Transcripts For CSPAN3 Acting Homeland Security Secretary Testifies On National Security Resources 20240714

Good morning. This hearing will come to order. This is the hearing of the title is resources needed to protect and secure the homeland. We will review the budget of Homeland Security. We have acting secretary of Homeland Security, the honorable Kevin Mcaleenan here to testify. I want to first of all appreciate and thank you for your long service to this country. And in particular at this moment where we are grappling with so many issues. The aftermath of an unprecedented level of disasters with hurricanes and fires in california, hurricanes, you know, obviously in the gulf coast, the dister that aster oct the border right now. If we could quickly put up our chart. I think ee hawe have our chart. Not only do we have it on the chart, but we had an event in oshkosh over the weekend that required a giveaway. I produced a chart. It shows how out of control the problem is. In the first seven months of this year we have over 300, the total is actually 312,000 individuals coming either as over the border illegally and apprehended either as an unaccompanied child or part of a family unit. I know these are not for public release yet, so they are initial numbers, but in the first three months of may another 65,000 unaccompanied children, but, again, primarily people coming in as family units, and were apprehended at the border in between the ports of entry, and over 97,000 total apprehensions. So were on path of breaking again, you know, from i guess it was march, 103,000. I believe april, 109,000 or 106,000. Now we will be beyond that in may. This is a growing problem that needs to be taken seriously, and it is what you and the men and women that you lead are grappling with. You know, just god bless you for doing it. I mean that in all sincerity. I know because i have been to the border, were going to be going to the border with the Ranking Member and a couple of senators later today. We know what you are having to deal with, and it is an impossible task. So, again, i just appreciate your dedication, your willingness to serve, and i will turn it over to Ranking Member. Well, thank you, mr. Chairman and acting secretary. Preappreciate you being he we appreciate you being here. I will defer on my comments. I know we have members with a meeting coming up and i know you are on a hard stop as well. I know members of the Committee Want to ask questions. Ill ask the same request. Well turn it over to you. That sounds good. Mr. Secretary, it is the tradition of the committee to swear in witnesses. If you will stand and raise your righthand. Do you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Please be seated. The honorable Kevin Mcaleenan is acting secretary of department of Homeland Security and has been serving in this position since april 2019. He had a distinguished career rat the u. S. Customs and border of protection where he served as commissioner of cbp since january 2017. In 2015 he received a president ial rank award, the nations highest Civil Service award. He holds a bachelor degree from Amherst College and j. D. From the university of chicago law school. Mr. Mcaleenan. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member peters. Distinguished members of the committee, senator portman, i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. It is a sincere honor to serve as acting secretary and to represent the dedicated men and women of the department of Homeland Security. I really do believe that dhs has the most Compelling Mission in government to safeguard the American People, our homeland and our values. As acting secretary i intend to work with this committee and i have been in the last six weeks and served as an advocate for the department to ensure our people have the resources and authorities they need to carry out their Critical Missions on behalf of the American People. As were highlighting the president s 2020 budget i do want to point out a few of the key areas where theres critical investments across dhs in the multi missions we carry out. I want to assure the committee we will not lose any momentum on our multiple missions from cybersecurity to Disaster Response as we see what is happening this morning with the floods in oklahoma, the tornado that touched down in missouri. We will stay on top of all of these mission sets and i want to highlight some of the investments there. Of course, i will speak to the Border Security crisis, which this committee is very focused on and understands very well. The president s budget requests funding for Critical Missions across the department. For our cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, the budget requests 1. 3 billion to assess evolving cybersecurity risks, protect federal Government Information Systems and critical fraukt. The budget also supports the launch of project 2020, a new initiative designed to get all states to a baseline level of election infrastructure cybersecurity well before the National Elections of 2020. The budget supports day diggsal transportation Security Officers to enhance Security Effectiveness and stay ahead of increasing costs and growing traffic at airports nationwide. The 3. 3 billion for tsa includes funding for an additional 700 screeners and 350 computed units. For fema this budget provides a significant increase in Disaster Relief fund, begins implementation of new requirements in the disaster recover reform act and provides critical positions. For the u. S. Coast guard it continues efforts to fund the offshore patrol cutter. With regard to Border Security and Immigration Enforcement as you are well aware we are in the midst of an ongoing security and humanitarian crisis at the southwest border. I think your chart puts that in stark context, stark relief, mr. Chairman. Almost 110,000 migrants attempted to cross without legal status last month, the most in over a decade, and over 65 as you highlight were families and unaccompanied children. That means over 40,000 children entered our immigration system in a single month. The president s budget will help address this for 2020. First it requests 523 million for the humanitarian crisis. This money will allow us to provide better care for those we come into contact with through apprehension, custody, detention and removal. Second, to address the Border Security aspects of the crisis, it requests 5 billion in funding for construction of approximately 200 miles of new border wall system, a proven deterrent requested by our front line agents, and it also calls for 750 Border Patrol agents, 273 cbp officers and over 660 i. C. E. Front line and support personnel. The budget requests will make much needed upgrades to sensors, commanded control system and aircraft to help our men and women combat criminals profiting from human suffering. While the 2020 budget will help address the crisis we will need additional funding much sooner. Given the scale of what were facing we will exhaust our resources before end of this fiscal year, which is why the administration sent a supplemental request to congress over three weeks ago. In addition to the 3 billion in that request for health and Human Services to care for unaccompanied children, the request includes 1. 1 billion for the department of Homeland Security and would provide 391 million for humanitarian assistance including temporary migrant processing facilities at southwest border, 530 million for Border Operations to include surge personnel expenses and increased transportation and detention costs. 178 million for operations and support costs including pay and retention incentives for our operational personnel as well as upgrading our i. T. Systems. The supplemental request is critical, but unless Congress Addresses the pull factors, namely our vulnerable Legal Framework for immigration, children will continue to be put at risk during a dangerous journey to our border. Without these authorities and resources the situation will remain untenable, and while dhs will continue to do all it can to manage the crisis in an operationally effective, humane, safe and secure manner, every day that congress does not act puts more lives at risk and increases the burden on the system. Mr. Chairman, mr. Ranking member, i have been doing this for a long time. This is the third time i have been in a leadership role during a migration surge at the border of families and children, both in 2014 and 2016, at the end of the last administration. We have more than doubled those two crises combined in first seven months of this year and were still in the middle of that effort. Were doing everything we can to address it. As you will see, as you go down to the border again today. On the medical front we had about ten people providing medical care at our top Processing Center as of a year ago. We now have 50 in that center alone. 24 7 coverage in the highest sectors we are expanding. We have health and Human Services, Public Health service, Commission Core on the ground with us, working to protect especially children that come into our custody. We have expanded our facilities. We have already put up 1,000 spaces of soft sided facilities in two locations. We will have 10,000 by the end of next month to address this growing crisis. Weve gotten tremendous support from the department of defense, national guard, from our state and local partners and we are working closely with nongovernmental organizations and charities to try to help those in need but none of that will be enough. We are still seeing too much tragedy and this week and this month have been no exception. 40 of our agents are off the line doing processing, transportation and care, hospital watch, and feeding and cleaning of migrants in our custody. This leads to significant Border Security risks that i dont think we can tolerate given the drug epidemic and the dangers to our communities across the country. On my second week in this job i went to see the 9 11 memorial and museum to get reinspired at the origin of the department of Homeland Security and it is a good reminder that Homeland Security when we started was nonpartisan. It was a nonpartisan mission allamericans supported, and i know this Committee Works in that spirit. Through your prior hearings to become expert on this and help inform the American People, for your efforts to go to the border, and i know you are going again, this is a unique approach the committee is taking to grapple with the problem based on a shared set of facts and solve it. I want to work with you and the Ranking Member and both parties. Our front line agents and officers need it and they deserve that support from this committee. The children being put at risk do as well, and security of our border and the future of our region depend on it. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to the dialogue this morning. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I am happy to defer my questioning to you or to senator portman to keep things moving. Did you want to ask your questions now . Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Senator peters. Well, thank you, commissioner mcaleenan, for your comments. I know you mentioned in your opening comments the challenges, the medical challenges in particular you are having along the border. But last evening it was reported that a young girl from el salvador died last year while in custody, but her death was undisclosed publicly until last night, which made her the now the sixth migrant child to die after crossing the southern border in less less than a year. Now, we all agree we must absolutely secure our borders, but the death of children and i know you agree with this. The death of children in custody is simply unacceptable, but first we must identify what went wrong and ensure this doesnt happen again. So some brief questions. Yes or no. Does every child in cbp custody have access to a pediatrician . No. Does the cbp have clear protocols regarding the transfer of children to a hospital when presenting acute symptoms, especially when we look at the aggressive nature of this current flu outbreak we are seeing along the border . Yes. And as commissioner i directed that all children coming into our custody being screened by a certified medical professional, and thats what weve undertaken steps to accomplish, both with our extension of our contract to get medical professionals into our contract as well as partnering with the u. S. Coast guard and the Public Health Service Commission corps and that effort is extensive and ongoing with 65 people being brought to the hospital every day, watched and supported by agents and officers. It is a massive effort going on the border to protect children, and i know we have saved dozens and dozens of lives over the past several months. Although theres been cases, a rekent case of a 16year old who passed away who was not taken to the hospital. So there are obviously gaps that have to be filled. He was both screened and offered medical care, and we will look forward to the findings of the Inspector General to see if we could do better. One of the key areas there though i have to highlight is the fact that hhs does not have enough funding for bed space for teenage males, and thats thats the main arriving unaccompanied child right now. So were not able to move teenage males as expeditiously as we should be to the better situation for care within health and Human Services, and we need that support from congress in the supplemental. I have asked many of your colleagues in prior dhs leadership and i will ask you again today, how long is too long to detain a child . So detention for a child is for the safety of the child. Thats the only reason to do it. We dont believe that children should be detained in Border Patrol stations very long at all. We would like to move them as swiftly as possible to health and Human Services, to a more appropriate setting for unaccompanied children where they can be placed with an appropriate sponsor through hhss processes, and i think thats the best approach. I would like to get that on 24 hours to 48 hours, and try to comply at all times with the standard and the trafficking victims reauthorization act which is 72 hours. I get the sense you are saying any time is too long to detain a child so you try to an unaccompanied child. A child arriving with a parent, i do believe we should be able to have an appropriate setting with access to educational, recreational space, medical care, and a courtroom where we can finish an immigration proceeding upon arrival at the border as opposed to as quickly as possible. Not finishing that. As quickly as possible, yes. Theres no desire to detain children in any capacity for very long at all. It has been reported that dhs is requiring fema, tsa and other components to contribute staff to various Border Security admissions, securing our northern and southern borders must be our top priority. We have a northern border of this country as well, two borders. Im concerned about the potential impact on readiness in my state of michigan as well as other northern border states. So my time is short, but could you give me quickly a brief synopsis of the specific duties that these folks are being asked to do on the southern border, fema, tsa . So as in any crisis, we do call on volunteers from across dhs to respond. Last year our 17 during the crisis of hurricane harvey, hurricane maria, we had up to 2,000 people deployed across the department at any given time. We have right now 250 volunteers deployed. I have asked our leaders to make a Risk Assessment and carefully decide who is available to come support this crisis but theyre doing all kind of duties, from attorneys to commercial drivers license holders that are helping transport migrants to folks simply helping with food service and care of people in our custody. So it is a variety of missions and were very fortunate to have volunteers willing to help out in a crisis. Obviously a shortage of personnel is an issue for you, and even before the recent increase in migrant traffic at the southern border it was clear that cbp was not adequately staffed to secure our borders and facilitate the other mission, which is to move legitimate trade and travel at our ports of entry. The cbp workload staffing model developed under your leadership as the cbp commissioner identifies a shortfall of thousands of cbp officials. Again, this is even prior to the current situation. To help address this gap in personnel, senator corn enand i have introduced bipartisan legislation, also senator portman has joined as well, to give Clear Authority and direction to hire muchneeded cbp officers to the levels identified in the model that you put together. Im especially concerned about critical personnel moved from michigan to the southern border while michigan continues to man two of the three busiest Border Crossings in the nation. So will you commit to working with congress to advance this legislation and close the hiring gaps we currently have with cbp officers . I will, senator, and appreciate greatly your support to additional hiring of cbp officers. It is one of the most critical occupations both for our security and facilitating trade and travel. We have netted 2,000 cbp officers over the last five years with congresss support. This year we are expecting to net an additional 1200 officers. Our hiring is based on a number of changes we have made, support from congress, but i do think a modelbased staffing strategy that accommodates growing traffic, growing security threats is an appropriate way to plan for the future, and i appreciate the legislative efforts to support that. Right. I appreciate your support in getting this legislation passed and signed into law to support your efforts. Mr. Chairman, i have a little remaining time but i will defer that so we make sure everybody has a chance to ask questions. We will stick to our strict sevenminute timelines. Absolutely. I will use my seven minutes in clips. You were talking a little bit about hiring rate. Is it true we have greater hiring than attrition right now . For cbp officers, it significantly feeds attrition. For the Border Patrol it is closer to attrition, although we are making progress from the shutdown period. Thats good news. Im highly concerned with the Current Crisis particularly when you dont have the resources and you are requiring all of these volunteers that, you know, Border Patrol officers will start quitting. Im highly concerned about the attrition rate. Have you seen any uptick at all in that in the recent crisis . Our attrition is higher than i would like for Border Patrol agents. My first decision as acting secretary was to extend the 5 retention incentive to our agents who i think deserve it and are working incredibly hard at the journeyman level. We need to continue to look at all ways to maintain our tremendous prochgsal workforce, and i think they need to see a light at the end of the tunnel from this kind of crisis. Working with congress to solve it legislatively i think is best approach to do that. Again, i want to urge all of my colleagues to support the emergency supplemental. It is critical that you get that funding, and not just for hhs but the 1. 1 billion dhs is requesting on that as well. Senator portman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, we appreciate you coming back again and you are here at a time where there is without question a crisis at the border. It is humanitarian, it is a drug crisis, it is an Immigration Crisis. Just to put some numbers around it if you could help us just so people can understand what is going on, my sense is there are now over 100,000 people coming to the border. My sense is theres about a 75 increase compared to last year in the number of children who are showing up at the border, and about 400 increase in the number of families coming to the border. So not only higher numbers, but more families with children. Is that accurate . Thats exactly correct. So it is overwhelming. We appreciate your service and the service of the men and women of cbp and Border Patrol who are trying to deal with this issue, many of whom are being pulled off their normal jobs as i understand it to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Is that accurate . Thats very true. I mean the processing and care of families and children is much more intensive, and to have 40 of our Border Patrol agents engaged in just that function, not on the line, not addressing the Border Security parts of their mission is a crisis by any measure. I know you have been committed, senator, to countering the drug epidemic in our country, especially the synthetic opioid concerns, im very concerned were missing drugs on the border due to this crisis. What were seeing on the drug front is pretty scary because we have progress on the opioid front. For the first time in eight years we have seen a decrease in overdose deaths. But what is happening in my state of ohio and around the country is you see more crystal meth coming in from mexico. It is pure, it is powerful, it is inexpensive. Frankly, there arent any more meth labs in places like ohio. Why . Because it is so darn inexpensive and so powerful to buy the stuff from the cartels coming up from mexico. So heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, but now pure crystal meth. On that since you raise it, what is the single most important thing we could do today to stop the crystal meth from coming across the border . So the fy 19 budget does a tremendous amount for us in this regard, and we will deploy those resources, nonintrusive technology for the southern border. Be able to dramatically increase the percentage of vehicles that we scan. It will be the single best tool we have to stop the increase in the new technology we have funded to be able to see if theres a truck coming through, through Noninvasive Technology be able in essence to see whether there are drugs there and be able to apprehend . Right. The two additional points i would make though is the investment in the border wall and the system around that, the camera, the lighting, the roads that allow us to gain access. That will help us address the increasing incidents of hard narcotics coming between ports of entry and, third, resolving this crisis our agents can be back focussed on Border Security access of their mission, those are the things i would highlight. Yes. Lets talk about push and pull factors for a second because what were trying to do on the kmimty ultimately is to help you address the issue. On the push side we talk about the northern triangle countries being countries with a lot of poverty and corruption and reasons for people to want to leave. So we talked about how to get aid and have it be more effectively deployed in those countries. I think theres a general consensus among at least members of this committee we should do a better job and can. However, were still going to have huge wage differentials, still will be issues in el salvador, honduras, guatemala that cannot be addressed simply by aid packages. What are the pull factors . Seems to me the most important one right now, given this, again, 400 increase in families, 75 increase in kids, over 100,000 people a month now coming over that border, is theres something going on with the asylum system because theyre coming over to seek asylum. Theyre coming to your officers. Theyre not trying to avoid Law Enforcement. In fact, the wall probably is not helpful in this regard in the sense that they arent trying to climb over a wall. Theyre coming forward and saying that they would like to get asylum. Tell us what happens if you could to these families when they approach one of your officers and ask for asylum. Are these individuals being processed . Are they being detained . Are they being allowed to go into the community . What is happening today . Yes. So youre absolutely right, senator, on the pull factors. I would actually use your committees chart on this point because you see in fy 15 there, the floor is reinterpreted. Thats been the essential driver frankly for increased family units, is the fact family units can no longer be detained together in an appropriate setting during a fair and expeditious proceeding to determine whether they have a valid asylum claim or other immigration rights. You said family members if there are children there are limited to 20 days and thats in an emergency and otherwise they have to be released into the community, is that accurate . Thats correct. And that certainly, that knowledge that they will be allowed to stay in the u. S. Indefinitely pending a Court Proceeding that could be years away depending on what jurisdiction theyre this is a huge draw. The smugglers capitalized on that, theyre advertising that fact. We hear it routinely from the families. We see it in the media. What percentage that come up to an officer and ask for asylum are released into the Community Within days . 