Officers face in carrying out their missions to secure our nations border. Before i begin i would like to start with a moment of silence. Border patrol agent martinez killed in the line of duty last year in texas. I recognize myself. Agents and officers of u. S. Customs and Border Protection work every day to secure our nation often in rugged terrain in remote areas far away from the amenities of modern life and exposed to blistering heat of the arizona desert and the brutal cold in places like montana. Working at the nations ports of entry the men and women are the driving force behind our Border Security operations. The nation and is fortunate they are willing to endure hardship to make sure the border is secure. Agents willing to take risks on every shift to ensure that cartels cannot smuggle drugs cannot smuggle through our ports is dangerous work. Some of them have the potential to kill or cause grave bodily harm. A few weeks ago an agent in san diego was patrolling the border on an all Terrain Vehicle when struck in the chest by a grapefruit sized rock causing him to lose control of his atv which rolled over on him. Thankfully the agent has been released from the hospital and will recover. But this type of assault is far from an anomaly. Many other agents have been seriously injured by sizable rocks thrown over the fence. On the screens to the left and right weve put up photographs of the gruesome injuries suffered by our brave agents during these rock attacks. Unfortunately, such assaults are becoming more commonplace in part because of the increase in the number of criminal aliens attempting to cross the border illegally who would rather resist arrest than face jail time for parole violations or felony reentry charge. More should be done to make sure those are held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Securing the border and facilitating cross border commerce that powers a nation economic growth. But in order to accomplish those missions they need enough agents an officers to make arrests, interdict drug load, screen cargo and move commerce and passengers through air land and sea ports of entry. U. S. Border patrol agents and officers are the most important Border Security and trade facilitation resource we have. Unfortunately, they are in short supply these days. Which has created a National Security and economic vulnerability that this Congress Must address. Critically under staffed and remains well below its Staffing Levels by more than a thousand officers in 1900 Border Patrol agents. The manpower shortage is getting worse. We are losing ground every single month and there is no end in sight as we continue to lose experienced agents and officers through attrition without the ability to efficiently hire new ones. The president has smartly called for the hiring of an additional 5,000 agents but we have to ensure they are set up for success to not only hire those agents in a timely fashion but to retain them in the future. The u. S. Border patrol has not met its mandated hiring numbers since 2014 and theyve been losing officers since early in fy 16. Several underlying issues are responsible for these current staffing loads. For starters it takess more than 292 days and 12 distinct steps on average to hire a new officer or agent. Very few people can wait somewhere between six months to a year for a job. On top of that, officers and agents are required to pass a polygraph examination however the pace rates have not kept pace for the demand for more officers and agents. The house passed my bill to waive the polygraph requirement for current state and local Law Enforcement officers who have already passed a polygraph examination, federal Law Enforcement officers who have already passed stringent Background Investigation and veterans with at least three consecutive years in the military who have held a security clearance and passed a background check. Theses small changes will provide immediate relief so theyre able to quickly yet judiciously hire officers and agents from a pool of qualified applicants that maintain the Publics Trust and put their lives on the line for security and safety on a daily basis. The challenges for our agents and officers are significant which is why ive called this hearing today. I think it will benefit the members of the subcommittee to receive firsthand testimony from the line agents on the ground. I want to hear your perspectives on what it will take to secure our border, listen to your firsthand views on hiring, retention and mobility challenges that have plagued the last few years and discuss some solutions to the troubling and increasing trend of assaults on our agents. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, gentleman from texas for any statement he may have. Thank you, chairwoman mcsally for holding todays hearing and our witnesses from the national Border Patrol council and the National Treasury employees union who have joined us today. Given the ongoing debate on Border Security, hearing directly in the unions that represent thousands of boarder patrol agents an can customs and Border Patrol agents working on the front lines will be beneficial to this subcommittee. Over the past several months the white house and Senior Administration officials have insisted that building a border wall from coast to coast will keep our illegals keep out Illegal Drugs criminal aliens and other threats. However u. S. Coast guard officials have testified before this subcommittee time and again that the solutions to these threats are broader and simply using physical barriers. This subcommittee has heard that vast quantities of narcotics are interdicted in the transit zone near central and south america and at our maritime borders. U. S. Coast guard and air and marine options need modern assets to keep up with the flow of illegal narcotics in this zone. We have heard how drugs are smuggled into the United States in massive Cargo Containers through our land ports of entry, express mail, tunnels under fences and ultralight aircraft and drones. We know that people are smuggled and trafficked that the United States through legitimate forms of travel and others come here legally but overstay. Data shows that people on the terrorist watch list are encountered by cvp significantly more frequently than along our southern border. Further more the majority of these individuals present themselves at ports of entry, rather than try to sneak into the country. To kraes these threats, cbp relies on techniques, technology, infrastructure and officers and agents. Faces serious challenges in recruiting and maintaining a professional workforce to accomplish its mission and the challenges are open getting worse. I have mention multiple times hiring and retention problems pose a risk. Based on its work force staffing model, office of Field Operations, needs to deploy an additional 2,500 officers to ports of entry in order to meet demand and it does not include the more than 1,000 vacancies still left unfilled since the last Time Congress authorized a staffing increase. This is a known factual documented need. I understand that over the holidays officers assigned to some of the busiest land ports of entry along our southern border were working multiple 16 hour shifts to keep up with the flow of travelers and commerce. This situation is bad for the officers and bad for Border Security as well as legitimate commerce and trade. Border patrol agents are under pressure to maintain vigilance and professionalism in the face of cartels and other actors who endanger their safety. Republican leadership in congress and the administration would be wise to address these critical staffing and personnel needs before considering a multibillion dollar border wall. At the same time, Border Patrol agents must contend with using Communications Technology and deteriorating Forward Operating bases in remote regions along our borders. Has a duty to troets the men and women fairly, equip and comment says them appropriately. Manpower is a critical component of Border Security and i look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today about their experiences, trends and threats they have seen on the front lines, and what they would like to see cbp to address and prevent the exploitation of our borders by those who seek to do us harm. All members support you to secure our nations borders ensure the flow of legitimate trade and travel that drives our nations economy and upholding ideals that make america great. I thank the chairwoman and i thank our witnesses for joining us and yield back the balance of my time. Other members are reminded Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Pleased to be joined by four witnesses to discuss this important topic. Mr. Brandon judd is the Border Patrol agent and president is a Border Patrol agent and president of the national Border Patrol council representing 16,500 Border Patrol line agents and brings nearly 20 years of experience as a Border Patrol agent. Mr. Judd is Border Patrol agent in montana. Mr. John anthenson has been an