question during the c. R. , the numbers began an uptick, the middle part of last summer, and continue to rise through the fall. Not to the level weve seen unfortunately during the calendar year f. Y. 2019. However, in order to prevent a wholesale catch and release system, which we knew would create further incentives for individuals to come to the country illegally, we made the conscious decision to try to detain as many people as we possibly could to help prevent a rush on the border. Unfortunately the numbers continued to come, as a result of the fact that many of those people we cant detain because they are family units or u. A. C. Ms. Roybalallard to better understand how i. C. E. Budgets for its operations, the report that accompanied the f. Y. 2019 appropriation directed i. C. E. To brief the committee on a detailed plan for operating within its budget. This was due 60 days after the date of enactment and was to be provided monthly thereafter. The first briefing washington was due by april 16 briefing was due by april 16. To date we have not received even one, and by now we should have received four. Why has i. C. E. Failed to comply with this briefing directive . Mr. Albence ill have to look into that specific directive. I do know that we are holding weekly migration calls with the four corners staff, during which time both c. B. P. And i. C. E. Provide detailed information with regard to their ongoing operations, to include detention and funding execution. We have posted a lot of our material on the website. I have a list of requirements after our discussion earlier. And we will go through them and have a detailed response on each one of those. Ms. Roybalallard as a followup. The departments funding transfer authority exists to address unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances. But it seems clear to me that i. C. E. Routinely operates with full expectation that it will be bailed out by this transfer authority that it has or some other means. As the acting i. C. E. Director for the coming fiscal year, i hope that you can commit to operating within the funding level that is appropriated by congress. Mr. Albence i certainly do my best to do so. We have numerous budget meetings with very hard decisions to make all the time with regard to what operations were going to have to curtail or what funding we are or excuse me, nir initiatives that we might not be able to do as a result of the limited funding. Our detention modeling has been accurate for the past three or four years. The model that we utilize. And we ask for 52,000 beds in the f. Y. 2019 budget. Had we received that money as requested, we would not be in any circumstance where wed need to do reprogramming or shortfall. Ms. Roybalallard as a reminder as we move forward, appropriation bills are also law. And including continuing resolutions. With no Less Authority than the immigration and the nationality act. In fact, the authority appropriation bills is derived directly from article i, section 9, clause 7 of the u. S. Constitution. I quote, no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of the appropriations made by law. So when Congress Enacts appropriation bills, it does so based on informed analysis, provided by the appropriations committee, on how best to target, to use the use of limited resources. So i want to emphasize that transfer authority is provided by congress to allow executive Branch Agencies to respond to unforeseen events and circumstances and not to rue teenly augment appropriations for a particular activity. I will pause on my questioning and i will now turn to the chair of the full committee, mrs. Lowey. Mrs. Lowey passing our final bill of the session. But i am pleased to be here with y colleagues to welcome you. Director albence, i am very concerned that this administrations policies negatively impact the wellbeing of our immigrant populations. Im especially concerned about the effects on vulnerable populations like unaccompanied children. In april, 2018, your predecessor, director, signed an agreement with h. H. S. That provides for information sharing between your agencies regarding the vetting of potential sponsors for unaccompanied children. The mere existence of this agreement has had a Chilling Effect on the number of potential sponsors who would otherwise have been willing to come forward to take these children out of federal government custody and care for them. Not only does this make the mental and emotional stress these children already face even worse, it has led to significant additional federal costs, as children remain in h. H. S. Custody for far longer than necessary. Its clear to me that this greement is misguided at best. So, if i can ask you a few questions. First, how many arrests have been made of sponsors, potential sponsors, or their household members since this agreement was signed . Mr. Albence i dont have the exact number and we havent made any arrests since the appropriations bill that was passed preventeds from us from utilizing that information. So section 224 of the f. Y. 2019 appropriations bill prevents us from using that h. H. S. Information to make arrests. So prior to that date, i can get you the exact number but its going to be around 330. Mrs. Lowey however, you have the information from the households to which the youngster is going, isnt that correct . So if the youngster goes to an uncle, and in that household there may be three undocumented, four undocumented Family Members, you have that information, is that correct . Mr. Albence we wouldnt necessarily have the information with regard to individuals that are in the household. H. H. S. Has limited some of the sharing of information in various iterations during the course of this m. O. A. But we are prohibited from using that information to take enforcement action against that sponsor. Mrs. Lowey give than children may already be present in a sponsors household, how does i. C. E. Ensure the safety and wellbeing of children, excuse me, during Enforcement Actions and what arrangements are made or these children . Mr. Albence certainly we take the safety of children at utmost importance as we plan any operation. In fact, the entire m. O. A. Exists as a result of some tragic circumstances in which u. A. C. Were placed with traffickers. This was an attempt to try to prevent traffickers and other individuals who may do harm to these children from being sponsors and getting children into their custody. Our research, as we were going through these cases, nearly 40 of the people that were sponsors actually had criminal records. So there are certainly calls for concern with regard to the individuals that were responsering the children. With regard to your exact question, we have extensive training that we provide to all of our field offices. We have field office juvenile coordinators, we have a Management Unit up in headquarters, and a National Headquarters Program Manager that oversees how our field office conducts their operations. We do extensive training with that. Our officers are trained professional Law Enforcement officers. Were no different than any other Law Enforcement agency. Once you go into a residence, as much planning as you can do beforehand, you dont know whats inside that door. There are a lot every Law Enforcement agency is faced with challenge when they go into these houses and find children that were unanticipate order need a care giver to take care of them. We work very closely with generally were able to find if the parent has another parent in the country, that they can have the child stay with a Family Member or other relative that the parent can consent letting that child stay with, well let that child stay with them. Most times thats what happens. Mrs. Lowey as you know, the f. Y. 2019 d. H. S. Bill included a provision that constrained i. C. E. s ability to use information resulting from this agreement with h. H. S. To deport a sponsor, potential sponsor, or a member of their household, with some limited exceptions like a felony conviction for child abuse or an aggravated felony. Nevertheless, the agreement still stands and potential sponsors are still concerned about what would happen to them if they were to offer to become a sponsor. Given that these protections are in place, why has i. C. E. Not rescinded the agreement or at least amended it to reflect the protections provided in law . And with these restrictions in place . Id be interested to know, as i conclude, because my time is well, ill just ask the first question. Why havent you rescinded this agreement or at least amended it to reflect the protections provided in law . Mr. Albence there have been some discussions with regard to how we could tailor the m. O. A. In a manner that would be more effective and in compliance with the law. It has not reached fruition. Again, i will reiterate, based on the fact that appropriations language forbids us from utilizing that information, large portions of the m. O. A. Have been rendered largely moot. Mrs. Lowey well, let me conclude, and i thank you, madam chair, for giving me the opportunity since i was on the floor introducing the bill. But i do want to say, in my discussions with many people in our community, and we were at homestead, theres a real concern about providing enough sponsors, because theyre afraid that they will be picked up or grandpa will be picked up or someone in the household. I look forward to continuing this discussion. Thank you, madam chair. Flesh flesh thank you, madam chair flisheflishe thank you, madam chair mr. Fleshman madam chair. Yesterday we heard from mr. Provost. We spent a lot of time pursuing questions about the overcrowding and detention facilities at the southwest border. As you would surmise, because h. H. S. Received more funds in the supplemental to care for unaccompanied minors, Border Patrol was able to quickly move minors out of c. B. P. Sites and into o. R. R. Facilities. Mr. Fleischmann conversely, because i. C. E. Did not receive funds in the supplemental, and didnt receive an increase in the regular fiscal year 2019 bill, c. B. P. Is still sitting on a lot of single adults at the border with no relief in sight. Because of this backup, and because the numbers of apprehensions at the border are still astronomically high, c. B. P. Facilities, both o. F. O. And Border Patrol, are beyond capacity every single day. Inspector general has published reports in just the last weeks on the dangers to both the migrants and your colleagues at c. B. P. What are you doing to ensure that the southwest Border Apprehensions are a priority for beds and transport within the i. C. E. System, sir . Mr. Albence thank you. Excuse me. Let me be first to commend chief provost and her c. B. P. Team for doing a tremendous job under the most incredibly difficult circumstances that there are out there. We are in the process of ramping up our detention. Unfortunately we made a conscious decision during the continuing resolution period to not acquire additional detention space because we didnt know where the appropriations bill would end up and we did not want to end up further in the hole than we were. As a result of not getting the appropriations until february, and then starting the process to identify additional beds and it takes a longer time to turn them on, when h. H. S. Gets additional money, they have homestead or they have facilities that where the they can turn on beds quickly. When we want to turn on a facility, we have to generally go to a contractor and they need to recruit, train, hire, vet their personnel, plus get the facility up to speed to meet our standards prior to placing individuals into that. Weve turned on about six or 6,000 or 7,000 beds during the course of the year thus far. We have another 4,000 or 5,000 that will be turned on by the end of august. Thats the culmination of the process that began once we received the budget and started moving forward. Our modeling indicated to us that we were going to need to have those beds, we just didnt have the funds to turn them on in a timely fashion. Mr. Fleischmann im clearly empathetic and sympathetic with your polite. Plight. In that regard in moving toward solutions, is money the only challenge and does this problem extend beyond just dollars, sir . Mr. Albence it certainly does. Money helps us better deal with the symptoms of the crisis. And that includes being able to relieve the getting additional detention funding to relieve the overcrowding in the Border Patrol stations. Theyre sitting on, i believe, probably 8,000 single adult meals waiting to be processed or placed in males waiting to be processed or placed into i. C. E. Custody. We cant place people in i. C. E. Custody unless we have beds to put them in and for that we need money. We have done many things internally to improve our efficiency and in fact our average length of stay in detention has gone down, even while our detention beds have gone up. So we are better utilizing the resources that we have been given. But a crisis means a crisis. Theres more bodies that are there than we have the capability to do so. Were just dealing with the symptoms at that point. Unless the law changes, that allows us to detain families during the course of a truncated immigration proceeding where theyre entitled to due process, but keep them in custody in a safe, secure environment, just like we did in 2015 when we built family detention under the prior administration, and we saw ae numbers drop, that will be certainly, fixing the flores Settlement Agreement will be a huge help to that. The credible fear threshold is part of the problem. A lot of the reason these individuals are holding, these single adults are holding down these beds is because they are getting credible fear because the threshold for that is so low. When they go through court and get in front of a judge, less than 10 of the northern triangle individuals are actually getting asylum. So theres this different standard which creates a situation where were holding individuals in custody for 60 days as they go through that pro process and at the end theyre going to be removed anyway it. Makes sense to have the initial screening be more online with what the ultimate decision factors would be from an immigration judge. Mr. Fleischmann yes, sir. One quick twopart question. How quickly are single adults being repatriated back to their home countries, and do you know the average lengths of stay in i. C. E. Facility after being turned over from one of the c. B. P. Facilities . Im beyond my time so ill did for a Quick Response ill ask for a Quick Response. Mr. Albence it depends on the circumstance. It depends where individuals are from. Northern triangle country, we have scheduled charters almost every day if we need them, we can return those individuals, if we get the removal order, if they take the expedited removal and dont claim asylum, or the judge orders them removed, we can remove them quickly. Average length of stay is in the 40day range. Mr. Fleischmann thank you, sir. I yield back. Thank you. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Newhouse. Mr. Newhouse thank you, madam chair. Thank you, Ranking Member. Acting director albence, thank you for being here with us today. I also want to express my thanks for your service as well as the all men and women that work with you in helping to keep our nation safe. So thank you very much. I wanted to talk today a little bit about a couple things. Ut first of all, some thoughts surrounding a disturbing violent attack by an avowed an tiffa assailant that was conduct antifa assailant that was conducted at one of your facilities in my home state of washington. Its a facility i had the pleasure of visiting a short time ago. By the way, madam chair, the conditions i observed, i believe that all of the needs of the detainees there were being met very well. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that. The things that i observed were in fact above standards, i would think. But this man armed with a rifle and an insind year device, if you recall, insindary device, if you recall, attacked a Detention Center in tacoma on july 13. He tried to ignite a propane tank. He tossed lit objects at vehicles. As well as buildings. He lit a car on fire. Authorities found, as i mentioned, a rifle, insindary devices on him, as well as a knife and a collapseable baton. It was a im very concerned by this. I have to tell you that i think everybody would agree with me that this is pretty frightening. To have happen. Certainly thankful that no officers, no detainees were injured or killed in this attack. Whats even just as concerning, maybe more so, is to hear and read about the things that members of the radical antifa groups are saying about this man. Theyre calling him a martyr and calling for more direct action just like this. Unfortunately this wasnt the first time that this man had attacked one of your facilities. I believe last year the same individual had wrapped his arms around a Police Officers throat during a protest. Ive been thinking about this. I think a lot of us have probably been reflecting about whats going on in our country, our national discourse. Both here in washington, d. C. , and around the country. Very he hadaps this mens against our Law Enforcement vehemence and against our Law Enforcement for people we ask to uphold our laws, how is that affecting these peoples ability to do their jobs . I wondered if you had any thoughts about that, mr. Director. Mr. Albence thank you, congressman. I wish that was an isolated incident. There are significantly increasing numbers of violent protests against our officers ho are doing an incredibly professional, difficult job under the most complex and difficult of circumstances, incredibly well. Assaults unfortunately against our officers are up significantly. Theyve been on the rise continually over the past couple of years. Both on our officers that are out there in the field, conducting Law Enforcement efforts, as well as officers and even our contractors in our detention facilities where theyre being attacked and assaulted. We had a nurse that was punched in the face last year. The trauma that she suffered as a result of that is unmentionable. Ive said it publicly and ive done some media appearances on it. I mean no disrespect, but theyre picketing the wrong people. Congress is responsible for the laws that were enforcing. If there is a desire to change the laws, and these people want to have the laws changed, they know where capitol hill is. They can come here and picket and do it. But to come after the men and women who are american patriots doing the job, again, they take they put their life on the line every day when they go out there. Its not just the Law Enforcement officers. When we had people trying to storm our noffs portland, we had nonLaw Enforcement officers being threatened, having their cars being vandalized. Thats not right. And it shouldnt be that way. So, i would hope that everybody involved in this process and this issue would take a step back and a deep breath and realize that the Law Enforcement officers are the ones that are comporting themselves in the proper manner in this entire process. Its those that are wishing that they didnt exist that are the ones that are behaving in an unprofessional and unsafe manner. Mr. Newhouse i appreciate that. Again, thank you for your service and for being here with us today. Thank you, madam chair, for calling on me. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger id like to respond to what you said. Our country is a democracy. I think we have the best country in the world. Those of us who travel to other parts of the world, appreciate it. I think a lot of it is the checks and balances. Ive worked in Law Enforcement in the past and i agree. You have dedicated men and women who work in Law Enforcement and theyre good people. There are also some bad people in Law Enforcement. And that few amount of small people give a Bad Reputation. I think right now this country is split. I think a lot of it has to do with National Media on both sides of the aisle. Where people get their information. I think our president , i dont want you to respond, hes your boss, has infuriated this issue of immigration. That all people coming into this country are bad and wrong and murderers and rapists and whatever. But your job is to enforce the law. And i agree. And we want to change the law we need too that. I think that when the average person in this country sees abuses of children and families, that is where a lot of this comes from. And were concerned about it. Were saying, this is not who we are. And then theres certain agencies that are being blamed and youre probably one of the top. So how do we deal with this . I feel strongly that where you are, and i. C. E. Is you need to make sure that you focus on the immigration laws. But there are also ways to do this. We just passed a supplemental and youre going to have money coming to you now to deal with issues. Because of the debate back and forth, youre not going to be allowed to use this money for enforcement. Youre going to be allowed to use this money for issues such facilities that are better. To be able to put people out that you cant hold. To keep families together. In a more humane area. I would personally, im going to get to my question, i would personally like to see i. C. E. Known for focusing on the felons. Thats you what do best. Thats what you can do. You need to focus on the felons and when it looks like youre going after immigrant families with children and when our president puts out were going to go out there and arrest 25,000 people, and or whatever he said that number was, that doesnt help you, it doesnt help our system of justice, and it scarce the dickens out of these families. Who are here because they want a better life. And we know it might be legal, but were not going fix this issue until we deal with the issue of volume generaly, until we deal with right now the dourans in guatemala and he will the honduran, guatemala and el salvador. Your mission is, when people break the law urk need to enforce it. First thing, what is your priority as far as the bad guys so to speak, the felons . And why does it seem the perception that youre out there going after people who have been here for years and pick them up and they have families and that type of thing . I think thats where the problem is with i. C. E. And where you have your Bad Reputation for a lot of people in this country. Mr. Albence thank you. Unfortunately i think theres a lot of misinformation out there which doesnt help. Mr. Ruppersberger thats why im asking the question. Mr. Albence sure. Our priorities and our enforcement numbers are largely consistent over the past decade, if maybe seven, eight years, 90 of the people that we arrest are convicted criminals, which is the largest and im just talking about the Civil Enforcement stuff, not the great stuff that h. S. I. Is doing, but 90 of the individuals we arrest are convicted criminals charged with a criminal violation, are an immigration fugitive, meaning theyve had their day in Immigration Court. Mr. Ruppersberger felony type or automobile or speeding tickets, what . Mr. Albence speeding ticket, if its not the way we find out most individuals who are here in the country illegally is through the criminal justice system. So three out of every four people we arrest in fact, its higher than that, but three out of every four we arrest come out of the criminal alien program. Thats individuals who are sitting in the custody of another Law Enforcement agency after having been arrested by that Law Enforcement agency for some criminal violation. Thats how we are aware of their presence, one their fingerprints are run through the database, they bounce off ours. 90 criminal, pending criminal charges, immigration fugitives and individuals that have illegally reentered the country after being deport wid is a felony. But to your point and with regard to restoring integrity with the immigration system, if we do nothing else besides working the criminal aliens, what we have in effect said that we are no longer going to there is no longer going to be a quebs for consequence for anybody coming to this country illegally. Even if you go through the entire Immigration Court process, which Congress Spends hundreds of millions of dollars on every year between i. C. E. And d. O. J. , that order issued by an immigration judge is not worth the paper its written on, why do we even have