100 . They dont necessarily ask for asylum. When they go into the community you say it can take a while. It is over two years in ohio you should know before we can have a court period. Right. It is over a twoyear period. Whats the average around the country, do you know . The average is two years. Sometimes longer. Two years before the immigration hearing takes place. Right. During that time period can those individuals work . Yes, by and large, although were looking at tightening the rules so theres not an opportunity to take advantage of the system. So they have a work permit. My understanding is they dont get the work permit immediately, but after a certain period of time. Is it six weeks . Right now it is in the 30 to 90day range, thats correct. And those individuals then are going to work. So if you are a trafficker, what youre telling people is, one, if you come to the border and seek asylum or even if you are coming to the border and seeking an immigration hearing, you will be released into the community for a couple of years at least before your hearing, and you will have the ability to work and with a wage differential of, you know, being able to make ten times as much or sometimes as much as 20 times as much in the United States. Do you think it is a factor . Not only is it a factor, that is directly how smugglers are advertising the opportunity to come to the u. S. Right now. Ultimately it comes down to the jobs . Right. We want to talk more about e verify at some point because we dont have a system to determine who is legal and who is not in our country and we need to increase the mandatory use of e verify. Thank you, mr. Commissioner. Now mr. Secretary. Thank you. Thank you, senator portman. Again, theres a great deal of interest in the hearing. We have allowed seven minutes and we will keep people at seven minutes. Senator hassan. Thank you, mr. Chair and senator and mr. Mcaleenan for being here to address these topics. Convicted taliban fighter john walker lynne is reportedly being released from federal prison today. Last week senator shelby and i sent a letter expressing concerning at his release as well as eight scheduled to be released in the next years. One concern is the adequate process to notify state and local officials when a terrorist offender will be released. Do dhs receive information from division of prisons regarding the release of a terrorist offender and what is your process for sharing this information with local authorities . Thats a good question. I will look into it and get back with you. Moving forward can i count on you to work with relevant agencies to develop a strategy to ensure that all officials have the information they need to keep communities safe when these individuals are released . Yes. Thank you. Later today i am headed to the southern border with chairman johnson and Ranking Member peters and senator hawley to assess the situation on the ground. I took a similar trip last year to talk to port officers and i. C. E. Detention officers. I was impressed by my visits to el paso and mccallum, texas, where i saw the screening effort conducted by cbp of incoming traffic from mexico. We talked a little bit about some of the technology that helps officers kind of immediately look, see what is different in a car that the surface looks like a typical car. However, stopping the drug cartels is not solely a matter of securing traffic coming into the United States. We have to attack the cartels business model. That means stopping the flow of both drug money and weapons that travel southbound into mexico from the United States. Unfortunately, as i saw in my trip last year our current southbound screening effort is inadequate. We were told we need expanded facilities, more personnel and updated technology in order to try to strengthen our ability to stop the flow of guns and money back into the cartels hands. So, mr. Mcaleenan, i will ask you the same question that i asked secretary nielsen last year. Are you satisfied with the current state of southbound inspections . No, i agree strongly with you that we can do more. Part of the nonintrusive inspection equipment we will be purchasing with the 2019 funding will go to outbound lanes. To your point weve been doing outbound alongside Border Agents and officers jointly. We dont have agents available to do outbound right now. Theyre doing inbound humanitarian mission. We also can improve our efforts in coordination with the government of mexico so i think theres a lot to do in that area and we can get stronger. Do you think, given the numbers and the humanitarian crisis we are seeing now, i am taking you wouldnt say we have made Real Progress on this issue since last year on southbound . The one area we are making progress is in acquiring the systems that will help us screen more vehicles going southbound. Okay. And more canine teams. Okay. And in our overall hiring of cbp officers that will strengthen our base on the southwest border. With agents deployed on humanitarian missions, with new government coming in and establishing new relationships on the investigative side, i think we can do more this year. So one of the other things i heard last year was that it may take some work and planning with local authorities on both the north and south side of the border to configure things in a way that allows those inspections to take place without interfering with local traffic and the like. Is that something that you have been addressing . Absolutely. No, every port of entry has plans for how to do outbound inspections, given their unique flow of traffic, given the unique configuration of the footprint of ports of entry which, again, have been there for a long time and were designed at a much lower volume of flow, both north and southbound. So, yes, we have plans locally for increased outbound efforts. I would look forward to working with you on that and i will take this as a commitment to continue to work on that because i really think until we get to the southbound flow were not going to break up these business models. Important aspect of the mission, i agree. Okay. Mr. Mcaleenan, back in mari requested from secretary nielsen the case files for the reported 245 child separations that had occurred since the federal judge ruled these separations must end. Understanding the need for privacy and confidentiality, i would have accepted redacted names and addresses. A week after my request, a representative from cbp followed up to say that you as commissioner of cbp could brief me on this matter but not until seven weeks after my initial request. We responded with dates and times that worked but heard nothing back from your office until just two days ago, ten weeks after my request, when your office replied to say that you could not provide specific information on these 245 cases. Ill also note that just this week reports surfaced that as weve talked about, 16yearold Carlos Vasquez died in federal custody at the border, the fifth child to die, and just last night as senator peters pointed out we learned about a sixth childs death after apprehension by Border Agents. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions about treatment of children at the border. I know you care about it, but we obviously have to be able to implement real plans here to prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening. Can you provide any update on the cases of these 245 separated children for us or about what cbp is doing to provide more accountability for the treatment of children at the border . First of all, i will go back and look at your oversight request and make sure we are responding appropriately and timely. Thank you. Thank you for raising. I was not aware we had been delayed in that response. Secondly, i just want to emphasize that any separation thats occurring now is occurring for the benefit of the safety of the child. This is in compliance with the court order, it is in compliance with the executive order from the president from june 20th of last year. So were seeing that even though we have 1,500 to 2,500, some days over 3,000 families, separations only occurring one to three times a day. Those are extraordinarily rare and under very controlled circumstances. I thank you for that answer. Because im running out of time i want to be respectful of the time here, but i want to say that this is not all necessarily on you and your agents, but this administration has given a variety of stories about family separation since they even officially began. So you can understand from an oversight point of view in order to protect children we need this information and we need to engage with you to ensure that what youre intentions are, what youre saying to me now is actually what is happening. Thank you, mr. Chair. Senator paul. Thank you for your testimony. I think it is important that we know who comes to our country, who is visiting, you know, on student visas, if we have intelligence that theyre, you know, here with bad intentions we dont let them in. If theyre not going to school, they are sent back home. But we have a problem that seems to be recurring with one of our universities, Campbellsville University has been around 113 years. I have been there many times. It is a great college. It is a real college with a great reputation in our state. Theyve had three students recently come in on student visas that were either had their visas taken away or returned back. I dont think it is because there was any kind of actionable intelligence or that the kids did anything wrong or the university did anything wrong, but the Border Patrol agents are saying it is a Fake University which, one, is very insulting to our university and to our state, but i think it is not just the border agent problem. It must be some kind of central list. Wouldnt you think they have to type into a list for a student visa and say what universities are on that list . The university is on the list of approved students. The only anomaly may be that it is an online course and some of the students were coming into other airports, so theyre coming into los angeles and they do part of the course in kentucky and part of it online. But it is approved by i. C. E. , it is approved by the government. But the problem is your officers either it is not typed into the system correctly or whatever, but then theyre insulting the students, turning them back and insulting the university also. We sent a letter to you 63 days ago and i think theres been some response and some attempt to resolve this, but ten days ago another student was turned back. Look, im all for safety. Im all for not letting people come in who are problems, but it doesnt sound like an individual problem here. It is more of a systemic problem you dont have your list right or your agents dont have access to the list. Do you know how it works . Does an agent type in a list to come up with the university when a student comes in from abroad . Thank you, senator. I do know how the Student Visa Program works. It is managed by i. C. E. You have to have first of all a certified program, certified university, and then the individual student visa holder has