agent for 11 years and assigned to the del rio sector in texas and spent several years working in the prosecutions unit including two years as a liaison to the u. S. Attorneys office in texas and is certified as an emt. Agent anfinson the local president of the union and elected as a National Vice president with the national council. Miss rosemary pepperdine began her career with the u. S. Border patrol california. During her 21 year career she has apprehended numerous aliens, worked for multiple agencies on Different Task forces and is here from my town tucson, arizona. Mr. Anthony Anthony Riordan is the National Treasury employees union and a member of the Union Representing 150,000 federal workers including 25,000 custom and Border Protection employees. Ree riordan has over 25 years of service. Chairwoman, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I would like to thank you for inviting me to testify today in order to communicate the significant challenges that our nations Border Patrol agents are facing. My organization and i have a longstanding relationship with chairwoman mcsally and Ranking Member vela. In fact, i appreciate everything that you two do for our agents. My name is brandon judd and i currently serve representing 16,000 Border Patrol line agents and i have 26 years of experience as a Border Patrol agent and a thorough understanding of the policies affecting Border Security and id like to discuss a few issues with you today. The debate over what to do with undocumented immigrants in the United States has been raging for as long as i can remember, and the debate will continue as long as people from other countries are able to sneak across our borders, evade apprehension and disappear into the shadows of society. In short, until the borders are secure we will continue to have hearings such as this and Border Security and illegal immigration will continue to be politicized and will continue to be a polarizing topic that divides liberals, moderates and conservatives of all parties. In a recent town hall meeting, a United States senator asked a packed Conference Room of Border Patrol agents what percentage of illegal Border Crossers in their individual locations are apprehended . The answers ranged from 40 to 60 . He then asked what percentage of narcotics that are smuggled across the border are detected and seized . The percentage went down exponentially. The senator wasnt surprised and in a later, private meeting he asked me what the proper percentage would be to consider the border secure . My answer was that the percentage could vary from location to location, but a secure border would be achieved once it became too difficult for criminal cartels to turn a profit and the risk outweighed the reward. Unfortunately, and as we speak we still have work to do, illegal crossborder crime including human smuggling is a multibilliondollar industry and is exclusively within and without the United States. These criminal enterprises, cartels are constantly evolving and adapt to Law Enforcement postures. The cartels have come to realize that we are far more reactive than proactive which makes it easy for them to stay one step ahead of our enforcement efforts. In some cases the cartels will expend a great deal of money and resources to dig expensive tunnels, bribe government employees, build elaborate com part chl partments in vehicles and many other measures to get their contraband across the borders illegally. Most of the time, however, they will use simple ingenuity that allows them to use our laws, lack of resources and prosecutorial aggression against us. Over the past year weve seen a historic drop in the number of people entering the United States illegally. It was all it took to send shock waves throughout the world. Less people were entering the country illegally which meant Border Patrol agents werent being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It became more difficult and we were putting a dent in the profits of the cartels. The assaults on agents increased on 76 in 2017 compared to the previous year. In order to combat this issue, we must understand what i believe are the three drivers, cartel violence, criminal alien attempting to illegally reenter the United States and manpower. As previously stated all of the human and narcotic trafficking along the border are by cartels. They have killed an estimated 150,000 people including Law Enforcement in mexico. I believe that the violence we are seeing is simply a spillover from the chaos on the other side of the border. The other thing is criminal aliens attempting to reenter the United States for obvious reasons, criminal aliens are more likely to assault Border Patrol agents and until fully prosecuted i believe the assaults will continue. Manpower is also a huge issue. We are currently almost 2,000 agents below the congressional floor of 21,370 agents. The president has proposed the hiring of 5,000 additional agents which we fully support. The committee has included 5,000 additional agents in the Border Security for america act and i want to thank the committee for doing so. However, this year there is only a proposal to fund 500 new agents. At this rate the agents we hire this year will behalf way to retirement before we meet the goal of an additional 5,000 new agents by 2028. In the field, manpower equals Response Time. Whether it be a center hit or an agent fighting for his life, currently we have agents covering largescale areas where the nearest backup may be more than 15 to 20 minute away. As someone who has had to struggle to arrest a violent subject on more than one occasion, that kind of Response Time is equivalent to no response at all. I fear that the level of violence that we are seeing now may become the new normal. This is because the new primary drivers of the violence, cartels and criminal aliens are most likely going to get worse and not better in the years ahead and we need to focus our efforts on what we can change and this includes more manpower and ensuring that any assault on an agent is fully prosecuted. I thank the committee for your time and look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, mr. Judd. The chair recognizes mr. Anfin for five minutes. I want to thank you for inviting us to the committee and affording us the opportunity to testify this morning. My name is John Anfinson and ive been assigned to the del rio sector my entire career and including working two years at the u. S. Attorneys office. I want to discuss with you this morning the issues of retention and recruitment and how they affect Border Patrols operations in the field. As you know, Law Enforcement is a difficult career. The hours are long and often unpredictable, and we workweek ends and holidays and all of this takes a toll not only on us, but our families. I work with a lot of great people who truly care about Border Security and theyve become a second family and after 11 years on the job i still look forward to going to work every day. Interdicting drug smugglers or rescuing undoumencumented immigs lost in the brush, it presents a challenge when it comes to recruitment, retention and morale. Unlike other Law Enforcement agencies, Border Patrol covers shift work that covers seven days a week, 365 days a year and some agents struggle to make it to retirement with a career filled with injuries. We have to work in communities that lack Quality Health care, schools and Employment Opportunities for our spouses. The Border Patrol is only as good as its employees. If we cant retain quality personnel we will never be able to secure our border. As judd previously testified we are currently 2,000 agents below the mandated agents and this is largely due to the result of two issues. First, the agency is facing a hiring push, and agents just leaving the Border Patrol before theyre due to retire. Currently the Border Patrol has a 6 attrition rate which is nearly twice the government wide federal Law Enforcement attrition rate of 3. 