the process . No other Law Enforcement agency in this country is being asked to ignore a lawfully issued judges order. When you say we can only go after felons or criminals, thats what that means. Mr. Ruppersberger i say that because its a priority. Theres 11 Million People here. You cant go after 11 Million People. So you have to pick your priorities. My time is up. One question. Y do you feel that you are being criticized that theres so many people in this country that want to ban i. C. E. , what from your perspective, why do you think thats the case and what do you think needs to be done to change that . Mr. Albence again, i think its a largely part of misconception and misunderstanding as to what we do. Look, if you want to talk about abolishing i. C. E. , then that means that mr. Ruppersberger im not saying that. Mr. Albence no, but those who do, what that means is they dont want 140,000 criminals removed from the country every year. That means they dont want h. S. I. Removing 10,000 gang members, arresting 10,000 gang members every year. That means they dont want h. S. I. Removing 10,000 pounds of opioids from the street, including 3,000 pounds of fentanyl. That means we dont want the second Largest Agency on the joint Terrorism Task force to exist. For which 54 of the cases are made out of h. S. I. That means we no longer want to have counterproliferation investigations and we want sensitive military equipment to go overstees our enemies. Overseas to our enemies. Mr. Ruppersberger thats a good answer. We need to get that to the public. Mr. Rutherford thank you, madam chair. Director albence, first, i want to say thank you for the job that you and your men and women are doing out there. And really apologize for the congress and the courts and the position we have put you in and i know its a very, very difficult situation. Because not only have we created d law, but theres also this sentiment in the country that is disease respects all authority. The disrespects all authority. The folks talking about banning i. C. E. , there was another group marching down the streets of new york chanting, what do we want, dead cops. When do we want it, now. We just saw on television the other night two new York City Police Department Officers having water dumped on them. Youre absolutely right. People need to take a step back, take a breath, and start respecting Law Enforcement. Ive got some bad news for you. The president asked for 9. 3 billion so that you could do your job, were only going to give you 8 billion it looks like. So somewhere in there youre going to have to transfer probably another 1. 3 billion around so that you can complete your mission. Thats not on you, thats on us. Let me ask you this. When we talk about your budget and ways that you can do your job more efficiently, you mentioned the criminal alien program. When i was i was a lifelong Law Enforcement officer 12 years as a sheriff, i ran a 287g program in my jail. I know how efficient and safe that was for your officers, for my officers, and for every citizen in my city. And i have to tell you, my blood boils when i see these cities say that theyre not going to work and coordinate with i. C. E. , because let me ask, do you think it is safer for you to go into a jail and arrest these criminal aliens, and these are the criminals that my good friend is talking about down there. These are the ones, 90 of your arrests are out of these jails. So, is that safer . Mr. Albence its absolutely safer. Safer for our officers and the individual trying to arrest and the general public at large. Mr. Rutherford can you comment, is it cheaper . Mr. Albence its certainly cheaper. To give you perspective. We used to get, before this issue came up with sanctuary cities and people not wanting to honor detainers, talking to field office directer from los angeles at the time, he said, i used to get 200 criminals a day out of l. A. County. Thats dwindled down to a handful now. Based on state laws that are there. That is something that we have asked congress for. Look, everybodys safer. Every community is safer when Law Enforcement works together. We all take the same oath, to uphold the constitution and to keep our communities safe. So were all better when we work together. That said, there are many Law Enforcement agencies that would like to work with us, but due to some Court Decisions or due to some executive orders or state laws, or just the fear of litigation and liability, theyre reticent to do so or their county board of supervisors or Legal Department wont let them. Weve been asking congress for years to codify the detainer and indemnify sheriffs or local Law Enforcement agencies that honor those detainers. Most sheriffs, if they know theyre indemnified from tort actions or habeas claim thats made from an individual being held on detainer, they will gladly take them. Mr. Rutherford look, the detain issuer, i understand some people throw that up as a red herring argument. But all i have stood call i. C. E. And before that individual changes into their street clothes, i. C. E. Can be there to pick them up. Its just a coordination effort. I think thats a red herring that folks throw out there, that just dont want to help i. C. E. Get these people out of our country. I saw a cbs report in miami saying that 37 florida agencies have agreed or show an interest in being part of the 287g program. But that there were delays in getting these agencies into the program. I think touched on a little bit of it. Can you talk about what some of the other delays might be, getting into that . Is it budgetary . For them or for you . Mr. Albence part of it is budgetary for us. The budget has remained static for the past four or five years since i directly oversaw it. That has part to do with it. Part of it has to do with, look, if were going to give somebody delegate Immigration Authority and you know as a partner, we dont take that lightly. We vet all those individuals, even though theyve been vetted and been background checked by the local agency we work for, we vet them ourselves to make sure were comfortable with who were delegating that authority to. Sometimes theres a facility infrastructure with regard to t1 lines so we can install our computers and the like. There are logistics. Were trying to move as quickly as possible. We have a new program called the warrant Service Officer program which is a subset, a very limited delegated authority to just execute warrants on our behalf. At the direction of an i. C. E. Supervisor, officer. Florida actually was the first place we rolled that out. We rolled it out in nine counties and we continue to expand. Mr. Rutherford we appreciate the partnership that weve had with i. C. E. For a long time. I see my times run out. Thank you for your service. Was was thank you ms. Wasserman schultz thank you. Director albence, i dont want to pursue this line of questioning if youre not specifically familiar with the ongoing issues at e. R. O. Miami in mar measure measure mar. Are you familiar . Merimar . Mr. Albence im swla familiar. I know my staff briefed me. Ms. Wasserman schultz ok. After that meeting, with them, and we got the detailed answers to questions, there were a number of questions that they really didnt give us an answer for. And these issues of poor infrastructure, people standing out in the blazing sun, security that is working with e. R. O. Miami, treating people treating undocumented immigrants rudely, still prohibitting them from being able to have volunteers, distribute food and water. Those issues are all continuing. And weve gotten insufficient answers related to canopies, bathroom expansion and other issues. I would like you to take this document, i can get you a copy, i want to share with you the concerns that i have on the answers not being adequate. I still need an answer about what is being done, to follow up to make sure that Security Officers at the facility are not treating the people who are presenting at the office with an appointment rudely. Speaking rudely to them, refusing to speak to them in spanish. And really giving them a general hard time. Its a very small parking lot. There is no coverage whatsoever. And i realize park something going to be expanded but that wont happen parking is going to be expanded but that wont happen n. I. H. Until next year. Mr. Albence i have updated information if you like. Ms. Wasserman schultz let me get this out because i have another question. The other issue that was not answered adequately was, a letter is sent to an immigrant who is told to come for a specific appointment. When they get there, they are told that they have to call the phone line and not only that the letter is insufficient, when they call the phone line, they are not connected with a person who speaks their language. The only option is in english. The answer i got in writing was insufficient and didnt provide me with an answer other than the policy about whats supposed to happen, rather than trying to get to the bottom of whats actually happening. The other insufficient answer related to food and water by volunteers, i understand in the letter you sent to me, in the memo you sent to me, you detailed that theyre instructed in their letter to bring adequate food and water while they wait. And that its your liability that is an issue allowing volunteers to distribute food and water. That makes no sense to me. If you look at the configuration of that parking lot, theres no obstacle or damage or harm that could come if people are simply allowed to bring food and water to help make sure we can relieve the difficulty of the people there. If you could answer that question. Those questions. And give me more substantive, specific answers to those concerns, id appreciate it. Mr. Albence sure. I did ask for an update beforehand. I know the outdoor water fountains will be ready for public use on august of this year and the new parking lot will be available to visitors on august 22. Ms. Wasserman schultz not next january . Mr. Albence august 22, right here. I know theres a permanent canopy project being looked at. The g. S. A. Is involved in that. Ive been at that facility a year ago. I expressed concerns with regard to the conditions in which the employees were working in too. Theyre very cramped in there. Across the board. I know its being reviewed by g. S. A. And our facilities that manage it within i. C. E. To try to for pricing and getting a contract to put that in. We are moving forward. Ms. Wasserman schultz i appreciate it. Mr. Albence we can give you a ms. Wasserman schultz i just need to talk to you more in detail about the concerns. The other question i want to get out real quick, i chair the military Construction Veterans Affairs subcommittee. What were concerned about is that there are conclusions in a report written by g. A. O. That looked into i. C. E. s failures to consistently follow your own policies when moving forward, with removal proceedings for noncitizen veterans. According to g. A. O. , some veterans who were removed may not have received the level of review and approval that i. C. E. Has determined is appropriate for cases involving veterans. The report also concluded i. C. E. Does not know exactly how many veterans have been placed in removal proceedings or removed. Or if their cases have been handled according to i. C. E. s policies due to a lack of consistent record keeping. These are really disturbing deficiencies. Are you and your agency currently working to ensure consistent implementation of i. C. E. Policy for handling noncitizen veterans . Are you working to develop a policy that makes sure you know how many veterans are in your system . And that they are being interviewed properly . And finally, the report recommends that i. C. E. Maintain complete electronic records on veterans in removal proceedings or who have been der to thed deported. You dont have a system like that, have you established one yet . Mr. Albence the military veterans is something obviously that were very sensitive to. They do require and do get a much higher level of scrutiny than an ordinary removal case. Oftentimes theyre kicked up ms. Wasserman schultz g. A. O. Report says theyre not mr. Albence again, oftentimes theyre kicked up to headquarters. We dont have and i know its been discussed, trying to find a code in our system that we can put in there so that we can readily identify which cases are military. But with regard to having a complete electronic record, we simply dont have the system to allow that. Weve made requests in the budget for many years to have upgrades to our systems, that havent been funded. So absent significant amount of funding that would allow us to have an Electronic System of record, that would have the whole file, i know c. I. S. Is working on something but we dont have anything like that. Ms. Wasserman schultz i know my times expired. These are people who are served our country. And they are supposed to be given a hinetted level of review as a result of serving our country. Even though they are undocumented immigrants. If you dont know how many of them are in your system, then it is nearly impossible for you to be able to treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve and thank them for their service. So just i mean, are you you cant just say, we dont have enough money or the capacity to do that. You have to be able to keep track of that. Mr. Albence i was speaking to your last question with regard to electronic afile system. Ms. Wasserman schultz so you know how many are in your system . Mr. Albence the funding for that is not available. We have ways within our twisting system that i think can be existing system that i think can be tweaked, but a lot arent undocumented. They were lawful permanent residents that were convicted of aggravated felonies. Ms. Wasserman schultz thats a different situation. Im talking about the people who arent. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to ask about family Case Management program, a. T. D. s, alternative detention, in june, 2017. I. C. E. Terminated the family Case Management program. The daily cost of family detention per individual is approximately 300. However, a Case Management program cost around 36 a day for one family. Ms. Meng just wanted to ask why i. C. E. Decided to terminate the family Case Management program. Mr. Albence thank you. The family Case Management program was a program that was incredibly expensive for what the ultimate result was. In the 18 or so months that the program existed, there were only 65 cases that were concluded. 41 were terminated for noncompliance meaning the individuals didnt show up to their hearings. Eight individuals selfremoved. Seven were issued a removal order or voluntary departure by an immigration judge and nine received release. For the money that was invested in that program at the time, we received 15 removals. Which was about 1. 16 million per removal. As opposed to, and with regard to compliance, the rates under fcmp were a little bit lower than the standard a. T. D. Program or intensive security intensive supervision programming. In fact, this shows some of the challenges with dealing with cases in a nondetained environment. 3 4 of those cases, more than 3 1 2 years later, still havent been decided by the Immigration Courts. So that shows some of the backlog. If we had kept this program at the cost that we were doing, wed probably be up to 26 million, 30 million now with another 20 million more to go for less than 1,000 cases. Its not good fiscal sense to try to keep that. There were things in this program that we found useful, that weve incorporated to our current Case Management system thats outside of that. Those weve implemented, where we found might have use, weve implemented that and put that in there. Ms. Meng the o. I. G. Reports that the alternative Detention Program had compliance rates of 99 for i. C. E. Checkins and appointments and 100 attendance at Immigration Court hearings. When youre measuring success of the programs, does i. C. E. Include immigrants that it removes from the program who then later failed to comply with the requirement . And should the program only measure shouldnt the program only measure compliance of those who consistently and actively within the program . Mr. Albence the ultimate purpose of the Immigration Court system is for an i had individual is for an individual to have due process and make their case in a front of an immigration judge as to whether or not they have the lawful right to remain in the United States. The ultimate measure should be whether or not the order issued by the judge is actually adhered to. What we have seen is that the number of individuals that are actually removed, which most of the individuals at the end of this process receive a remove order. Thats just the way it is. Most individuals who make an asylum claim or apply for withholding or other form of relief generally dont get that. Most of the cases that go through the Immigration Court end up with a removal order. Tamplet d. Over the past several years a. T. D. Over the past several years has been level at removing 2,700 people on a. T. D. In fact, between 2014 and 2017, the a. T. D. Budget more than doubled. It went from 91 million today 183 million. And as a result of that 92 million investment, we removed 273 more people. Thats it. If that same dollars had been put into detention, we could have removed 10 times the number of people than we did on a. T. D. Ms. Meng i want to you mentioned that there are parts of the program that have been useful. These programs, as you know, are more humane, helping vulnerable families with young kids, pregnant women, people with health concerns, victims of domestic violence. And would there ever be potential to improve programs like this, such as working with nonprofit organizations, a lot of them are more equipped to provide Case Management assistance to immigrants within the communities that they serve. And i just wanted to know what the status of incorporating nonprofit organizations into these sorts of programs to provide gap services that g. A. O. Care might not be providing . Mr. Albence we work closely with nonprofits. We were given additional funds in 2019 as well as in the supplemental for the a. T. D. A. T. D. Program which were utilizing. But one thing, and it was asked previously and frequently, both here and in the media, is you hear these cases of individuals that have been here six, seven, eight years, have been comply compliing with all theyre checks in and then why does i. C. E. Arrest them . Thats what the back end of a. T. D. Enforcement looks like. Those individuals have been here for six or seven or eight years, most times been appealing their case to the board of immigration appeals, to the circuit court, they may file petitions. Those cases drag out. When we talk about a crisis, having three million cases that are unadjudicated in the Immigration Court system is a crisis as well. It takes these cases so long to get through the process that these individuals are here for six or seven years. Ultimately the judge orders that individual removed. And were sworn to execute that removal order. The immigration and nationality says you shall take into custody, thats so to me, i think if youre looking at the entire enforcement continuum, obviously if we have a system whereby we can detain individuals for a short period of time and they can have avail themselves of all due process, make whatever claims they want from front of an immigration judge in a short time frame while theyre in custody in a safe and secure environment, sanitary and wellrun, that meets all of our standards, and can have a decision on that case in 40, 50, 60 days, to me thats a lot more humane than having some individual out on the street for five or six or seven years, where they get a family, have children, develop roots, all the while knowing that they have no lawful right to be in the country. And then when we go to aeffectuate that removal order, ere tearing families apart or i think its more humane to do it on the front end. If theyre entitled to stay, the judge will let them stay. If theyre not, we execute their removal order. I think frankly that will reduce the pressure youre seeing on the border. The reason youre seeing all these people coming to the boarder is because they know we cant hold them. Border is because they know we cant hold them. Ms. Meng i thank you for acknowledging the importance of humane and swift treatment for these families, keeping them together and you talked about all the Legal Options that they pursue, that is their legal right to do so. Thank you. I yield back. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Aguilar. Mr. Aguilar one item that concerns me, youve talked about u. S. Citizens in response to question u. S. Citizens that have been detained, i. C. E. Has a history of incorrectly detaining u. S. Citizens. Two citizens in my district were detained by i. C. E. And later rewarded settlements to compensate them for the arrests. In f. Y. 2019, d. H. S. Bill, we required i. C. E. To issue statistics on the detention of u. S. Citizens. The bill gave i. C. E. Six months to complete the report, which was due in may. We havent received any of that available information. If a person can prove their citizenship with a passport or birth certificate, why are they being held for their further by sneist what sir cirques would that happen by i. C. E. . What circumstances would that happen . Mr. Albence ill check on the reports. I apologize and ill look into that to see where we stand on that. We have a specific policy with regard to how we handle individuals who are making claims of United States citizenship that are in our custody. I. C. E. Does not have the Lawful Authority to say anybody is or is not a citizen. What we do is when we are provided with evidence that an individual in our custody is looks to be a citizen, well release that individual from custody, and then instruct the individual how to get to c. I. S. And do whatever paperwork they may need to do to get a naturalization certificate or documentation of citizenship, whatever the case may be. So thats a process. A lot of people that end up being citizens in our custody didnt even know they were citizens. They dont find out the immigration and nationality is very complex, naturalization charts, we used to have to memorize them in the academy, thats a long time ago. Its very complex and some of the individuals dont even know that theyre citizens until we start to investigate their background and we realize that, oh, they are in fact a citizen. At which point we obviously mr. Aguilar im not talking about cases where an individual finds out that they are a u. S. Citizen. Im talking about cases where individuals have clearly said that theyre citizens. What troubled me with your answer is that when someone looks to be a citizen. , ve got a list here of nine grenadines from my community, sergio, from austin, texas, five days detained, two days detained. These are u. S. Citizens or individuals who were born in the United States and u. S. Citizens or have been naturalized. These arent individuals who found out that they were u. S. Citizens. These are individuals who told your officers that they were u. S. Citizens. And youre talking within the process of this, that you advance it when they look to be a citizen. It just strikes me that all of these individuals are latinos and that youre talking about how someone looks. Can you talk to me a little bit about mr. Albence i was not referring to anybodys appearance. That was clear, if anybody listened to the context of what i was saying. I was saying when we review the individual, make an interview, look at their documentation, if the documentation shows, ill use the term shows, shows that they have evidence, evidence of being a citizen, then thats when we release them from custody. I can tell you from my experience, i had it happen to my personally. Many individuals who are citizens in a border environment, especially if theyre involved primarily when theyre involved in criminal activity, theyll claim to be noncitizen. I was working smuggling cases in san antonio. They would claim to be a Mexican National because they knew they would get turned around, five hours later, they werent going to get prosecuted, and they could come back in at will. We look at all the information that is in front of us to make that determination. We had no Lawful Authority to hold u. S. Citizens. We dont want to hold u. S. Citizens. That is not our business or our job. But we have to look at the evidence mr. Aguilar in prior discussions weve had in this committee, we also found out that within the dropdown box that you had for where an individuals from, there isnt United States isnt in that dropdown box. Its even difficult for you to track how many u. S. Citizens you detain. Even for a small portion of time. What type of racial profiling, education, what type of training your officers receive so, specifically applying to u. S. Citizens, so we can be certain that this doesnt happen as much . Three days, two days, five days, three weeks, theres been cases recently in the press, a u. S. Citizen, members of congress finding u. S. Citizens who were detained, not in i. C. E. Custody. I want to make sure that were learning through this. So can you talk about the training that you received specific to racial profiling . Mr. Albence sure. Theres no tolerance for racial profiling in i. C. E. It starts at the basic training level, where our officers and agents receive training on racial profiling, at the very golf swing of their Law Enforcement career beginning of their Law Enforcement career. We abuyed by abide by d. H. S. And d. O. J. Policy with regard to racial profiling or cases being prosecuted. It is continually something that is stressed in our inservice trainings. We have supervisory schools, we have Law Enforcement training. There is no tolerance for racial profiling. Mr. Aguilar i guess id still like to follow up a little bit more on the documentation piece. If someone is presenting i dont carry my birth certificate, but if someone has these documents and is claim tock a u. S. Citizen, whats the disconnect, why are they continuing to be detained . I appreciate it. Thank you, madam chair. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Cuellar. Mr. Cuellar thank you, madam chair. I represent a lot of Border Patrol agents, a lot of c. B. P. Officers, men and women in blue, field operations, a lot of i. C. E. Officers also. From san antonio down to laredo and down to the mcallen area. I have to say, i do appreciate the work that the men and women do. I dont think you all should be demonized. If there is an issue with a policy, we go after the policy. We dont go after the men and women. If the current law and some of the immigration laws we have have been around for years, and it usually says laws passed by congress, you shall do certain things. So i just want to just make sure that if theres if theres a bad apple, we go after that bad apple. And i think you agree with me. You have certain protocols that you follow. There are folks that say there are no protocols. I mean, for example, you have the performancebased National Detention standards of 2011, which i think was revised in december, 2016, and that one, again, took the input from nongovernmental organizations and other groups to make sure we improve medical, Mental Health services, access to legal services, religious opportunities, improve communication with detainees that have limited profishenses, etc. , etc. , etc. Proficiencies, etc. , etc. And i guess i started in 2014, so i am looking from 2014 on. There are riders that weve added, both myself and other members, that talk about detention standards, that talk about transparency and i. C. E. Detention centers, that talk about i. C. E. Detention facility contracts, for example. One of the sections prohibits i. C. E. Operation and support funds from being used to continue any contract for Detention Services if two of the most recent evaluations received by the facility are less than adequate or something equivalent to that. So there are theres other provisions dealing with i. C. E. On this so one is to make sure we understand a particular protocol and language that we have there. Also on top of that, i think the i. C. E. Nondetained docket is 2. 4 million individuals roughly. Were adding about 10,000 cases to the Immigration Courts every week. Theres over one million subject to final orders of removal that we have. Then out of the detained docket, i think its less than 2 of the undocumented individuals are actually in i. C. E. Custody across the 200plus facilities that you have. So now that i laid that out, tell me your response on the protocols, the laws, the workload that you have and the vironment and, again, i want to make sure we treat people with respect and dignity. I am talking about people in your facility. So give me your quick perspective on what i just laid out on the structure that we have there. Director albence thank you, congressman. I wholeheartedly agree that its imperative those individuals that are in our custody are kept in a safe and secure environment and treated humanely and dignity while they are in the time in custody. Thats what we endeavor to do. Thats what our standard is. Our pbs 2000 is probably than nger than thicker this. I know we worked with updating those standards. Mr. Cuellar youre working with the Appropriation Committee and are you working with director albence n. G. O. s that work in the immigration space. We actually invited law forcement in as well because theyre the ones that have to implement these standards. We have to make sure what we do is meaningful. Some of the standards we have are 20 years old that arent relevant anymore. For example, the need to have a lock smith on the staff thats a certified lock smith. Some of the jails dont have key locks anymore. We would have to ding them or give them a waiver when we do those inspections. We are trying to make them morrell vant in todays technology. Mr. Cuellar thank you. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Price. Mr. Price thank you, madam chairman. Mr. Director, let me return to i think it was mr. Ruppersbergers line of questioning about the targeting deportation. Nd the i would say very baffling claims and counterclaims that have often been made in this area. You gave us that breakdown you didnt give us a breakdown. I want to ask you to do that. That was the o. Category and you said 90 of those arrests either have prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges or theyre immigration fugitives or previously removed from the country and illegally reentered. Whats the breakdown of that 90 in terms of those four categories . Director albence excuse me. About 66 are convicted criminals. About 21 are pending criminal charges. About 2 are the fugitives. And 1 would be the illegal reentrants. Mr. Price when you say prior criminal conviction, whats the range . Director albence the range in the vernacular is the same utilized throughout the Law Enforcement community. Anyone thats been convicted of a criminal violation. In fact, we only get fingerprints from local Law Enforcement agencies when they submit them for a criminal violation. Mr. Price so is entering the country illegally being apprehended, coming back in, is that a criminal i dont know. I cant to get clear. How many of these people are violent criminals . You know, as we often say, a threat to the community. Director albence so our 2018 report is online. Off the top of my head, two of the top five i think the top charge is d. U. I. Then, i know within that of top five is drugs and assaults. I dont have those numbers directly in front of me. They are on the website. We can certainly get them to your office this afternoon easily enough. Mr. Price well, it would have to, i would say, break down ese categories a little more straightforwardly. Knowing that as we discuss the prioritization, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. You know, the point of that discussion is to prioritize dangerous people in terms of whatever else we do in the area of detention, deportation, to prioritize people who are a threat to the community. Knowing thats the purpose of the discussion, it strikes me that there would be a much more helpful way to present these statistics than, you know, 90 sounds great, of course. I know why you would frame it this way, but even 66 prior criminal convictions, i mean, that begs for a further breakdown. Knowing just just being very straightforward here about the purpose of the policy, the purpose of the discussion, the purpose of the targeting, which on this subcommittee we have worked on for many, many years. By the way, nobodys saying everybody else gets a free ride. But we have said for years that given limited resources, given the fact that we are going to deport, maybe 400,000 people a year, out of 11 Million People here, there is going to be discretion exercised. And that discretion needs to be intelligently and appropriately exercised to remove dangerous people. So it would help at least to have statistics that are responsive to that to that concern. Director albence i fully agree. I wholeheartedly support being transparent. We have quarterly calls with the media with regard to all of our statistics when it comes to Immigration Enforcement. Our end of year report is about 20 pages. It breaks down by nationality, by country, by crime. Thankfully there are not 40,000, 50,000 criminals excuse me murderers that we need to arrest every year. Mr. Price it will be helpful to know how many there are. Director albence about 800 last year. Mr. Price whether were prioritizing those people. I will ask you to break down that prior criminal convictions category more precisely. Director albence happy to do so. Thanks for the time yesterday. Mr. Price to know the extent were dealing with violent crims. My time is fast running out. Let me quickly give you an example of another way to frame this. This has to do with the daily count of detainees, a slightly ifferent universe. But from september 16 to december 18 there is a 22 increase in the daily count of detainees. Thats from 39,000 to 47,000. But the number of individuals who had committed serious crimes dropped by over 1,200 despite that overall increase, and the number of immigrant detainees who had never been convicted of even a minor violation grew by 8,300 people. Thats a different framing of statistics that puts a very different light on the situation. I just think the in a way, the beginning of an intelligent discussion here, especially a discussion of appropriate targeting and pry orization and the exercise prioritization and the exercise of discretion needs to be a more a more straightforward presentation of the facts. I think what i just gave does indicate that weve had some slippage, considerable slippage in the degree which were targeting dangerous people. Director albence so exactly what happened there is exactly whats going on at the border now. Thats the result of all border cases. That is when the border surge began. Ll those noncriminals border cases that are in our custody is under those cases, dictated by congress under section 241 of the i. N. A. The reason the criminals dropped, i had to redeploy officers to deal with the border surge cases. Thats a direct result. When we say its a crisis, it affects the entire Immigration Enforcement continuum. It does maybe everybody less safe because we are able to arrest fewer criminals. Were down 14 . Were going to arrest 15,000, 18,000 less criminals this year directly because whats going on at the border. This crisis is not limited to the border. These individuals are not staying in the border communities and just theyre dispersing in the country. We have to manage those cases. Some are getting involved in criminal activity. We have fewer and fewer resources to deal with that, unfortunately. Mr. Price well return to this. Thank you, madam chairman. Ms. Roybalallard director, before i ask my question, i just want to respond to something that you mentioned in your response to ms. Wasserman schultz, a question about the ability to provide reporting about i. C. E. Detention and removal of military veterans. You mentioned that part of the problem is due to a lack of funding to modernize your systems. In the 2018 congress provided an additional 6 million for this purpose, and in 2020, i recommended an additional 2. 