to be confirmed to be part of that certified program. If all of that is true and theyre still coming up and insulting our university and saying it is fake and we have no evidence and no one has presented any evidence that theyre not on the appropriate list sure. So not familiar with the individual case but well certainly look into it. Im glad you have gotten some response toward resolving but well take a look. We need more and the sooner the better because it is a big deal for someone to fly halfway around the world to go to school here and, one, be insulted, the university is insulted, and then to but we need some resolution. Yes. You will try to help us getting resolution . Will you have somebody call us within a week or so and try to work through this so we dont have a recurrence . Well follow up. Okay. The other issue i have is one we had with the last nominee for i. C. E. We werent too fond of him because of one of his statements. One of his statements was that a cellphone is just like a shipping container, and not only do we object to that, we object strenuously to that. We are insulted by the comment. Do you think a cellphone is the same as a shipping container . All goods that cross the border are subject to examination, but actually we have specific policy for cellphones. It is different. They have a different level of data that they can contain and thats why we have restrictive approaches to whether we can inspect it and how we inspect it. All right. We want you to be even more restricted. We want the law changed so senator widen and i have a bill to require a warrant for u. S. Citizens coming back home because we think theres a great danger that if you have brown skin or a different accent or a funny last name that doesnt look socalled american that you are going to get all of a sudden they will say, give us your cellphone. You know, if you have evidence someone is calling a terrorist, you have someone that is part of a terror cell, by all means stop them, keep them, do whatever it takes. But just random american citizens coming home, being asked for the password to their cellphone we think is intrusive without any kind of other than we just think they look suspicious. Thats not enough. And so were still troubled by the reports we hear on this and were going to keep pushing the issue, but it is very important for us to convey to you that we dont think a cellphone is a shipping container. You do have the right to go through luggage and shipping containers at the border. You dont really have a right to look at my google searches and to look at everything i have stored on my phone, pictures, et cetera, and download that to a computer. When you are taking phones and getting passwords, are you downloading contents from the phone to a database . So there are a couple of different types of searches, a basic search where you would just look at the surface content of the cellphone, and then more indepth search of a phone or in the contents. It would require reasonable suspicion, supervisory approval and several additional safeguards. Senator, i know your concerns are sincere and wellinformed on this issue. I want to emphasize though that we have oversight over the selection for secondary and the selection for secondary that includes an inspection of a cellphone device. Any indication that would be done on the basis of race, religion or anything else would be unacceptable and it is overseen not only by cbps office of professional responsibility but by our civil rights and Civil Liberties office. You can see how the danger occurs because a lot is ambiguous when you go to what is suspicion. So you can see how theres a real danger, and for people coming back to be targeted based on it, even if it is not spoken, you know, that theres a danger that theres a bias in the way that this is happening. And so the regulations you have on the phone, on what you do to go to a phone search, are those printed and open and available to us . Yes. We publish the policy online. I personally worked on the update and the more stringent requirements in the policy. Okay. And it is just i know you deal from your perspective. From our perspective many of us think there should be a legal requirement for a judicial search, that this is not the same as looking at the luggage. And so just at least realize that there are some of us that are very concerned about this, the invasiveness of this search. Thanks. Senator carper. Thanks. Thanks very much for visiting with us yesterday, mr. Secretary, and sharing your thoughts and ideas with us. Im going to ask you to use most of my seven minutes to just sketch for us an outline of that includes push and pull factors, includes alliance for prosperity, includes incountry asylum, includes changes in the way we process people at the border, immigration judges. Just take my seven minutes and just put together a thoughtful, compassionate, smart, costeffective plan. The smartest thing we could do would actually be Immigration Reform and, god willing, to say dewill get back and do that. Thats probably the ultimate answer, but just take the next six, sixandahalf minutes to do that for me, please. Thank you, senator, for that opportunity. I think at the start of the hearing the chairmans opening statement, some of our discussions on the flores case and the increased arrival of families and children over the last several years, i think we talked a lot about the pull factors and the direct response to the fact families can no longer be held through together through an appropriate and fair proceeding and have essentially a guarantee of release and indefinite stay in the United States. Thats a tremendous challenge. It has been exploited by smugglers who are advertising that opportunity, and thats what is causing the significant surge we see this year. Unaccompanied children as well, even if they dont have a valid asylum claim from Central America, are also not able to be repatriated under the trafficking victims protection reauthorization act. Those are the two key factors we are facing. The third on the pull factor side is the asylum gap. The fact that credible fear standard is the possibility of proving an asylum case. That means 87 to 92 of those with the initial incredible fear screening are passing it but they dont see a judge for an asylum process two to five years later. When they go through the asylum process we see 10 to 15 granted asylum. Those are huge areas we asked congress to tighten down. We sent language to the hill multiple times, that theres good legislative work going on right now in the Judiciary Committee with chairman grahams bill, but we need to partner on that. That would address the fupull factors quickly and immediately. The president highlighted senator grahams bill as an immediate approach to the crisis in his rose garden remarks on a broader approach to Immigration Reform last week. On the push factors, theyre significant and challenging. Ive been to Central America three times. I will be going in the last year. I will be going on monday to meet with my minister counterparts in guatemala, honduras and el salvador. I will be going back to the Western Highlands in guatemala which is most of the source of the migration were seeing, about 40 arriving at the border, from one specific region of guatemala. 3. 5 of that population has come to the u. S. In seven months, and thats because theyre facing poverty and Economic Opportunity gaps. The average age is guatemala is 19. The people entering the job market are almost 200,000 a year while theyre only creating 40,000 jobs. So theres a huge economic driver and a huge opportunity gap. Senator portman highlighted the wage differential as well. If you can make 15 to 20 times what you can make at home in a booming economy in the u. S. And you have a guaranteed ability to stay indefinitely, thats a massive draw and incentive. The second thing is theres been drought in this region for the last five years. Thats affected the subsistence farming in the Western Highlands, in the rural areas of guatemala and in honduras as women. It is their cbo cycle. Corn, beans and potatoes every year, the beans are not producing. Thats their source of protein. It is a big issue, one that usda and usid has tried to help with, preparing crops drought resistance, and the global coffee price has cratered. That affected the employment in guatemala as well. There are big economic drivers. On the security side, the situation is actually improving in all three countries. The murder rate has gone down significantly, 40 to 70 depending on each country and the municipal areas. The strategy in el salvador for a consolidated whole government effort at the municipal level is working. They are reducing violence and creating additional Economic Opportunity, but theres so much more to be done. The governance issues, the corruption issues, definitely causeand produce push factors that are part of this crisis. So we need a strategy that effectively tackles both. We need help from congress to address the pull factors. We need Border Security investments that were making to increase our capacity on the u. S. Border. We need to partner with mexico to tackle the Trans National criminal organizations that are exploiting vulnerable migrants and we need to engage the governments of Central America, working with accountable partners on targeted programs that make an impact in our national interest. So we have a lot to do, but i think we have a coherent strategy, we have a plan, but we need congresss support to implement it both on the resources and the authority side. What role do investors play in those three countries . So i think our professional diplomats, led by two great ambassadors in honduras, our leading staff that are wellinformed about the situations in those three countries, there are professional diplomats in usaid that are really driving some of the Program Successes that were seeing, especially in el salvador. I had the benefit of going to see them at work and see how hard theyre working in partnership, and i do think we have great, dedicated diplomatic corps trying to advocate for change and improvements in all three countries. I say to my colleagues, theres not been a u. S. Ambassador in over two years in el salvador. The ambassador to el salvador, the role he played following the election of the president elect in el salvador and helping him to prepare and put together his team, a hugely helpful and constructive role. The fact two years and a half years almost out without an ambassador there, we have to raise our voice and say we can do better than this. Real quick, areas we can help you in filling vacancies around you where you have acting people in place. We have several nominees in front of the committee. I think getting Inspector General for oversight is critical. He has advanced to the committee. We have a fema nominee and we are heading into Hurricane Season next week. I would much appreciate if we could schedule a hearing and move a tremendous nominee, jeff byard, through the process. There are nominees that we have sent up to the senate and more hopefully that we will be able to produce in short 0rder, bord. But having the right leaders is important to maintaining the right momentum. Thank you so much. Now that have more senators i want to draw attention to the cup where we put our chart on. Hopefully people wont crumple it up and throw it away. The point i want to make is in the first three weeks of may, 65,000 additional people have been added to that bar. My guess is this bar will show over or close to 400,000 in the first eight months compared to 120,000 in all of the year 2014. So 400,000 is where we probably end up the month of may. So this is a growing crisis, and we have to support the secretary. We have to pass that emergency spending bill. Senator hawley. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to start by talking about the disaster, the tornados that touched down in my state last night causing very significant damage. Weve lost, im afraid, three lives in southwest missouri, also causing significant damage in the middle of the state. We are still assessing the extent of the damage and i will be seeing it for myself very soon. I understand fema dispatched search and rescue team. Thank you for that. I am wondering if you can speak to what more fema might be prepared to do to help. Yes, i reached out to our acting administrator pete gainer this morning on these issues. Fema is on top of it. He noted the search and rescue team. Very concerned and acknowledging the loss of life. Fema will be there. We will respond in support of your state and local authorities to address any any damage from the storm. Great. Thank you very much. I look forward to, working with you on that. As you know, we are also in the midst of a major flood event in the state of missouri. Missou missourians are tough, nobody tougher, but we will need federal assistance to help rebuild those communities, those farms and those towns. I look forward to working with you on that as well. Let me ask you about another major problem in my state, which is the epidemic of drugs flowing into the state. I noticed in your written testimony that the words Illegal Drugs appear just once, which i was a little bit surprised by. Let me give you a chance to elaborate here. The drugs coming across the southern border are making their way i know into cities across the country, but missouri is very hard hit. We have an epidemic of meth our Law Enforcement agents will tell you. Most missourians probably dont realize the meth flowing into minneapolis suri isnt produced in the state anymore. It comes across the southern border. Talk to us about the drug crisis we are facing at the border that is affecting my state and i suspect all of the states of those of us sitting here. Yes, the drug crisis is both acute and devastating. We had a with senator portman about the opioids and increasing meth. If you talked with sheriffs and state and local police over the last two years, west of the mississippi they would have been talked about meth, not the opioid or synthetic opioid crisis. Now you are seeing meth expand east of the mississippi as well. This is devastating and it is our responsibility at dhs to do better with this challenge. As you noted, 90 plus percent of both heroin and meth are coming from mexico now. The mexican cartels have made it into a super lab science and we are working with the mexican authorities to try to take out some of these labs in key areas that weve helped them identify, but we need to do more at the immediate border as well. The investments from fy19 in increased nonintrusive technology will be a game changer for us. Right now about 85 of our seizures come from xrays of personally owned vehicles. We are only getting to 2 of those cars right now. With the investments we got last year, we will be able to get up to 40 , and thats going to completely change our dynamic in terms of risk assessed, targeted inspections. For commercial vehicles we are at 17 . We will be able to take it up over 70 in a matter of twoandahalf years. That will be a very different target for our the smugglers to try to get through. We are also increasing our canine teams, which are the second highest referral rate for our drug seizures. I want to emphasize though between the Ports Investments are also critical. The border barrier, the wall system with lights, cameras, sensors on top of that. Tell us, why is that so important . Because we are seeing increasingly smugglers using betweenports methods to bring in hard narcotics. It was not a significant phenomenon five years ago. It is growing now and it is a huge challenge. In the valley where we have the epicenter of the humanitarian crisis we are talking about, last month we made a seeizure o 750pound of cocaine in one seizure. They felt confident enough to bring that many drugs across and we had one Border Patrol agent who laid in the brush a week straight because he was worried about that stretch of border, he knew they were using families to divert resources. So he laid in that stretch of brush and caught that load. I talked to him and talked to him about how dedicated he was to sit there for a shift and a half, seven days in a row before he finally got that load. We know what is happening. We know theyre using families to divert resources and bring drugs behind them and the border wall changes that dynamic. What other resources do we need to combat this epidemic . We have asked for surveillance sensors in the 2020 budget to help our aviation platforms target crossings. We need the innovative towers we are putting in place. We received support from congress three years in a row for innovative, Cost Effective programs on emerging technologies that will expand our surveillance capability. We need to finish our fixed tower deployment. That Surveillance Technology and the ability of our agents to respond effectively in a mobile way is a huge factor in our success. Can i just ask you, how is the growing crisis of the asylum crisis and the illegal Immigration Crisis we are seeing and that the chairman has been talking about earlier today, how is that affecting your ability to combat the drug smuggling crisis as well . The first time i referred to it as a Border Security and humanitarian crisis was last june when we had onefourth of the traffic we have now. The humanitarian crisis is drawing away our Border Patrol officers. 40 of their time is spent on transportation, processing, hospital care, medical watch, food preparation for migrants. Theyre not on the lines where we need them. In parts of the el paso sector we are depleted 60 to 70 from what we like to be in our forward die employment on the line. We need agents back doing what the American People want them to do, protecting them on the border. Is it fair to say this congresss inability to deal with the Immigration Crisis is helping fuel the drug epidemic crisis . Theyre directly related. How frequently is Border Patrol apprehending members of gangs such as ms13 . Last year we apprehended 700 people with criminal records. We had 808 gang members in 18. We have more so far coming this year. There is a population, it is not just families and children. They are the bulk of who is crossing now. They present unique challenges, but we are talking about 35 of that traffic are people trying to evade capture and hidden within that 35 are criminals, gang members and drug smugglers. We have to address this comprehensively. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator scott. Thanks for what you do. I was just down in panama and met with some dhs representatives to talk about narco trafficking and the violence, you know, thats part of it and i met with ot i met with dea, dod, and talking about they had some Additional Resources to countries just north of there where a lot of the narco trafficking is coming out of. They could do a lot and they thought it would have a positive impact on dealing with whats happening on our border. What do you need and what can we do . What can congress do to be more helpful, you know, in that arena . Thank you, senator. Thanks for visiting with our people. I think one of dhss strengths is our ability to support and work with foreign partners to make an impact on our security as far away from our border as possible and really building their capacity, sharing information and trying to make an impact together. I think panama is one of our best examples of that. Both both the i. C. E. And Homeland Security investigation presence, u. S. Coast guard partnerships with panama are a good example for the entire hemisphere and we made a lot of progress in the last five to seven years. Specifically the government of panama. You talk about the trafficking challenges in that region, the and andies are the highest produciig cocaine rates. The numbers have been increasing in the last three years. Addressing that at the source, with u. S. Coast guard on the water, with Maritime Patrol, aircraft in the air is our best defense. Those are often driven by good intelligence sharing, by investigative efforts with hhsi, dea and others to try to get those before they get out in the open water and land somewhere in Central America and mexico and try to come across our land border. Those partnerships are critical. The investments in the coast guard fleet, i would highlight are essential to helping us sustain a presence on the water there in the source and transit zones and then our fleet, our uas fleet, the guardians that are the Maritime Patrol version of our predator drones are critical assets. We appreciate congresss continued support for that. They also talked about the fact that the, i guess, it must have been further south from south america, they are getting out further into the pacific and then coming in. Theres a need for additional, i dont know if its dod or coast guard assets. Can you talk about that . Were seeing routes coming north. From baja, california were seeing routes west of catalina to the middle of california. We need to look at opportunities the innovate. Were seeing incredible efforts by cartel to avoid our current patrol efforts. We need the look out over the horizon and see what technologies we need to get better at this challenge. I agree with both. The comptroller general was in this week talking about they review how agencies contract and talking about fema to a certain extent. It seems like every plague there was when i was governor of florida. I had health and hurricanes and everything. What opportunities do you have whether its through fema or anything else that dhs is doing that you can save money to allocate more dollars to with the issues were dealing with on the border . Thats a good question. It was an area we worked on. Theyve been very effective at getting good value for government. Lowering our protest rate. I think thats the story of dhs wide. Were looking at thousands of contracts that fema issued in states that have been devastating and only four or five of them had issues that needed to be cancelled. I think the record is pretty good. I know theres been high profile concerns. From my standpoint, fema has been a great partner. They did a great job. I had floods, everything you can imagine, they were a good partner. I think theres a lot of money to be saved in one contract in particular how they do debris which is not done, i think fema pays for it but its done through the core. The prices that the core contracted for the same company was multiples of what they same company would do business in fl n for. Its a lot of money. Anything we can do that can be helpful to save money there that you might have money to allocate things that are a bigger problem, id like to work with you on. Well commit to that. Thank you. Senator romney. Thank you. Very much appreciate your testimony today and this opportunity to talk about your budget as well as policies relating to our border. Just a comment at the outset which is its hard for me to understand why Border Security has become such a partisan issue. I think there are people who have politicized it much to the peril of those doing so. I do understand theres political issues associated with how we deal with our daca individuals. How we deal with 11 or 12 million of so or people who have come here illegally in the past and have been here for some period of time and raise their families here. People are concerned about whether well have a system of Legal Immigration based upon joining families back together or family reunification. These all have understandable political back and forth. Securing the border and keeping people from flooding over the border illegally is something one could take out of the realm of politics. Those that are making this a political issue perhaps i think its a real loser for political standpoint. Without a completed wall, without the technology that we can avail ourselves of, were going to see more and more drugs come into the country, with people dying as a result of those drugs coming in. Were going to have a flood of children coming that