2 . Agents routinely transfer to other federal Law Enforcement for a whole host of reasons and compounding the problem is the pay disparity that Border Patrol has with competing agencies. In 2014, Congress Passed the Border Patrol agent pay reform act and this legislation modernized the overtime system that agent his used for over 40 years and give agents a stable pay system. This legislation which we supported was revenue neutral, however through the legislative process the Obama Administration had a savings cut of 100 per year in the final law and as a result, it took a pay cut of 5500. The the agency had begun limiting agents auo which affected monthly pay and retirement. It is our understanding that it costs 180,000 to recruit, hire and train one new agent which that means with every agent that we lose, taxpayers are losing 180,000. If agents were properly compensated and that compensation leads to retaining agent, it will lead to a net gain for the taxpayer. The Border Patrol cannot be successful if our attrition rate remains nearly double what the sister rate is facing. The national Border Patrol council has number yatinitiated Trump Administration and i hope they can play a positive role on this issue. The support of the administrations proposal to hire 5,000 additional agents. In order to do this and account for a drittrition the border pa would have to hire 729 new agents every year for the next five years. To put this in perspective in 2016, we hired, trained and employed 485 new agents and at this hiring rate we are not able to keep up with attrition and much less add manpower. The single biggest hindrances is po polygraph. I know this is a controversial subject and the Border Patrol is failing two out of every three applicant which is is double the rate of what they see. There is a problem with how were administering the polygraph. They passed the reauthorization act which gave the cbp the ability to waive the polygraph for Law Enforcement officers and military Service Members and we believe it is a positive step forward, but its not the only solution. The bottom line is we need to start administering the polygraph correctly and stop treating applicants like criminal suspects. Despite what weve received, the ranks are plagued with low morale. Cbp lz begun to look at employee resiliency, including morale and until we get everyone in the agency with the morale, and we will ton lose more agents than we can hire. Many of the agencies that do well with recruitment and retention are able to provide a portfolio of the benefits and perks which make their agencies a desirable place to work. Now that all Law Enforcement agencies are having to compete nationwide for a shrinking board of applicants they need to do a better job of making themselves desirable for current agents and prospective employees and the adverse effects of low morale and attrition oftentimes are not detected until years later, i want to thank the committee for your time this morning and look forward to answering questions that you may have. The chair recognizes ms. Pepperdine for five minutes. Chairwoman sally, and Ranking Member vela and distinguished member, id like to thank you all for inviting me to today. During the first half of my career i was stationed in the san diego sector and in 2005 i transferred to the tucson sector. I am pleased to work side by side with the men and women of Border Patrol to face the challenges along the border. I would like to address three themes that highlight how we is effectively utilize the manpower. 263 miles of the 3,000 miles at a cost of 7 billion since fiscal year 2007 and this fencing consists of 353 miles of primary fencing and 300 miles of vehicle fencing and 36 miles of secondary fencing, and 14 miles of tertiary fencing behind the secondary fence. Fencing is a tool that allows agents that maximize the available manpower. It is not a single solution to immigration and drug trafficking. Illegal immigrants and drug traffickers routinely go over, under and through existing fencing. Its not a prudent investment. What fencing does do is allow us to maximize our manpower. Generally speaking, in areas where there is no primary facing it takes one agent to secure a linear mile of the border. However, in areas where there is fencing we can increase the range of an ancient to thrgent miles. This can be done quickly and at a nominal cost. To put this in perspective, the 36 miles of fencing already in place was constructed for 2 million per mile. Beyond secondary fencing would need the 300 miles would focus del rio, laredo and the indian reservation in arizona. Effective communication is both a critical component of agent safety. In cbps congressional budget request 18,000 agents lack adequate voice encryption. 35,000 units cannot communicate with state and local Law Enforcement agencies. For most of my career i have the radio that oftentimes does not work in the field. The primary issue is a lack of signal coverage. Essentially if you are not within close proximity, you cannot communicate. When working in remote area alone and without backup an inoperable radio quickly becomes a safety issue. Many times of my career i had a fellow agent that could not communicate and in some instances i had to use my personal cell phone to communicate with other agents. With that said, i would like to thank you for including the america act calling for radio communication, and most likely everyone has a smartphone with an lte capability. Right now there are ltecapable safety radios that are on the communications system. If a signal is not available you are able to switch to a lte provider. This is a quantum leap forward and would greatly improve both agent safety and effectiveness. The Border Patrol is a topheavy organization with a convoluted chain of command. Although congress has appropriated funds to double the size of the Border Patrol we have unfortunately, not doubled the number of agents in the field. To put this in perspective, the average large size Police Department has one supervisor for every ten officers. The Border Patrol has one supervisor for every four agents. Why do we have twice as many supervisors as other large Law Enforcement agencies . Your guess is as good as mine. Headquarters there are only 300 agents. The management blow has been at the sector and station level. In some sectors we have more agent assigned than we do at headquarters. Congress should force the agency to have the Management Structure to something in line with other Law Enforcement agencies. In addition, allow me to anyone arrested by Border Patrol is processed before being turned over to i. C. E. Or voluntarily returned to their country. This includes taking by on metric, running a criminal back ground check for outstanding warrants and filling out paperwork. You could have 15 to 20 of the agents bogged down processing. Theyre not active in the field in comparison, many Police Departments have civilian employees who make considerably less than officers handle the bulk of the processing. Thank you for your time this morning and i look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you, ms. Pepperdine. The chair recognizes mr. Riordan for five minutes. Chairwoman sally and Ranking Member vela. Thank you for the identify to testify on behalf of over 25,000 frontline customs and Border Protection officers, agriculture specialists and trade enforcement specialists at cbp who are stationed at 328 u. S. Air, sea and land ports of entry and preclearance operations overseas. First, id like to say that nteu supports the nomination of kevin mclean to be the next cbp commissioner. That said there is no greater roadblock in security in stopping people, drugs, illegal weapons and money and to ensuring legitimate trade and travel efficiency than the lack of sufficient staffing at the por ports. The current cbp officer shortage is indeed staggering. There is a vacancy rate of 1200 officers at the ports and according to cbp an additional 2500 cbp officers needed to be funded and hired in order to meet 2,018 staffing needs. So as of today, there is a total cbp officer Staffing Shortage of 3700. The Economic Cost of this shortage is also staggering. For every 33 additional cbp officers hired, the u. S. Can potentially gain over 1,000 private sector jobs. If congress fully staffed the ports, 112,000 private sector jobs could be created. Understaffed ports lead to long delays in travel and cargo lanes and also create a significant hardship for front line employees. Both involuntary overtime and involuntary work assignments far from home, disrupt cbp officers family life and destroys morale. An example of the negative impact of Staffing Shortages can be found at san ysidro and nogales where cbp has tdys. Starting january 7, a new round of 175 cbp officers are being sent from other ports to nogales which was critically understaffed. However, these tdys then create short staffing situations at other ports of entry. Such as the Orlando International airport where airport officials have taken to congress their concerns with losing ten cbp officer positions to tdys. Many of you have toured the san ysidro port of entry. The screens show a typical day there. As you can see there are 26 primary vehicle lanes with up to two booths per lane, a total of 50 booths. Approximately 60,000 vehicles and 25,000 pedestrians apply for entry each day. Over 139,000 on a daily bases, travelers on a daily basis. In the photo insert you can see the pedestrian crossers. Today this port has over 200 cbp officer vacati officer vacancies. This will expand to 32 lanes with 62 booths. Imagine working up to 16 hours a day days on end with no relief in sight . But neither the president s january 2017 executive order, New York Stock Exchange fy2018 om omnibus include funding to meet onboard staffing needs at the ports of entry. The cbp employees i represent are frustrated that congress does not seemingly recognize that securing the ports of entry is just as vital to Border Security as is securing the borders between the ports of entry and that the ports are an economic driver of the u. S. Economy. However, nteu does have concerns with