5 million. Both additions are above the administrations budget request. Im also recommending an additional 2 million for your Law Enforcement systems and Analysis Division who do the analysis and the reporting. Im trying to help by adding funding above what youre asking for. If this isnt enough, i think its important that you tell us exactly what it is you need so that you can be more transparent about your operations. Id like to just follow up a little bit more on some of what mr. Cuellar was talking about with regards to detention facilities and the conditions that are there. I have several questions, so im going to try to ask as many as i can in the time that i have. Irst of all, its really unacceptable the substandard conditions at i. C. E. Facilities that have been reported and also which i myself seen in my visits. Im hoping well be able to make some progress on that together. One of my questions is, have you carried out a full review and taken the necessary corrective actions to ensure that the recommendations from the o. I. G. And the g. A. O. And i. C. E. s own standards and oversight recommendations are ing implemented at every detention facility that i. C. E. Operates . Director albence thank you. Yes. We have. We have a comprehensive Oversight Framework that we utilize. I would say that our detention facilities receive more scrutiny and appropriately so. We dont have any reason not to have that scrutiny and we welcome transparency. I mean, we have Detention Service monitors that work for headquarters out there in the field. In the larger facilities, we have officers on the ground that deal with issues on a daytoday basis. Some of these monitors are on site. Thanks to you and the committee for the additional funding in 2019 for office of detention oversight. We were able to fund 14 more positions. Ms. Roybalallard what is the status . Director albence the 14 positions will be on board by the end of this f. Y. And we expect to do, i believe i thought we were about 15 we plan to do about 15 more inspections this year than we were able to do last year based on additional funding. Obviously, once we get new inspectors on that will increase going forward. Ms. Roybalallard ok. Director albence sorry. Ms. Roybalallard i was trying to get all my questions in. Director albence go ahead. Ms. Roybalallard we continue to hear disturbing reports that i. C. E. Is contracting for additional detention capacity where basic standards are not being met. One example is a relatively new facility in texas that does not allow contact visitation unless theres a significant advance planning. I. C. E. Standards state that contact visitation should be provided, especially when minor children are involved. Remember, we are talking about civil detention, not criminal detention. And my question is, do you believe its acceptable for i. C. E. To enter into these agreements to provide detention civil Detention Services where reasonable opportunities for contact visitation with families and attorneys cant or wont be required, which is contrary to your agencys own standards . Director albence im not familiar with that facility. Ill certainly look into it. On the larger question, as you well know, all of our contracts that were required to enter into any contract that we enter into is supposed to be at the pbnds 2011 standards. And if we dont meet those standards, then we are supposed to notify congress 30 days prior to actually enter into that contract which we have done. Those fotifications have been few. I can only remember one or two we sent when i was an e. A. D. I know the contracts we are doing in order to get the additional capacities to deal with the border cases, were at the 2011 level. Ms. Roybalallard this is in montgomery county. It started using it october of 2018. So if i can get some additional information. Director albence ill be happy to look into it. Thank you. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Fleischmann. Mr. Fleischmann thank you, again, madam chair. Thank you, director albence. This testimony is informational and it helps us all do our job. Mr. Director, the d. H. S. Secretary sent a letter dated march 28 that states, and i quote, without additional assistance, we will be forced to increase the releases of the single Adult Population from i. C. E. The only population for which we can currently effectively enforce u. S. Immigration laws. When meeting with Border Patrol agents, the point is made time after time that if we cant keep up with detaining and returning single adults, weve lost the border. Question, do you agree, does the sentiment of the march 28 letter still hold . Director albence without a doubt. Flibeflibe how can we make sure mr. Fleischmann how can we make sure we dont lose ground on this population, sir . Director albence again, in dealing again, just dealing with the symptoms now, absent additional capacity, i dont know how you would do it. Theres not a way to move these cases through the system really much quicker than they currently do. We certainly need to make sure that the individuals have all ability to access their due process rights. If they want to have appeals of their cases and the like, they are certainly able to do so, and we want them all due process. Absent additional capacity, theres only so beds we have and only so quickly we can turn them around. Mr. Fleischmann yes, sir. From your testimony, its evident resources alone wont fix this crisis. This is a very complicated set of issues or it would have been solved by now. Again, going back to the march 28 letter, the secretary referenced a legislative proposal to congress in the coming days to address the immigration and asylum policies. My questions, do you know the status of an immigration proposal from the department or the administration, and will we see an official proposal, sir . Director albence congressman, i dont know the exact status. I can tell you i know what the proposal contains and it would contain the items, among others, but the three main items i mentioned in my testimony with regard to flores, the credible fear threshold and the ttpra. We can check with you and get back with you. Mr. Fleischmann thank you. Recent outbreaks of measles, mumps have how are you managing to contain the outbreak . How many detainees are ill . How many beds are affected . Director albence so it changes. Im not sure how many we have. For the past six to eight months, its generally been around 4,000 to 5,000 beds that are cohorted as a result of diseases. Frankly, that makes a point which i should have made so i appreciate you bringing it up. Even with the expanded capacity, when we have to quarantine a whole wing, we can lose. At any one time we may have 1,500, 2,000 beds are vacant but they are in the quarantine pod so we cant utilize them. Mr. Fleischmann yes, sir. What efforts are you making to make sure detainees at the affected sites, specifically and across i. C. E. Facilities have unfettered access to medical care . What efforts are under way to make sure they are not introduced to new outbreaks, sir . Director albence with regard to not introducing the population, we utilize all standard practices within the detention environment. You know, to ensure those individuals are quarantined and kept separate from the general population and are not released from custody until were certain theyre past inc. Bation period and are clear. Incubation period and are clear. Thank you to the committee for the funding that we put directly into use. We have been leveraging resources from Public Health. As im sure youre aware, the we have sworn commissioned Public Health officers that do a lot of our medical and oversee our medical program. That includes doctors, nurse practitioners, social workers, the whole plethora of medical services that are provided. They do a tremendous job. Their sole existence, and they take it to heart, is to ensure the safety and care and health of the individuals in our detention. Mr. Plishe nan yes, sir mr. Fleischmann yes, sir. When do you think the facilities will be safe to use again . Director albence if i knew that one id be in vegas. New people come in every day. The Border Patrol has no idea what theyll catch and we dont know what diseases individuals might have. My guess is, its not a new phenomenon. Its expanded because the numbers have expanded so greatly. We had to do this in the detention realm for as long as we held aliens. Mr. Fleischmann very well. Madam chair, i yield back. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Rupp ersberg mr. Rupp ersberger. Ruppersberger mr. Ruppersberger i think the Biggest Issue we have now is whether its judges, whether its dealing with this problem, and were having a serious problem, i said yesterday in the hearing that Border Patrol agents said, we make arrests, it used to be wed seen them in court or whatever. Thats what we do here. Now, you have a whole other dynamic to your mission. And thats homing these individuals. I want to talk about discretion with respect to your agency. You have the discretion release nonviolent, nonflight risk detainees on patrol or bond. Home visits, g. P. S. Monitoring, ankle bracelets are at your disposal. Looking to what your mission is and what i think congressman price and i both tried to focus on the bad people, the individuals that are really that we need the expertise of officers to go after. Thats where i would like to see your mission and i would like this country to understand that. What a lot of people are seeing, were going to come out and get you and families have been here and theyre afraid and local governments arent working with you. I mean, its just not where it needs to be. Now, the my question is that, i think we provided 20 million to alternatives to detention. These programs are less costly hew erican taxpayers, more man than standard detention. They come with Court Compliance rates to about 90 when you put people in these type of situations. How fast can you expand alternative to Detention Programs to reduce this overcrowding which i believe helps you, helps our country, it helps the image of what a lot of people are seeing as abuse of people and families and children . Director albence so most of the in fact, every unless the small percentage that claim negative credible fear than the Family Residential environment and are found not to have it are released into the community. We have at this point, based on funding, have about 101,000 individuals on a. T. D. We could put, based on existing funding, about 64,000 people on the g. P. S. Bracelet annually and keep them on there. At our current volume, thats about half of the number of people that came in in the month of may. At which point, we would not be able to put anybody else on a bracelet until those individuals came off. As you well know, on the nondetained docket, those cases may go three, five, seven years. Such that we would be able to put very few individuals on a bracelet from that point forward. Meaning, everybody else would just be released. Frankly, what weve seen, and which goes to why we surge so many resources to deal with these fraudulent family units, is that the rate for these family units are far higher than the single adults we used to use it on. Its about 26 right now the rate for family units on these g. P. S. We have criminal investigations at h. H. S. Ongoing. We have individuals under surveillance and watch them cut off their bracelets. I think a lot of it comes to the fact these arent real families. Its individuals that are single adult males that are renting a child in mexico, paying a smuggler or cartel or the cartel for that child, bring them into the country. As soon as theyre processed and released, they care less what happens to the child and they go on their way and cut their bracelet off. There is some success showing up at hearings and meetings. That success drops once the individual neers the end of that process because the nears the end of that process because the chance for removal are higher. If they go to a status hearing or marriage hearing, they may not get a hearing. Mr. Ruppersberger let me stop there. Because i only have a minute. In policing, your job is to protect our society, arrest when people break the law. In some area where you have im from the baltimore region. I represent baltimore city. They have a bad rep right now. We have to work to turn that around. Part is, do you have a system where somebody is focusing on communitytype policing . Instead of everyone who is here waiting, whatever needs to be done, that they dont theyre not going to fear i. C. E. Other than if they get arrested they will be treated that way . Because you got an image issue. As a member of congress, i dont want you to have an image issue because you have that mission and that mission is based on the laws we passed. You got to work on this. Do you have any type of and this is my last question because my times up now. Do you have any type of program trying to work on your image now that whether you believe it or not is not good for 50 of this country . Director albence id love the media to publish the good things we do. We try diligently to get our story out there. Unfortunately, its not sensational to say i. C. E. Did a good job and removed this aggravated felon or moved this murder back to el salvador or i. C. E. Seized 1,000 pounds of fentanyl or i. C. E. Rescued this child from active sexual exploitation. Those stories dont get picked up. I can do as many tv shows i want, a lot of it falls on deaf ears, unfortunately. I think thats what we were going to earlier, the rhetoric is so high. Mr. Ruppersberger 30 seconds and then ill leave it to mr. Price. Its just two numbers. I want to point out one concern. The amount of arrests for traffic, 26,000 traffic offense. 