get separated from parents and go off into foster settings in many cases. Unaccompanied children, that is. Its a series of horrible potential outcomes or horrible reality that is occurring. I hope were able to deal with it. The loopholes and gaps in our legal system that is caused this to a great degree this extraordinary crisis to occur. With that said let me turn to a question id like to ask you. Youve spoken about the importance of the wall. Using Better Technology and open sea, closing the loopholes and you mentioned that a number of people in Central America and mexico, for that matter, look across the border and say i can get 15 bucks an hour up there and getting a dollar around here and theyll find a way. They will find way to get here because of that Enormous Economic advantage in doing so. Some of us feel that we should mandate a requirement that businesses use e verify and if a business does not use e verify and if they have found a higher someone who is not here legally, the business should be heavily fined for not having used the e ve verify system. Do you believe with penalties would help reduce the magnet that brings people who just want to come here for Economic Opportunity . Thank you, senator. Just specifically on your e verify question. We support comprehensive use of e verify. Every employer should avail themselves to this opportunity. Its a robust i. T. System and provides quick responses on people with lawful status in the United States. That employment magnet, the booming u. S. Economy. I should have included that in my response its one of the huge pull factors. Its the opportunity we have in the u. S. Its a tool to help make sure thats done in a lawful manner. If i could add one other point, i did close my oral statement with request. To work in a bipartisan way and a problem sooifing way and how welcome that is. I started after 9 11. Having Boarder Security be politicized issue is new and i dont think its acceptable to the American People. I applauds your call for taking that out of the dynamic. Thank you. Thank you. Now to a couple of topics that relate to a cmoney. Looking at the president s request in 19 and 20 and comparing that with what was enbase enacted 18, its up some 40 . Why is there a substantial increase there . I think the bulk is to get the Disaster Recovery fund to the level it needs to be to address the past storms in 17 and 18 and have it prepared for the future. Its a escapable draw down. It doesnt have to stay obligated if we dont need the use it. In a similar vain theres an enormous increase in i. C. E. From 7. 5 million enacted in 2018 to 9. 3 requested in 2020. Why the substantial increase there . I think theres two main issues. We need a lot more professionals at i. C. E. Weve had for 1660 additional Homeland Security investigation agents. Right now our enforcement operations are sized for 34,000 people in custody but they are holding 51,000. That means it takes longer to get each case processed and to get removals occurring and they dont have the strength to do all their missions at the same time. They are also fully involved in the border crisis. We have hundreds of agents dealing with child smuggling issues. They come up in the first three weeks of that operation with 160 prosecution for adult who is are smuggling children across and posing as family units. Thats first. Its just investing in our systems and a broad variety of requirements. You indicated also in response to another question the important rule the coast guard is playing with Drug Trafficking thats brinking ships north of catalina island. The coast guard budget request is down. Why the reduction in spending or funding for the coast guard . I think the main difference there about getting the resources needed to keep Capital Investments moving forward. I think the big differences of one time initial start up coast for buying the ice breaker for the arctic, that is not required in the 20 budget. Well sustain that program. We dont need that first investment. I think thats the big difference in the 19 and 20 budgets. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you so much. We have a lot to cover as you have gone through quite a bit. Let me go through a couple of issues you started to address. One is on the drug interdiction issues. I want to walk through the drug interdiction and what were seeing coming from mexico versus coming from china. Help us understand why you see as the difference between the amount of drugs coming into the United States from mexico and the amount of drugs through china. Thank you. The two main vectors for synthetics. In this massive flood of e commerce. This tremendous growth of mail shipments coming from china, express consignment coming from china. Were seeing hard narcotics. Viles of fentnyl and its very potent. Its very potent. A small amount could be pressed into pills. On the mexican side, were seeing prepackaged fentanyl doses. Its more at the 10 purity level. Its a much lower level but produced ready to use. I think the bulk is still on the southwest border for all drugs but including our synthetic opioids. We see precursors coming from china. Thats what we have seen with fentanyl as well. What is the cooperation like with the Mexican Government . We have established connections with the new leaders of our Counter Party age eer pa. Thats going to be a five year process. We know what its like to merge and change as a department. We did that in 2003 extensively. Thats a distraction. Thats something we will work with our partners to make sure we remain focused on the threats. We have good relationships with their head of security. Were going to stay focused on this issue and try to maintain our efforts. We have seen targeted take outs of meth labs based on intelligence and information sharing from u. S. Law enforcement. I think thats a positive sign. Tell me about the effectiveness or noneffectiveness of new fencing. Youve replaced some of the fencing in san diego and some of that area. Youve had enough time to evaluate it. How is it working compared to old fence something s . A complete difference. Theres been a lot of reporting that suggests this isnt a new ca capability. This isnt helpful. This wasnt important. It couldnt be further from the truth. Those were our top requirements. We had this delapidated wall. It was needed the most. Now having a 30foot wall where theres a mall within 40 yards of the border has changed the dynamic. The traffic has dropd oped afte the table in that area. Do you have an idea of what the movement used to be through the same area or what it is now . We do. I can get you that data. The percentage drop has been dramatic. Theres been a lot of push back to say its replacement so that makes no difference. The numbers ive seen show a pretty significant difference between the new fencing and between the older fencing that wasnt very effective at all. Let me shift gears a bit. My state has been like several states. Weve had a tremendous amount of water. The flooding in my state has been pretty dramatic and continues to increase. We have storms predicted the next four days in a row. This is an area im tracking very closely working with core of engineers and others. Fema has been on the ground. We appreciate the engagement there and will continue to be able to work with you on that. What do you need at this point that you do not have already for Disaster Relief whether it is in my state of oklahoma, missouri. It was a tornado last night in jefferson city. Whether its in florida or puerto rico. I think we have the resources we need. I talked to the governor two weeks about the flooding and potential for increase flooding where the rains continue and the river stays high. Were very worried about it. What i heard was the partnership between the state and locals has been tremendous on this. They are getting what they need at the state level but absolutely i want to continue the communication. We would love to hear from your office if theres opportunities to improve that. Thank you. Well continue to walk through that. Femas cooperation has been excellent. I need to ask you a couple other quick things. One is on the coast guard process. We talked briefly before as far an interdiction on the waters, theres two different structures. The coast guard process is much longer than customs and Border Patrol. Ive always wondered why we have two entities, both on the water. One has one prosacess and one h another and the coast guard process is much longer. Theres some nonlethal resources and to help those get the level of engagement faster. Let me shift a bit to Cyber Security. What dhs did in the 2018 election was pretty remarkable in your engagement. A lot of threats. Lot of Lessons Learned from 2016. Very different dhs engagement in 2018. How is it knowing that every federal agency looks to you to help with Cyber Security for that entity. How is that going as far as Resource Wise . This is something ive been working on multiple times a week. Theres an area where i have high confidence in our team. They want to get to all 8800 jurisdictions in the state. Make sure they have the right systems in place that if they want scanning or Penetration Testing we can do that in advance and help them prepare. I feel very good about the election. We do have good buy in on our protections at the edge of the gateway and others. We see components brought in that could have vulnerabilities. Thats a huge challenge for cyber to have the basicest impai biggest impact. Everything from power to pipeline. Well stay on top of this. Please do. Senator rosen. Thank you. I want to thank you for bringing this important hearing here today. I want to thank you for your service for so many years. Its really important and your knowledge is great and your compassion as well. I want to ask a couple of questions on family separation. We sent a letter about misleading information we received last year when we visited the border. I havent yet received a response from your department but maybe you could provide me with some answers. News reports indicate that dhs in Exchange Emails on june 23rd, 2018 acknowledging that the departments did not have the necessary information to reunite Migrant Children with their families. Those email exchanges, dhs and hhs admitted and im going to quote here, in short, no we do not have any linkages from parents to children. We have a list of parent alien numbers but no way to link them to children, end quote. On that same day, dhs issued a fact sheet claiming the department knew the location of all the children in custody. The department had a process in place for the families to know the location for the children and had a central database you could access and update. Just two days after that, congressman and i traveled to the border to tour the unaccompanied minor facility. We were falsely told by leadership in those dhs and hhs facilities that the departments had the necessary information to reunite the families. My question im hoping to ask, i guess acting secretary, taking a step back, how could you or how would you explain the d discrepancy between the private emails and the fact sheet published to the public the same day. Thank you for the question. Ill do my best to explain it here and make sure we have an appropriate and robust response to your inquiry. There are five different components involved primarily in dealing with immigration. Three agencies within dhs, health and Human Services and department of justice. All five manage different i. T. Systems. Thats a challenge. On april 19th of 2019, there was an add justment to system to capture parentchild relationships in our data at the border. Thats a cbp system. Its not available directly to all hhs personnel as of june of 2018. When youre seeing an email like that and i would want im giving you a broad answer. Im not answering what the individuals are thinking or talking to specifically but my interpretation of that is that having to go to a list of parent alien numbers means they have to go to a different