cbps decision to award a multimillion dollar contract to augment cbps hiring process. While we support increased hiring efforts, nteu believes this money could be better spent by utilizing available pay flexibilities on actual officers to incentivize new and existing cbp officers to seek vacant positions at hard to fill ports of entry. It is imperative that Congress Fund cbp officer new hires to a leech yat the ongoing cbp Staffing Shortages at the ports of entry. Thank you and i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, mr. Riordan. I now recognize myself for five minutes for questions. First, i just want to say thanks to all of you and to those that you represent for what you do every single day to keep us safe. Having been a veteran, oftentimes we are thanked for our service for wearing a military uniform. People forget that there are men and women out there every single day keeping our country safe in the capacity that you represent and in what you are doing to also keep us safe and putting your lives on the line literally for potential death or injury in the line of duty, and i want to open up with the issue of assaults. Im very deeply concerned about the rise of the assaults on our agents and as you mentioned, mr. Judd, theyre often out there by themselves with manpower shortages in remote areas with long distances for others to respond to help them and they get hit with a rock, they get ambushed and theyre out there on their own. Thanks for your insights in whats driving those assault, but what can we do right now . We have men and women on shift right now, what can we be doing and what do the American People need to hear about whats happening with our agents and these assaults and what can we do in order to better protect them and make sure that those who assault our agents are held accountable for their violence . Your last comment is exactly what needs to be done. We have to hold those that assault our agents accountable. Unfortunately, very few of those who assault our agents are prosecuted for assault on a federal Law Enforcement officer, and when we do that we send a clear message that our laws arent going to be enforced and it insensitivize individuals to try to assault our agents in an effort to get away. Why do you think that is . I think its the sheer numbers. If you look at how many u. S. Attorneys we have, we just dont have the resources necessary to prosecute the number of assaults on agents. I want to make one thing very clear. Just like people in the military and we appreciate your military service, our agents understand what theyre getting into when they put the uniform on. They understand that theyre going to do a dangerous job, and as weve seen Border Crossers drop our agents understand that its going to be a little bit more violent out there because theyre going to try to get away a little bit more. This is one thing that were willing to take on in order to secure the board. Do you think it is a bandwidth issue or a will issue in the prosecutions . We dont have oversight of a judiciary and we certainly can work with our colleagues in order to raise this issue with the administration . I believe its a bandwidth. I believe the u. S. Attorneys want to see justice brought to those who assault our agents. They just dont have the resources to do it. Okay. Thank you. Is it safe to say ive heard you talk about the morale issues across the board with your agencies and cbp, but do you agree that since the new administration has been in office that morale has improved at the higher level of understanding that there is now a will and desire to give you the tools that you need to do your job . That youve been unshackled from restrictions in the past . I think again about my military experience and sometimes you have a new commander at the highest level that changes the environment and the culture and that boosts morale and it takes a while to trickle down to midlevel, bureaucratic levels and equipment and everything you need to do the job. Has there been a shift and have you seen that out there every day on the job . Last year morale was probably about as low as it could get with the new administration showing the support that its showing, its helped, but it can only do so much. Morale is hit or miss. There are some places that have good days and bad days. I think part of the issue and part of the improvement is we have an administration that clearly supports what we do and thats been a great improvement and there are still issues within the agency that are going to take a while for us to get through. The agency is starting to pay more attention to morale and were seeing issues on the field who have managers that feel its just not their job to be worried about that. Ms. Pepperdine . I notice that at our sector morale is at an alltime low upon. I dont think it has anything to do with the administration sdpp i think its the pay reform that mr. Abbott spoke about earlier. Many agents werent happen that we had to settle for a more stable pay system which was overall better for all of us, a lot of people are unhappy that theyve lost pay and are doing the same dangerous job for less pay. Do you have anything to add to that . The morale for folks in cbp officers remains dangerously low. I think it is really related to the staffing issues that i raised where you have individuals who are working 16hour day, days on end. I just heard a story this morning, in fact, that in one pay period we had a cbp officer work 73 hear my words, 73 hours of overtime. Where you have that happening and when it happens days on end, week after week the impact on that individual in terms of that persons health, the impact on that family is and i might add, the impact on potential for maintaining high security in the ports for our country, it is a major problem. I would also offer this, in terms of the health. One of the things that concerns me over the last, probably year and a half, two years. I have heard and i get these calls late at night or whenever it happens that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of suicides among cbp officers. There has been, ive heard from the agency a dramatic increase in the number of Substance Abuse cases, a dramatic increase in the number of Domestic Violence cases and so what i would urge is that yes, we have to take care of staffing and morale, but part of the issue that has to be looked at is what are the root causes of those things because they impact, theyre a part of morale and until we start figuring out the answer to those questions and start taking care of these officers, were going have serious problems. Thank you, mr. Riordan. I am over my time. I just want to say i so appreciate some of the things that youve raised for the American People to hear and we will continue to be partners with you on this issue. Retention is, i think, a very important top issue. If youll have to retain people, have the the training and of the utmost importance and additional duties need to somehow be taken off the agents responsibilities and given to other support personnel. And i want to recognize you for five minutes. Thank you. Ill yield five minutes to congressman dennings because she has to go to a Judiciary Committee meeting and before i do, i want to focus the assault issue where mr. Judd. You mentioned there say 76 increase in assaults during the past year. Im wondering if you can put that in the context of how many assaults and how many more assaults were there this past year than before then so we can have a realtime idea of the number of assaults were talking about, and secondly, give us a sense as to whether or not the assailants, are they i couldnt figure out, have they actually been arrested and just not prosecuted or are they getting away and not arrested . Can you elaborate on both those issues . So the total number of assaults in 2017 were 774, 76 of that, im no mathematician, but 76 of that i would say that it would be somewhere around 300 assaults took place in 2016. These individuals are being arrested and the vast majority that assault our agents are being arrested and the vast majority just arent being prosecutored. When you think of 776 assaults on agents and 776 prosecutions is pretty overwhelming for the u. S. Attorneys office. So why dont we after this hearing at some point in the next few weeks just feel free to come lets meet in the office and that way we can go into that a little bit more, but with that ill go ahead and yield five minutes to congresswoman dennings. Thank you so much to our chairwoman and also to our Ranking Member for yielding. Good morning and thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate the service that you are giving and the people that you represent who are working hard every day to keep our nation safe. Im from orlando, and i served as the police chief in orlando. I served 27 years at the department and five of those years i was assigned to the Orlando International airport. I was assigned to oia during 9 11 and id like to start, mr. Ridden, for thanking you for highlighting the concerns