0,000. That seems that would be the highest numbers. Thats part of our issue. Mr. Price will deal with that. I yield back. Thank you, madam chair. So director, do you or your officers get to decide who will actually be deported out of custody . Director albence again, unless the individual already has had their day in Immigration Court and has received a final order of removal from an immigration judge, we are the front end of that process just as a local beat cop or detective is in the criminal justice system. Mr. Rutherford were filing our charging document which is ours in to appear as opposed to a criminal complaint filed by a local jurisdiction. Mr. Rutherford your men and women make no deportation decisions, correct . Director albence correct. We make the arrest, the judge makes determination. In limited circumstances there are some cases in which individuals under the law are not entitled to a hearing with regard to the removeability issues but they are entitled to a hearing with regard to asylum or other form of relief from removal. Mr. Rutherford right. The reason i ask i think you said it earlier. You dont get to pick and choose what laws youre going to enforce. And so one of the things i think people need to understand, and it really kind of came up on military issue, your officers, when they go through a 287g facility and pick up an individual on a detainer, that individuals been charged. You dont have a choice. You pick them up. Whether they have military service in their background or not and how that will impact on their individual case is really up to the judge, not you or your officers, is that correct . Director albence thats correct. The judge makes the decision on removability. Mr. Rutherford ok. So let me change gears here. While there was a decrease in the number of migrants that were crossing the border in june relative to may, we still have over 100,000 people that cross the border. Were still hearing about whats going on at the port. C. B. P. Detention facilities are still overcapacity. He just received 208. 9 million in the supplemental bill. So im my question today is, do you anticipate that that will get you through the end of the year, thats going to be enough, or whats the burn rate on that . Director albence so the money that we were given, and we are appreciative of it, for the areas in transportation, medical services, the many we were able to give to h. S. I. , fraud investigations and d. N. A. Testing, which has proven very successful, that money is greatly appreciative and went right to work. Unfortunately, from a detention perspective, were still short and still short in the transportation area. Our request in the supplemental was around 110 million. That need still remains. Mr. Rutherford right. I tried to move 600 million over to you guys from forfeiture and seizures to address the detention beds. That failed. Let me ask this, also. After a Successful Pilot in ay, you mentioned rapid d. N. A. Processing, you all awarded 5. 2 Million Contract for additional d. N. A. Testing supplies. Can you give me an idea how that programs going, the rollout, hows it looking . Director albence its looking i say its looking good, i mean that from an operational perspective. From a criminal justice and victimization perspective is looking bad because we ran the first week of it last week. We opened up in seven different Border Patrol facilities. We have two machines in each facility with more machines to come. It was within the first week there were 102 referrals to us. We found 17 instances of fraud based on the d. N. A. Test. In fact, this is an experience we saw in the pilot as well. 14 of the individuals broke to the fact that they werent really family units to begin with at all. Before they even took the d. N. A. Test because they saw that was a potential for them. Were continuing to pursue that as it rolls out and add additional machines and capability. Im sure the result also go up significantly. Hopeful theres some deterrent effect as well because word spreads. Mr. Rutherford how many family groups have you discovered where its not a parent but an aunt, uncle, that sort of thing . Director albence so we have a couple things going on at one time. Weve had about if you look at just the family fraud investigations that have been going on in the surge we have down there, its been going on for several months. Were only getting the cases Border Patrol refers to us. We had about 3,000 cases referred to us. Through the investigative process we found 400 of those to be fraudulent. Most of them, they are some that are Family Members. Usually what happens when were saying theyre fraudulent, theyre presenting themselves as if they actually are father and son or mother and son, whatever the case may be. Or what were finding a lot of them, theyre actually adults. So you got an uncle thats 32 years old and you have a kid thats 19 years old and he comes in and says this is my 17yearold. Release us as a family unit. We presented 170 prosecutorses and 682 have been accepted for prosecution. What we are seeing and is troubling to us and were doing our best to combat it, a lot of the individuals claim to be u. A. C. s arent u. A. C. s. Were finding individuals 23, 24 years old coming up with 16yearold or 17yearold birth certificates. Were extremely concerned about that because those individuals will go to h. H. S. Custody. Last thing we want is a 24yearold male being in custody with a bunch of 10yearold boys. Thats an untenable situation for all concerned. Our overarching goal as we said all along is to keep the safety of these children. We identified 59 of those. 58 have been prosecuted. The u. S. Attorneys office have been down at the southwest border, has been a tremendous partner for us. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Aguilar. Mr. Aguilar thank you, madam chair. Thank you, mr. Director. On on tuesday this week you told reporters the reason i. C. E. Raids were successful is because the agency had the element of surprise. You also said when the media when Media Attention is drawn to potential i. C. E. Raids it inhibits the ability of i. C. E. Agents to do their job. S that a fair summary . Director albence im not sure we have the element of surprise with all the Media Attention that got. Im not sure the exact quote. Mr. Aguilar typically when congressional offices are asked about rumored raids, i. C. E. Frequently tells us that information cant be shared because of pending operations. You know thats generally the response we receive, is that correct . Director albence the only thing that is correct except to the fact i think its a disservice to classify them as raids. We were going after targeted individuals who had been through the Immigration Court process, who we know who they were, and had been issued a removal from a judge. A raid, calling them that, heightens the temperature. When the this was go out or police executes a warrant on somebody, they dont call it a raid. They say well arrest them. Mr. Aguilar there are mr. Aguilar there are quite a arrests. Laborative he talked a lot i know that thats a point of frustration at times for folks about that relationship with the community. I think that comes with trust. When the collateral numbers, you know, increase, and pretty significantly by field offices, even, thats a concern for us. Thats a concern thats a concern as a policymaker. What i call a raid, when there are significant collateral arrests made. If you want to target someone and you can highlight the criminality, thats fine. But when you get into the collateral pieces and you start grabbing other folks who are in proximity and breaking windows, pulling people out of cars, those are things that heighten the level. I just want to make sure you understand that thats what were talking about. Director albence i certainly do. Collateral arrests have occurred throughout the time of Immigration Enforcement. They occur in Law Enforcement. Our Law Enforcement practices are the same as state and local Law Enforcement agencies. When they have a warrant and they are going to identify for their safety as well as the safety of the residents of that house, theyre going to identify those individuals. They are also going to determine if those individuals have or maybe the individual, if they have a gun on them, is committing a crime in their press. If they arrest them. When i was with d. E. A. , when we went to the home and arrested the target of that warrant, there were many somebody elses that ended up being arrested. We go in for officer safety and ensure we know whos in the house. The last thing we want is a tragedy, to have somebody jump out of a closet and scare one of our officers. Mr. Aguilar removal of orders is not the same as a drug dealer at a d. E. A. I would reject that comparison. Let me move on because i just wanted to have that conversation about the announcements of targeted enforcement, ill call them. You dont want to call them raids. So do announcements of i. C. E. Enforcement actions impact officer safety and effectiveness . We want to nce make sure when we go out we have much operational safety as possible. When we knock on a door or take enforcement action, we generally call local Law Enforcement to make sure we dont have a blue on blue situation. And people in the community that would be in position to need to know do know. Mr. Aguilar the fewer people that do know generally are the more effective and better for officer safety, is that fair to say . Director albence again, depends if youre talking specifics or generalities. If there are specifics when our Operational Plan was leaked to the media and there were specifics, thats disconcerting, yes. Mr. Aguilar the president announced on multiple occasions that largescale operations were going to detain undocumented immigration as part of Operation Border resolve. Did you know that the did the department or you know the president was going to announce those pending operations . Director albence no. I dont believe they reached out to us for our input. Mr. Aguilar do you think it put officers danger in safety. Director albence the Washington Post was reporting on this back in the fall. When you do x, y, z without specifics, Everybody Knows we will do Immigration Enforcement. Civil immigration context, 300, 400 arrests a day. Our teams are out there every day. Its no secret were out there. Mr. Aguilar i think the president putting millions behind it. It amps it up quite significantly. So i would just i would just caution. And i hear you talk about the rhetoric of this conversation. Well, i dont think thats limited to members of congress. Thank you. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Cuellar. Mr. Cuellar thank you, madam chair. Mr. Director, i know weve been talking a lot about immigration, but i also want to thank your men and women that do work on the other crossborder activity which includes financial crimes, money laundering, cash smuggling, commercial fraud, intellectual property theft, cybercrimes, human rights violations, human smuggling, Human Trafficking, and other work that yall do. I do want to thank them for the other work they do even though we spend a lot of time on immigration. The other thing is, i feel if you go to some of the countries that have their Immigration Courts at the border, your folks have been a little resistant trying to put the courts at the border. Let me tell you. They will give me excuses why, but i think we ought to hold people at the border, give them their day in court, give them their due process, and as you know, according to the Immigration Court office, if you have 100 people, 88 of them are going to be rejected from asylum claims. 12 will be accepted. Unfortunately, we let people into the country. They are here for two, three, four, five years, whatever it is. Immigration courts tell us 44 of them dont show up after theyre giving the notice to appear. I think were doing it backwards. The trump administration, Obama Administration are doing it backwards. We should have them there. I ask you to have your folks reconsider the positions that theyve taken in the past where we have those Immigration Courts as much as possible. When we talk about Immigration Courts, we added i think about 315 since we started working on it i guess since 2014. You know, first thing they do is say, well, we want to do video conference. As you know, the reason they send judges to houston, to new york, san francisco, and all that is because they release people and they want to put judges where the people have been released. I think were doing it backwards. I would appreciate that. Like to follow up. The other thing is we have been adding judges. I think that your office of principal legal advisors needs a little bit of help. I believe your information is you probably need another 128 additional attorneys and 41 Additional Support staff so the Immigration Judges can do the work. I think what were missing right now are court space. We actually have more judges than court. Were hoping during this appropriation process, working through another subcommittee that we add court space, number one. Number two, that we add those attorneys because you dont have those attorneys, its hard for the judges to do the work. Id ask you also, because i do know a lot of Immigration Judges, that yall look at the old movie old show called night court. I do understand that your attorneys leave at 5 00 or so. From what i hear from judges. Somewhere 5 00, 6 00. You know, in many ways we ought to look at that show. If we need to do a little bit of extra work we should have some sort of night shift to address the backlog. Anyway, we want to be supportive on adding more moneys on that. Like to get your thoughts on what i just mentioned. Director albence well, certainly. I agree that trying to look, we got to be inventive. We cant keep doing the same thing the same and expect something to change. Were setting up these ports excuse me these courts at the p. O. E. s and holding the hearings there. Again, i think we can leverage v. T. C. For that both for euir. They are the biggest player. They own the courts. A lot you know, a lot of this falls on their shoulder. We work closely with them, of course. You know, i think it holds promise. Again, the challenge comes into, especially now with so many of the family units being the largest number of cases coming in, right, we cant hold them. We cant detain them under flores long enough to get through that Immigration Court process. Thats one of the bigger challenges. I will tell you i i testified when i was at e. A. D. For e. R. O. , i will take 200 attorneys before i take 200 officers at this point because the bottle neck is still there, the mass amount is still there. Ill get more productivity from those attorneys than those officers because the work is there. So were working close to try to find ways to do those things. If we can leverage technology. We have opened up courtrooms in some our new facilities so we can move those cases through more rapidly. But this is one of the ones where, again, its resource dependent. Youre right, its not just attorneys. Its courtrooms and facilities and support staff and the like. Well take whatever we can get plus some. Thank you. Ms. Roybalallard mr. Price. Mr. Price thank you, madam chairman. Mr. Director, let me just iefly revisit the statistics on whom youre detaining and deporting. Meaning just underscore my request because i want to move on to another question. Ive been looking at some figures about the breakdowns were discussing. It appears three of the top four categories in terms of people who are categories as criminals, criminal convictions, three of those four categories are drug offenses, d. U. I. , drug traffic offenses, d. U. I. , traffic offenses, more generally, and immigration offenses. Now, other crimes here are very serious. Many of them violent. But as far as the numbers are concerned, i would just return to my prior assertion, overall 90 figure really is not helpful. The appearance is. That its obscuring the discussion more than its helping with it. Iven the fact that the discussion has been and needs to be prioritize people that have been a threat to the community. I appreciate the comments about the diversion of personnel from the interior to the border rge has compromised your abilities. On the face of it, though, it doesnt seem it would affect the ratio. It might affect the yes, it affects the overall number who you detain and deport. Shouldnt affect the ratio of dangerous criminals to others. If there are other figures that would clarify the situation further id appreciate it. But we certainly need a breakdown of that 90 . Now, let me turn to the something thats been in the headlines in my own district but it just puzzles me nationwide. I want you to comment on it. Often very rse is difficult situation people taking sanctuary in places of worship. How are you putting pressure on those immigrants, those who are supporting them . Thats the question. Theres a recent case, a 38yearold mother of four taking sanctuary in the church of reconciliation in chapel hill in my district. One of five individuals taking sant wear in the state of north carolina. Sanctuary in the state of north carolina. She received notice i. C. E. Intends to fine her 314,007 for, quote, willfully failing or refusing to leave the United States and for having, quote, could he knifed or con onived or conspired. Apparently shes one of fewer than 10 undocumented immigrants living in sanctuary who received this notice of a fine, for this impossibly high sum. They cant possibly pay. Its my understanding that penalties do exist, they have existed since the mid 1990s. Its rare theyve gone above 1,000. Whats this all about . Y has i. C. E. Using these extremely severe financial penalties to target this group of individuals . How did you determine that it should be 799 a day . Actually, the law states that Civil Penalties for immigrants should be Something Like 500. It states, not more than 500 a day. Whats going on with these fines . How are you choosing whom to impose them on . Director albence thank you. So weve been looking at this. Again, what were trying to do is hold individuals accountable and try to restore some integrity to the rule of law and the immigration system. If you have individuals, again, and we are applying the laws that congress has passed and authorized us to do. They have authorized civil fines be levied on certain offenses certain behavior. One includes a fine for an individual to ignore a voluntary departure ordered by an immigration judge. Theres a fine that comes with that. Theres a fine for failure to depart for orders of removal. Reverse criteria must be met for that to happen. The order was issued in person. It wasnt the individual cant say they didnt know that. It has to be an inperson order which is essential. The 799 and we did a federal register on this last year when we began the process is accounted for inflation. Thats how it came to that amount. But if were going to have any integrity in the immigration system, i dont think we can have a system whereby somebody can avail themselves of all due process, work for you know, work the system for five, six, seven, eight years and they get a result they dont agree with, go take sanctuary in a church where they know sensitive location policies prevents them having the law enforced against them. We are going to use all the tools available to try to gain compliance with the lawfully issued judges order. Part of this, too, if we want to have a secured border, there has to be consequences for illegal entry. That means that you have to leave the country if youre ordered to be removed by an immigration judge. If there is a way we can fine you civilly, then were going to do that too. Mr. Price do you think theres any doubt these people have that that youre on their case . Why are you doing this now . Why are you doing this now . How did you pick the 10 people around the country that you were going to slap these fines on . Director albence so weve been doing it ill be off a month or two, maybe. October last year we started this process. Weve been going through each of the field offices. There is defined criteria which an individual has to meet to be eligible for a fine. It actually takes quite a while to review the case, to determine if they meet all the factors required by law and statute to be amenable to being fined. We have been going through various field offices and going through fugitives, trying to find individuals that are there. Some of the individuals, when we located them, we arrested them and removed them rather than fining them because we knew where they were. Individuals that we cant locate or arent able to find or that take sant wear, there are more sanctuary cases out there. It those that didnt meet the criteria for a fine. Mr. Price if you can furnish director albence certainly. Mr. Price its certainly a mystery to me and my community. Thank you, madam chairman. Ms. Roybalallard we are past the time to end. I appreciate you agreeing to stay here beyond the 3 00 schedule that we had originally given you. I do have some other questions that ill submit. Particularly with regard to the treatment of pregnant women in detention. Ill be following up. Thank you very much for your time and look forward to continuing to work with you on some of the issues that have been raised. Director albence as do i. Thank you. Ms. Roybalallard thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] parents discuss School Safety and gun violence. On cspan2, matthew albence, the director of immigration and Customs Enforcement testifies on oversight at his agency. Cspan3, a hearing compms high Prescription Drug prices and the impact on patients. Ms. Speier i was on an airstrip in the remote jungles ue anna having just g ghana and we were ambushed on that airstrip and shot. Congressman ryan was shot 45 times and died on that airstrip. There were members of the press that died. One defector of the peoples temple who died. And i was shot five times on the right side of my body. Sunday night on q a California Democratic congresswoman Jackie Speier talks about her memoir, undaunted, surviving joanstown, summoning courage and fighting back. Ms. Speier when people say it was a mass suicide, it was not a mass suicide. They were forced to drink this oxic brew. By jones. And he had many of the guards surrounding, im sure, to make sure that people did as he told. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. In 1979, a Small Network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. Let viewers make up their own minds. Cspan opened the doors to washington policy for all to see, bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. A lot has changed in 40 years, but today that big idea is morrell vant than ever. On more relevant than ever. On television and online, cspan is your unfiltered view of government, so you can make up your own mind, brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. President trump and Vice President pence participated in a welcome ceremony at the pentagon for new defense secretary mark esper. The Senate Confirmed him as the 27th secretary of defense in a 908 vote on tuesday