system. They cant automatically see the linkages between the parent and child and the two different systems. You think it was a lack of communication interagency. A lack of system integration. I think the communication was very good. I want to comment on the reunification in a second. First, were going to fix this. Its one of my priorities as acting secretary to have a unified immigration portal that allows the data to connect and be integrated across agencagenc. Thats doable. We did it for 47 trade departments when i was in cbp. We can improve this process and help ensure relationships are captured between people arriving at the border. Thats a priority. The reason i know that i can say with confidence that the data was captured and the intent of what was said publicly about our systems was born out is the reunifications happened pretty rapidly and broadly successful by hhs working with i. C. E. Let me follow up on that. The children that are still tra separated and we know there are a few, how many cases still lack the information necessary for reunification and could you provide that information to us . Thats being provided by health and Human Services in biweekly filings. I would refer you for an official answer to that data and to hhs. My understanding is that every single child has an identified parent relationship at this point. Okay. Well refer out to that. I have another couple things. Of course your department has a lot of work to do to regain the public trust, including mine. As you leave td the department forward, will you commit to truthfully respond to the committee that your department wont mislead us again in the way we were mislead last year when i visited the border no matter what the severity of issues are at hand. Law enforcement depends on public trust. Thats a fundamental requirement to carry out our mission and carry out our jobs. I will ensure that as long as im acting, well do our level best to explain whats happening to congress, to the American People on all aspects of our mission. Thank you. I have one last question quickly on family separation. The training that youre providing for the dhs officers determine or not whether families are falling into the criteria of needing to be separated, what youre going to do Going Forward. You said you have a lack of bed space, lack of detention space. What are your plans Going Forward to train your officers to take care with these families when they are going through this . Thank you for the question. A case where a child and a parent are separated now is extraordinarily rare. Its done for the safety of the child. If theres a serious criminal violation, an indication the parent presents a risk to that child. If theres a communicable disease, they need to go to emergency care, its happening one to three times a day out of up to 3,000 families arriving. I want to be very clear. Its very rare situation and its got the fine criteria that we mandated for our personnel in the field. Its extraordinarily rare. In terms of the process for doing that, i think theres an opportunity with our civil rights and Civil Liberties office to look across our department and see we can do it consistently for i. C. E. And that were taking all steps to consider the care of the child, the middle concerns the child might have in that scenario and explain it effectively. I think theres an opportunity there id like to work on. Thank you. Senator. Thank you. Our nation faces a crisis along the southern boarder aer border working to stop the flow of migrants and ensure the fair and humane treatment of migrants who come. We must Work Together to find bipartisan and common sense solutions. Acting secretary, im glad youre here today. I look forward to our discussion. The lack of Transportation Resources to manage the flow of migrants is a serious problem in arizona. We need help transporting migrants between interception, detention facilities and i. C. E. And getting migrants and ngos to facility further transportation. Could you review capability to provide additional Transportation Resources in arizona including resources from outside cbp or i. C. E. And get back to me on what the possibilities are . I can do that. Great. This is going well, chairman. When searching for solutions to a crisis its important to think outside the box. I hope that youre i think the transportation calls for outside the box thinking. Its in dhs best interest to work to manage migrant transportation after they leave dhs custody. I heard from constituents which is working with sponsors. Such ideas have merit but will probably need assistance and cooperation to be effective. Could you take a creative look at what other support they could provide to these ngos on the transportation front and work with us on the ground in arizona on those possibilities . Well do that, senator. I think innovation and partnership will be critical. They have been to date with state and local authorities in arizona and elsewhere. Ill just highlight one quick example of that innovation and creativity. Our acting commissioner john sanders has been instrumental in bringing together faith based organizations and ngos with resources away from the border that want to or able to help the ngos at the border that are doing so much work in your state, in el paso, in south texas not only engaging our greyhound partners to increase routes but look at other Creative Solutions in addition to applying the funding were getting from congress. Were buying buses. Were borrowing cdl drivers from the department of defense and asking for more transportation funding in the supplemental. I believe we need to treat all migrants fairly and huma humanely. We need to determine who needs asylum. The key part is the determination of credible fear. Do you feel the department has sufficient authority to allow immigration and asylum officers to ask enough questions of migrants to get at the truth of any credible fear or claims . I think theres two elements to that. Resource is part of it. Being able to take the time at the front end to assess the situation and were seeing that with family units right now. The volume is so high. Our boardrder patrol agents aret able to spend adequate time with each family to assess the family relationship or if theres any concerns of smuggling or trafficking. Out of 560 interviews they found 500 cases of fraud. Thats a high percentage. They are prosecuting the adults involved. Im worried that Resource Wise we dont have enough to detect that frauds and protect the safety of children that could be trafficked or smuggled by adults right now given the flood of the crush. Theres clearly too big a gap between the front end bar and the ultimate determination by a judge to have 85 to 90 pass that first bar but only 10 to 15 pass the asylum bar with a two to five year gap between the two findings, thats a gap in the frame work thats allowing and inciting additional traffic to our borders. I think we need to address not only the resources side but the standard. What would you suggest that congress do to help close that gap between the initial interview and the determination in front of a judge . We provided language that would apply a different standard on the front end of the kredsabkredcredible fear that we think would allow valid asylum cases go forward. Do you believe that you have the Current Authority to expand the questions asked at the beginning when folks are intercepted to create, for lack of a better term, stronger record or longer record to help prepare for litigation . Is that something you have the Current Authority to do or do you need congresss action to ask more questions . We do have the authority and were implementing a more standardized approach. My concern is the resources and the ability for our agents to spend the time they need to do that questioning effectively. If you had sufficient resours and power, you could ask more questions at the front end that would help better prepare a case for presentation in front of a judge to make the claim or show theres not evidence for adequate asylum status. Or presentation to an asylum officer as well. Great. Cpb indicated its reassigned over 700 officers from ports of entry and airports around the nation including some from the tucson area and arizona. We know theres an effort to transport tsa officers from airports to assist the border control. I have some kmpbs aboconcerns a decisions and impact on security. Could you tell me about where officers were reassigned from and to so we can better understand the strategy to move officers. I was commissioner at cbp when we started the deployment of Border Patrol agents. The port of entry is one of the most important arteries of trade with mexico across the border. We are eager to get the officers back during their primary mission if we can help mitigate this crisis. What we do in a response to a natural disaster, for instance. Very clearly we are not going to allow an increase risked in our Aviation Security system. Not going to allow that. We dont even have any tsos deployed at this time as volunteers. We have federal air marbshals ad taking Office Management staff as volunteers. Wlooe were looking for attorneys. Tsos might be required in the future. We had 2,000 people deployed. We only have 250 or so right now for this crisis. Its going to be managed carefully. Were not going to increase risk in other Mission Areas but we might increase wait times and we had that effect at the ports of entry on the boarder and thatrda concern. Thank you. Youve done a terrific job of answering questions and showing your vast amount of experience in this area. We need you right now. We thank you for being here. We understand youre going to stay until 11 10. We had first round for everybody. We will have the second round. It will be a lightning round. Well try four minutes here. I appreciate the fact that my colleague is allowed senator langford and me to go because we have to leave before 11 00. Thank you. Senator langford. Thanks again for the work. I need to thank you for the new Advisory Committee that you put in place for houses of worship after the attacks in pittsbutsp and texas. Thank you. Anything in particular we need know about that that we can help in assisting in what your work is . Were very concerned about the increase attacks on houses of worship of all faiths both here in the u. S. And globally. The recommendation of Homeland Security, i looked at it, talked with our team and asked the Homeland Security counsel that provided ounce advice. This is a Bipartisan Group of experts, former leaders, state and local leaders and theyve given us great advice across all kinds of missions. Regardless of the motivation or ideology behind the violence, we want to get in front of that and prevent it and partner with the fbi to address it if it does occur. Im looking forward to the recommendations. They took on the task. Judge webster, a hero of the United States is still working to help secure the country well into his 90s. Thank you. For employees that use e verify they also have to use i9. They are really using two different systems. Thats going two different directions. Its redundant paper work. Our systems have one set whether its i9 or e verify but one way to do this for the sake of our employers to verify legal status. I do need to ask because you and i talked before about what i think the term was is recycled children coming across the children. The same child coming across claiming multiple families. Are you still seeing that area or still seeing adults that are claiming to be a child at 17 but really 19, 20, 21 and how is that going in determination . Were seeing both. Having the same child smuggled twice by different adults is not as prevalent but we have identified three different cases. Bringing children and then flying them back and having another adult take them to the border and fake a family relationship. Thats unacceptable. We see 20yearolds and well into their 20s pretending to be jooi juveniles. We have 3500 cases of fraud in family relationship