regarding the Orlando International airport particularly losing ten officers indeaf ni indefinitely at the southland ports of entry. Almost 3 Million International passengers arrive through oia each year, and while we are thankful to have them visit our great city, we must make sure that we still provide an efficient and safe operation. That almost 3 million number represents an 89 increase since 2009. However, the cbp officer Staffing Levels have remained unchanged. I want you to think about that. Its remained unchanged, an 89 increase and the level remained unchanged and now were talking about sending ten very valuable and important officers to work somewhere else. Mr. Riordan, i know that that would not work for municipal Law Enforcement officers to be able to do that much with less and still maintain the same level of service that we expect again to be efficient and effective. Could you please tell me, based on your experience, i feel funny even asking you this question, but is it reasonable that the same number of officers can process almost double the number of International Passengers and what would such a strain wouldnt such a strain become worse by losing ten officers as opposed to reaching the Staffing Levels that we so desperately need . Congresswoman, thank you very much for your comments and thank you for the question. I dont think its unreasonable to expect that losing ten officers in orlando, for example, is going to create a serious problem, and i think its a problem that we see across the country. Where you are short, where our country and the office of Field Operations is short 3700 officers nationwide, it puts, as i had indicated previously, a strain on the system. It puts a strain on individual officers, to the point that and i want to im choosing my words carefully, our officers are at a breaking point. It is not right for our country to do this to these human being, and so i think we have to be very serious. If we have to be serious about security and i think we should be, if were going to be serious about the economy in this country, and i think we should be, weve got to get serious about getting those 3700 cbp officers hired because there is a direct relationship to the benefit of our security and theres a direct relationship to the benefit to our economy. To your knowledge, what staffing model does cbp use to determine port of entry staffing needs . Well, i know they have a workforce staffing model in terms of its precise name or anything im not familiar with that, so i mean, i can probably get that to you, but i dont have that with me today, but it is their workforce staffing model that suggests that we are 2500 short and just to be clear, we are also 1200 we have 12 ho 00 vacancies from the 1200 officers that were funded in 2014 so thats where i get the 1200 plus the 2500 gives you the 3700. Thank you so much and i yield back. The chair recognizes mr. B barleta. Thank you for your service to our country. We have immigration laws to protect our National Security, and to protect american jobs unless and until we have complete control of our borders it will remain impossible to fulfill this obligation and i am pleased that we have a partner in a white house who is actively working toward this goal to ensure the safety and prosperity of the American People, and i have dealt with this first hand and the consequences of our federal governments failure to enforce our immigration laws. I was the mayor of a city that had an illegal immigration problem. We are 2,000 miles away from our nearest southern border. I dont need to be briefed on this issue. I lived it every single day. Our population in hazel tovleto by 50 and it became impossible for cities like our, small cities to deal with the problems that comes with the problem of illegal immigration such as drugs, gangs, and identity theft, fraud and Everything Else that happens with it. I came down to washington in december of 2005 and asked for help. I met with the department of justice and they were great and they brought in all these experts to talk to me and at the end of the day i got this nice coffee mug and i got a lapel pin and a pat on the back and they sent me home. Shortly after that a father of three little children, he had some words with the head of the latin kings who was in the country illegally, a man that was arrested six times and let go in sanctuary cities. The man went, got a gun and stuck it between dereks eyes and shot and killed him. We spent half of the yearly budget in overtime in the Police Department in catching him and his buddy. I had to sit with the family and explain why this man was still in the country and their son is gone. Id had enough at that point. The federal government failed us. They werent going to do anything. I created the first law in america as a mayor to try to deal with that problem and i was sued immediately by illegal aliens. So here we are in 2018 and were still talking about it. Ive always been told that we must have compassion for the people who come here illegally, but no one speaks up for the victims of these crimes. Mr. Anfinson and ms. Pepperdine, what do you see as the most effective means of deterring illegal immigration once and for all and tell me how sanctuary cities make it more difficult to enforce our immigration laws . I was sued being a mayor wanting to enforce our laws and now we have over 380 mayors themming their nose at the federal government creating safe havens for those in the country illegally. I would like to hear your opinion. Well, you mentioned there, enforce the laws that we have in the books and the del rio sector we were the first ones to immrem what was previously called operation streamline which meant that anybody arrested crossing the border illegally in our sector went to jail for some period of time. If it was your first time crossing you might see a week, ten days maybe. If youd crossed multiple times youre going to see more time in jail and ultimately, i dont have the percentage, but it led to a significant drop in a prehedges in our sector and that deterred at least, in our area, but it pushed it elsewhere with the interior of the country its gotten to a point where they feel that once they pass the border theyre home free. There are no repercussions to being illegally present in the u. S. And we do have laws in the books to do this. We do. Theres no reason not to enforce them, but thats whats been going on. Ms. Pepperdine . I agree with mr. Anfinson. I also believe assurance in apprehension that the border is a huge deterrent in the illegal immigration. You asked about the safe havens. They definitely hurt us in the long run, not just us as agents doing our job, but the American People. Id like to apologize to all of the families across this country who are victims of illegal immigration. The focus is always on the illegal imgrant who comes here for a better life and there are families who have lost loved ones and here we are, and i hope once and for all we do the right thing and secure our borders and then deal with the problem on the interior. Thank you. The gentleman yields back and the chair recognizes mr. Korea for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair, and i just wanted to thank all of the officers for the good job you do for all our sit jens, and i also want to tell all the victims of crimes in this country those perpetrators with and without documents, were coming after all of you. Were not going to make any distinction. Gentlemen, maam, i had a chance to tour the san ysidro border again a few months ago, and we have some great officers with, you know, great attitudes and a few of them were very proud to tell me about their big arrests and big busts, big drug busts of these big shipments. Most of the shipments, by the way are coming through border ports of entry. Its not folks with backpacks spinning across the mountains. Its folks driving across our border crossings, either through vehicles, family vehicles or trucks and i asked these folks how are you able to spot the shipments and it was interesting because without a doubt, without a beat they told me the experienced officer was the one that could look into the drivers eyes, that could look into passengerss eyes and say theres something not right here and then what they would do is bring over the police dogs, the drugsniffing dogs and bingo, you had massive arrests because of the massive drug shipments that they could identify. Conclusion, youre absolutely right. We need more agents, more of those blue agents on the border to be able to identify the illicit drugs and other smuggling operations. You need more dogs there. Theyve proven to be better than any other technology than we have today and so given the limited resources that we have, i mean, where do we put our money . Do we put it on building another wall . Another fence or do we put in more personnel and bring in more, you know, dogs and other technologies to identify these illicit shipments at border points of entry, and by the way, we also need them to make sure that commerce, good commerce comes to and from the United States. You know, mexico is i think our biggest trading partner in the world. We want to create jobs and we want to make sure that commerce continu continues to be healthy. If you had to prioritize investment, where would it go . Its got to be a combination of the two. If you had to prioritize sir. You cant. Its got to be a holistic approach. You cant say one is the key thats going to stop everything that we face. You have to look at everything. In san ysidro you have three fences i believe in this areas . Well, i worked thats a question, sir. I worked as an intel agent, so i was able to analyze and i was also a canine handler. Im not being argumentative. In san ysidro, do we have three fences there in some areas . We have double fencing which has been very effective in those area, yes. When you say holistic, san ysidro is the most crossed border entry point in the world. How can we make that much more effective . Where would you invest the money . As far as ports of entry, well have to yield to mr. Riordan. Thats where he works. I work in between the ports of entry. Mr. Riordan . Congressman, thank you for the question and i am more than happy to answer it. Without question, i would put the resources into our human resources. We are as i said, short a large number of cbp officers at san ysidro and there are tdys required as a result which leaves other ports short staffed and vulnerable, and yet we are still short people in san ysidro and the impact on officers on their health, on their families, on the entire system is dramatic and thats what it is an Economic Impact for every for every 33 officers and these are cbp numbers, for every 33 officers hired, we could expect to bring in 1,000 private sector jobs. So if were going to take the economy seriously and were worried about jobs, there is a primary candidate for it. Im running out of time. I just want to thank you for the straight answer. As a policymaker, thats all i want is good information so i can figure out how to make these decisions. Mr. Judd, absolutely right. Its holistic approach, but when you have a limb iited taxpayer dollars you have to know where it goes. Ive talked to those border agent, overworked, but they do a great job. Thank you very much. Thank you, before we go to mr. Rutherford, i am going to have to step out to go to the white house for an important bicammeral meeting with the president and just know i will be advocating for the agents and everything that you need to secure the border and reasonable changes that need to happen in order to make sure to keep the country safe, so i apologize for stepping out from this important meeting and the chair recognizes who is coming to the chair . He is the vice chair so hes coming into the chair, but you are now recognized. So hold that thought for a second. Do you want your name tag there . Okay. Exactly. Thanks for all you do, and hold that thought here. Mr. Herd, you want to start coming back . You got it. Youre in charge. The chair recognizes mr. Rutherford for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Let me say im for others first of all, thank you all for your service in a very, very tough, tough job, and i know weve had other witnesses here speak to us about apprehension, securing the border and what that would look like and really the conversation was about, you know, you need an impediment to slow them down whether thats a wall, electronic to detect and you need to detect whoever is coming through and finally, and most critically as mr. Riordan pointed out, then you have to have the human assets on the the boots on the ground to actually apprehend those folks once they breach your impediment. Now what the impediment requires is a raul, some electronics and i know what that might be and in the rio grande theyre using world war ii stuff, its horrible. Yet, i think its pronounced fort wachuka, they have drones and other devices that are incredibly effective. They have the big pipe as they call it so their communications is working great in those areas, but then when you look at these if these three areas and when you look at the impediment, the detection and apprehension, and we talk about, you know, the physical barriers and the needs for those physical barriers and the lack of them in the Rio Grande Valley which is where, you know, we went to the southern border and it looked like they got to fort wachuka and ran out of money and we were going from san diego east and the rio grande, theyre in deep, deep need of help with the physical border. On the detection piece, when you talk about the communications and then i hear ms. Pepperdine talking about the lack of communications that you can actually see someone, but you cant communicate with them on the radio that doesnt work so they actually use a cell phone. Their cell phone works better than their radio communications. Lord, then you get to the apprehension piece and you talk about the manpower and, you know, mr. Riordan has very wellpointed out this 3700 cbp officers short, 1200 in these ports, and i know. I was a sheriff for 12 years in florida, worked closely with my colleague ms. Dennings, and i can tell you, i understand the drain that that puts on your personnel and the impact that it has on their efficiency, and so, you know, when all of that fails, and in the interior in jacksonville, for example, i had to start a 287g program in my community because we had a sub culture that had grown in the illegal community and not only were they violent toward citizens as mr. Barletta pointed out, they were violent toward each other. An incredible amounts of rape and Domestic Abuse thats going unreported because they dont want to be deported and so we started a 287g program to identify these individuals when they were in our jail so that we could deport them. I just want to mackke a commitmt to you and ill ask mr. Riordan because the place to start is the manpower, what can we do to help you weve passed a bill to not require the polygraph so we can cut down on the time, to hire, and what else can we do, raises, i would imagine would help when i see 25 to 40 of their income a year is on overtime. Thats not a good thing. Thats a bad thing. Yes, it increases their salary and their take home, but it also leads to all of those issues that you pointed out before, suicide, Domestic Violence and other issues. Can you please answer that . My time has run out. Certainly, congressman. Thank you very much. I will try to go quickly through this. I think one is weve talked about the length of time to onboard staff. I think the segmented hiring process that exists creates a lot of problems and that is sort of a subset of the hiring delays. I mean, in the past, i know it took in the neighborhood of 16 to 18 months to onboard somebody. No one that i know can wait that period of time in order to take a job. Theyre going to go work for the sheriff and theyll work for local Police Department or whatever. Thats important and we talked about the polygraph and the fact that we have a 63 to 66 failure rate in the polygraphs is unconscionable. Somethings wrong and something should be done immediately to fix that, and i know were working on that. I think also related to the polygraph, right now if an individual is identified with a noopinion result or an inconclusive result or a noopinion countermeasures finding they have to wait an extended period of time before they can retest. I think they should be able to retest immediately. I think that in terms of fletc where our officer goes to train, federal Law Enforcement training center, i think its important that we expand the number of classes. I think its important that we look at the potential for having sixday six days of training rather than five as long as, of course, people are paid for six days. Thats an important piece, but i also think one other thing that can be done is right now there is something known as postfletc training. So the person goes to fthec and they go back to their port and then they go in a postfletc training period for ten months and what im hearing from my officers is thats too long. That certainly they need to go through the training and certainly they need to be prepared to work on the line and work primary, work secondary, but ten months is too long. So those are the things that i would offer. Thank you, mr. Riordan. Now the distinguished gentlewoman from california miss barragan is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses are being here today. I think this is an important topic. My concern is about the timing. Were at a time where it appears that theres an effort being made to port ray immigrants as violent criminals, to justify these antiimmigration actions and policies. Its also a time when were debating d. R. E. A. M. Ers, and the future of u. S. Immigration policy. I think its key to hear from officers from the front lines and to learn about the dangers that we face daily so congress can work to address real Border Security threat, but i think it is also important to be clear about what groups were talking about here today, and the way i see this is were really talking about the drug cartels and the criminal aliens and the hardened criminals who are responsible for violence at the border. Mr. Judd, would you agree with that . I would agree that we need to address the violent criminals at the border. Um, mr. Judd, do you support a legislative solution that puts d. R. E. A. M. Ers on the pathway to citizenship . I support anything when we talk about comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2013 we talked about Border Security, we have to secure the border first before we look at Something Like that, otherwise were right back in the same situation. If we secure the border, absolutely, when you look at d. R. E. A. M. Ers, the difference between d. R. E. A. M. Ers as opposed to other people is there was no intent to break the law and they never had an intent to break the law and they didnt come here knowingly to break the law and theyre in a different situation, but the problem is the parents are able to use them to circumvent mr. Judd, im just asking you about the d. R. E. A. M. Ers. I know. My question is do you support a pathway for the d. R. E. A. M. Ers . I support Border Security and then look at anything beyond that. Okay, well, was there a video of you in february 27, 2017, where you specifically went on to support the d. R. E. A. M. Ers and you said, quote, through no fault of their own they came to this country and why would we want to send somebody who came here when they were 1yearold back and that, quote, its common sense to find a pathway to them to stay in this country when we were talking about the d. R. E. A. M. Ers. Did you not say that . Yes. It was a very simple question, and it didnt seem like you wanted to reconfirm what you had previously said in the past. I want to talk a little bit about body cameras, if anybody on this panel maybe would want to comment on this. I think, unfortunately, our agents and officers are confronted an uptick in violence at the border. Again, its stemming from the cartels, from violence, drug cartels, rather, and criminal aliens attempting to illegally enter. The use of body worn cameras is something thats considered a best practice in Law Enforcement agencies. As weve seen, it increases accountability and transparency in l. A. Where i represent the lapd has placed body cameras on thousands of officers, just quickly, do you have an opinion yes or no, just down the panel whether you think body cameras would be effective to try to put into place . I think they can be effective. The problem is we havent yet seen a camera that can handle the environment that we work in. Okay. Anybody else . Weve looked at all cameras and if there is a camera that can handle our environment, absolutely. Ms. Pepperdine . Definitely, we dont work like most Law Enforcement. Its not the same kind of beat. Our terrain is rugged and because of that its hard to find a camera that we can utilize, but i love the idea of having a camera. Mr. Riordan . Thank you, congresswoman. Currently, there are some pilots going on for our folks and we are supportive of those pilots. Great. Thank you. Mr. Riordan, back in october our committee, homelandfeld a field hearing at the port of los angeles to talk about security at the ports. You submitted a statement for the record asserting that Staffing Shortages at the sea ports nationwide are especially acute. I want to thank you for doing that and thank you for your testimony here today. I was pretty i was drawn by when i saw reports that the president s proposal had included more money for Border Patrol agent, but really didnt include any more money for customs officers which i believe the greatest threat from what ive learned in my committee is going to come through sea ports and airports. So i want to applaud the work that you are doing not just at the port of los angeles where i represent the largest port by container volume, but for what your employees do to secure our ports, and i am with you in believing that if were going to put more money they need to be to help the human assets that we have to increase morale and making sure theyre not working 73 hours of overtime which is as you state absolutely unacceptable. Thank you. I yield back. It is now my pleasure to recognize a gentleman who has served thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for helping defend our country. And i think most american he agree, least in my district, that we want to solve the problem and find a longterm solution for daca. I heard from folks in my districts, if you solve the issue for daca here, you have to solve it again in three years, five years and seven years if we dont fix the border as well as our visas. I think what you are saying represents a majority of what were hearing in my district. Ive been a part of this community for about a month and add recent hearing. I heard that we have captured extremists coming through our border. Often when we talk about Border Security, when we focus on immigration and it becomes controversy, i think we forget the fact that there are people in the middle east that know that we have a porous border and they are trying to come over the border. And granted, maybe out of a thousand we are talking one or two. But one or two suicide bombers is unacceptable. I think if we put more emphasize on the al qaeda, isis threat, this will help unify our country better know be we do got to do something more for Border Security. I would love to have your thoughts on that, mr. Judd. Are we missing the boat on our messaging . We are. What happened is cpb needs to release the number to the public. Right now were catching an awful lot of people that are claiming to be from bangladesh. But our agents believe they are from afghanistan. When theyre interviewed, because we dont have those language skills, so we have to use at t interpreters or other interpreters, and they are telling us they are not from bangladesh. So we are not just dealing with people from the country of mexico. Were dealing with people from all over the world, include prg special interest countries. Absolutely. And i brought this up to the Homeland Security representatives. I did not get a good answer why we are not telling the American People we are capturing al qaeda and isis operatives coming over our border. I think the impression im getting is they dont want to talk about how we caught them. Fair enough. We dont have to do that. But the American People deserve to know that weve had suicide bombers try to come here. I think that that would have a more unifying conversation with what we need to do at the border and why. It is not just about immigration, it is about security. Ive heard a couple times from our friends on the other side of the aisle comparing the Canadian Border with the border in the south. Could you give me your views of how these two borders compare threat wise, volume of threat wise, the volume of violence committed against our border people. Thank you. Theres no comparison the to the number of illegal crossings taking place. Whether it is the southwest border or northern border. Numbers are astronomical on the southwest border and again from countries from that you would never think are coming here. But all indications show that if terrorists are going to come across the border, they will use the path of least resistance, which is the northern border because we have very few agent on the northern border. We are seeing it on the southwest border but the problem is we dont know what is crossing on the northern border because we are not very effective there simply because of our numbers. So we need to put something there. We do. For the remaining panelist, i want to ask you, as you look at the wall we are talking about putting, you referred to it a little bit, what is optimal . 2,000mile wall or focus on key areas . Wla wlaen should it look like . Something you can see through . What is the optimal configuration from your perspective . It has become clear we dont need a wall from the coast to the gulf. We just dont. There is lake in my area. Were not building a wall there. There are other spots along the river where it is extremely difficult to build in and wouldnt be feasible. In the areas where we wouldnt build a wall is where Technology Comes in. Cameras, censor technology and more agents. As far as what the wall would look like we have seen prototypes there. But ideally, it doesnt need to be seethrough but we need to see what is happening on the other side. So maybe seethrough but maybe use cameras. We need to see what is on the other side preparing trying to get past the wall so we can prepare ourselves. So there are selected areas we need to put physical security barriers but not the 2,000mile wall. You think there are key areas to focus on . Absolutely. Ms. Pepperdine . The wall is definitely necessary. You dont need a physical wall, pedestrian wall. Some areas we could utilize v vehicular barriers. That is what we use in the tucson area and thats effective. But in some areas we need a pedestrian wall. Thank you. I think you have a very valid point. With that, chairman, i yield back. I recognize myself for five minutes. First off, i appreciate the panel being here today and talking about something that a lot of people talk about. But dont have any experience the way that yall do. And i would like to thank mr. Judd and specifically for all of the work youve done to educate me. Ive been taken through lakes and ive gotten real world experience. And that experience allowed me to educate my colleagues that you push and talk radio doesnt work in some places. Cell phone coverage doesnt work in some places. Thats yalls experience is important. So we talked a lot about topics today. I think everybody agrees we dont have the manpower. And we have to have the strategies in place to hit the Manpower Needs that we should be achieving. I think there is actually not much disagreement on that. My question is, and for all four of yall to answer short in a short response, because i have a couple more are the people is our manpower in the right places. We have limited manpower but is the manpower in the right places . Mr. Judd . At times. You cant answer that question without going indepth. But i would be happy to sit down and discuss that. John . We need more in the areas like big ben areas. They are understaffed. We have agencies spending times indoors processing or doing other administrative work when they could be on the the field. Put them on the border . Right. Ms. Pepperdine . Definitely agree with them. We definitely have a lot of details, a lot of agents detailed out so were not actually on the border. We need to break details down and bring them back. Mr. Reardon . Thank you. In combination to not having enough cbpos, we also have in my view too many managers. In 2003 there was a ratio of this is 14 . 112 at that time in the ports. Now it is 15. 6. I also agree that for cpbos, too many are spending time doing administrative work when they could on the front lines and i think that is something that needs to be addressed. Maybe the next question for mr. Reardon and mr. Judd, but john and miss pepperdine, welcome your feedback, have yall, have the unions given a suggestion on plan, incentive on structure and how do you incentivize behavior . How do you have officers that are willing to go to some of the remote places . Like in some places like big ben, in order to address that morale issue and hardships. And having served in a few hardship places during my career with the cia, i understand the model that it created in order to incentivize that behavior. It seems like within yalls rankings, you dont have that. Mr. Judd, you want to lead off . Right now we have a very good leader at the top. If you look at the structure within cpb and Border Patrol, our top leader, second and third are absolutely fantastic. And they are looking at these issues. And i think they will address them. The committee would welcome the suggestions and points that you do have. Just so that we can get familiar with that. Will do. Mr. Reardon, anything else to add . I do. There are recruitment, relocation and Retention Bonuses that are available. The opportunity to provide those exists already. Whether there is funding or not is different matter. So better utilizing those sorts of bonuses i think would be helpful. But i would tell you that where we talk about morale, i think we need to deal, as i indicated before, with appropriations for additional cbpos. But there is one other thing that when we look at trying to make a career at cbp more attractive, i think that it is difficult to try to go out and recruit folks and at the same time, they are hearing in the media the potential for federal employees, all federal employees, getting another pay freeze. That is a nonstarter. Loud and clear. This committee has spoken on this topic. Weve included incentives in several sections of the Border Security bill passed out of here. As a former government employee, i guess i still am a government employee, i recognize the needs and the difficulties that yall go through. So i appreciate yall coming up here to continue to educate and i appreciate yalls willingness to take many of our colleagues and staff and show them the real world examples of what yall have to go through every single day and we will have to continue to do that. We have to continue to educate our colleagues that we can start making better decisions up here to support the important efforts that you do. Now it is a pleasure to recognize my colleague from the great state of texas. Mr. Vella, you are now recognized. Thank you. Ive got a couple more questions before we break here. And in about five minutes, our leadership from both parties is going to the white house to talk about many of the issues weve discussed here today. Mr. Reardon, i think you addressed the single most important factor you think need to be addressed, and the formula you talk about could be another 2500, right . And mr. Judd, im sure that with respect to the shortage of 1900 officers that were short of on the Border Patrol side, you know, with currently with kurndly mandating funding, right, that you see that as critical as well. So knowing we have our folks on the way over there, whats the message . What can we do . Given the current dialogue . To help get the 1200 officers we need on the cbpo side and 1900 on Border Patrol side in the next year . Weve got to look at what needs to be done to retain our employees and theres a lot of things that need to be done. We need to change the culture within the Border Patrol. We need to look at page within the Border Patrol and make those pay issues equal across the bored. If you look at Border Patrol and that is double time pay, Border Patrol gets straight pay for every hour think work. Cbpo officers gets 50 and Border Patrol gets 25 . Night differential, cbp officers can go up to 25 where as Border Patrol agent caps out at 10 . So you look at our Sister Agency and we dont even have pay parody within our agencies within cpb. You have to look at those issues. But what i would like to see is see us secure our borders so we can deal with issues like dreamers, like border reform. So we can take care of issues that allows us to move together, together, instead of a bipartisan fashion. Which has been so disruptive in this country to this point. But also to do that, we need to take care of this issue of 1900 officers were short of. We do. We do. We have to retain employees and hire those 1900 agents. Mr. Reardon . Yes, thank you, congressman. I think there are several things. I think that number one, providing appropriations for additional staffing i think is important. I think fixing the polygraph problem is something that is important. I think fixing the hiring process so it doesnt take 16 to 18 months or even nine months to on board somebody. I heard, i was talking to one of our officers not that long ago and he told me, you know, it only took me about eight months to be onboarded. I have to tell you, i found myself thinking that moment, wow, thats great. When you think about it, thats crazy. It should not take that long. I think something has to be done to fix that as well. Also, as i said prior, we have to better use the recruitment and Retention Bonuses that are available. I will tell you that i think often times in agencies, many of the personnel folks dont fully understand how to utilize those. So i think its important that opm or wherever they would get that training from and that understanding of how to better utilize the three rs as theyre known, i think is also important. One last question for you, mr. Reardon. The president s budget proposed shifting funding of cbp officers to direct investments for improvement and ports of entry, whats your thoughts on that Budget Proposal . Well, you know, i think it is important to make appropriations available to fully fund the number of cdp officers that we need. I think to get into a situation where were basing everything on fees, or majority on fees, is a difficult place to be. Thats not to say that fees arent important because in fact fees are important. I would also suggest that any of the fees that are available right now, that they not be directed in other areas, that they be focused on bringing in more staffing. But for me, i think it is important to the extent that we can to fully fund all of our cbp officers. And the additional ones that we need. Well, thank all of you again for your time today. I would like to thank the witnesses for your valuable people and thank you members for yalls questions. Many members of the committee will have additional questions that we will ask you to respond to in writing if those exist. And pursuant to Committee Rule 7e, hearing record held open for ten days and wount objection, the committee stand adjourned. W the committee stand adjourned. I the committee stand adjourned. T objection, the committee stand adjourned. Owount objection, the committee stand adjourned. Uwount objection, the committee stand adjourned. Twount objection, the committee stand adjourned. Objection, the committee stand adjourned