or an adult claiming unaccompanied status. The problem might be bigger than we thought it was based on the initial findings from the three weeks on the ground. We have a rapid dna pilot thats ongoing to determine family hip relationships. We had 12 adults come forward and say its not my child. First day in one location. Thats a major concern. We need to expand our capability to identify those relationships, to attack the frauds and Technology Support for our agencies and officers to do that. And find out whose child that is thats been smuggled. Right. Thank you. Youll talk for a moment about this issue of attacks on houses of worship and i wanted to follow up on that in the wake of the terrible tragedies in pittsbur pittsburgh, san diego and texas and charleston. You at dhs have been supportive of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. This is funding that goes not just for the advice and expertise because we need to provide best practices to these groups. Also provide grant money to be able to ensure you have safer facilities whether its the synagogue, church, community or school. Unfortunately, its needed. Senator peters and i have introduced legislation. Its 75 million a year. Authorization, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program has been supported but not authorized. Wed love you to support that legislation and build this program to the point it can provide better protection. Second, in terms of where the money goes, theres a report that came out recently that said the the risk doesnt take the diverse threats that are out there today. Two questions. Would you support our authorization legislation and second, based on this recent ge report, are you reevaluating the Risk Assessment formula to take account of these diverse threats . Thanks for the question. First of all, ill look at the grants in the language. Id will happy to look at that and get back with you shortly. Thats something i would like the counsel to advice us on is what support do we need to provide as a federal government in this sector Going Forward. Im not familiar with that recommendation but i know our department will process to assess and respond to the recommendations are extensive. If you could get back to us in a couple of week, that would be terrific. Sadly we have the continued threat and we need to do more. Some of the fentanyl goes through mexico as well. The major threat is directly from china coming into the United States through our own u. S. Mail system. The post office is behind. This affects you directly because your customs and Border Protection people dont have the ability to get the information and screen the packages, pull off the packages would you tell us this advance electronic data. My question is what are you doing to ensure compliance with the stop act. Are you coordinating with the Postal Service the try to get these percentages up to the requirement under stop act and what more can we do to ensure that all aspects of this law are being come plieped with. Thank you for your ongoing support of dhs in this area and really Holding Us Accountable for Getting Better in the environment. I think thats critical. 76 is not where we need to be for china given the threat. It was less than 10 two years ago. I do think the support and pressure from the stop act and others have helped us get better with the Postal Service. I can tell you this is a priority up to the president ial level. Thats going to continue to be a diplomatic priority and one i favor from a dhs perspective. I do want to just point out we have gotten a lot better with that 76 . We are getting more and more seiziers the ieures that have bd based on information and able to work with the Postal Service and take down domestically. Its something i want the make sure we get better at and well keep pressing. I appreciate your personal commitments to it and your meetings over the years and meeting with her as well. I want you to keep the pressure because this is still the deadliest substance killing us more than any other drug. Thank you. Recent news articles in litigation have highlighted the issue of Government Watch lists. There are an intergal part of our state. The disruptions can last an hour or more when ever they travel. My question is the department studying ways to streamline screenings especially for american citizens who are forced to undergo long secondary screenings . We are. Im familiar with some of the issues with routine Border Crossings in detroit, in your state. The watch list is a very important purpose for identifying risk and a Border Crossing event is important to see if theres a security threat. When that becomes an issue with a daily cross as a u. S. Citizen, even if theres valid security concerns, thats something we generally would modify. After an appropriate number of inspections, we will reduce or not have that watch list record on primary. Were changing that as something we monitor carefully. The other challenge we have is very similar name, date of birth issues. Someone who is not the subject of the watch list record, we have put in place a primary look out that allows us to not hit on that other traveler the next time. Thats something we can always put in place. We can address them. What is the department doing to ensure that the staff is conducting secondary screenings sense to the cultural as well as religious considerations of folks been screened . We spend a lot of time on the training. Our policies are very clear. Theres no room for bias or discrimination in our secondary procedures and our approach to interviewing those that cross our boarderder. We want to hear a complaint or with our office of professional responsibility if its a misconduct issue. For all of our personnel involved in Counter Terrorism response and expertise at ports of entry, they go through a higher level of training that involves sensitivity issues with questioning with certain populations and religious concerns as well. Thats a commitment i have. I helped design that training. Its a commit m we have improved over the years. I do think were doing that quite well. Its something we have partnered with civil rights and Civil Liberties office on. I appreciate that commitment. We have spoken about that on several times. Im still hearing lots of complaints and concerns. I would hope we can continue to Work Together to find out where those gaps are and how we can fill those gaps. I appreciate your commitment. If you could get individual permission from your con spich we constituents, were able to follow up and find out if theres a pattern. Well do that. Ilt i want to build on the last questions on attacks on house of worships. We sent you, and attorney general barr about use of resources to protect and prevent domestic terrorism. We wrote you during a time of some disturbing increases in white isssupremacists attacks. Are you concerned about this rise of white supremist violence and does the dhs have the flexibility to respond to this e involving threat . Very concerned about it. This will be a priority of our targeted violence and terrorist Prevention Office which we just created and broadened their mandate in the last six weeks at dhs. White supremists, extremist violence is a huge issue and one we need a whole of community eft f effort for. Its a number of those faith based attacks that we have been talking about and will be the focus of our review. For dhs our commission is preventi prevention. Fbi is the lead investigative component. Well maintain that commitment. Threats e involvolve. This is a increasingly concerning threat. We requested a response of yesterday from your office. I understand we received some information. I need your full cooperation as we look at that issue. Do i have your commitment . You do. With that, senator. Thank you. Thank you for spending long morning with us. We appreciate it. I have two questions that are follow ups to others. Senator portman talked about our ongoing battle about opioids but fentanyl. Last congress we passed and the president signed into law the act that provides more technology for boarder agents t detect at the border. I heard the agents still didnt have access to this equipment. Former secretary neilesen testified it was unacceptable. I believe we have implemented the act at the highest traffic locations for concerns for fentanyl or synthetic opioids. That doesnt mean we have it everywhere we need it. The investments in fy 19 will help augment that. Well look at to make sure its comprehensive. Are all the fy 19 funds spent . Not yet. They are in the planning and deployment phase. Are all the machines operatio l operational . There are operational. What still needs to be done. Just expending them to over sigh sights . Correct. We deploy on a risk base prioritized basis. It will be the mail facilities, the major ports of entry and we try to get to the rest of the key areas. Do you have the funding you need to do that . I believe so. Ill report to you if were missing resources. Please do. Wed love to stay up to date on that with you. I also love to follow up on the issue of domestic terrorism. I greatly appreciate the attention of dhs and my colleagues on fighting domestic terrorism against houses of worship and faith based groups. Senator grassley and i have sent your agency a letter expressing concern over the rise of domestic terrorism and requesting more information on what dhs is doing to mitigate the threat to ensure public safety. I want to ask a series of questions to get a better sense of resources. Since weve got limited time, lets see if we can do a lightning round. I take it that you agree that domestic nonforeign terrorist is on the rise as stating . Yes. Given the emphasis of domestic terrorism, does dhs have a 2019 strategy addressing the rise in domestic terrorism threats . Were working on a formal strategy. We have that as a priority e effort already. I take it you will share it with the committee. Yes. On a related note, what percentage of departments budget is specifically dedicated to addressing domestic terrorism and how does that amount compare to previous years . I dont have that information here. We can get back to you. Thank you. I would love it if you get back to us on that. How many intelligence analysts at dhs headquarters tasked with the responsibility of covering domestic terrorism are there . Ill get back to you on that as well. Under the secretary hes deployed a number of the analysts to work with state and local around the country. Thats one of the focus areas. Ill ask a similar update about how many policy and Program Staff you have exclusively focusing on domestic terrorism. Okay. I share the concern its on the rise here. Ive been concerned that resources that once were devoted to domestic terrorism have been taken and used other places and its one thing to say we care about it and committed to it which i believe and i understand its another thing to have the resources personnel focussed to it. Ill look forward to that update for you. Thank you. Thank you. We have three minutes remain ng t remaining in the hearing. Senator rosen, they are yours. I want to talk about tps a bit. Theres been serious allegations in the interference of the process surrounding the termination of tps from people from el salvador, nicaragua. Immigration nationality act provides for tps status in cases where secretary of dhs finds civil unrest, violence, natural disasters or any other temporary conditions preventing foreign nationals from returning safely home or where their home countries can absorb them. A federal judge has recently written in deciding to terminate tps status of sudan that change criteria applied by the prior administrations and did so without any explanation or justification in violation of the administrative procedure act. Im going to go quickly. I have two questions. I know that these decisions are currently the subject of litigation but since youve taken over the department, have you looked into the Decision Making process for tps status determination and will you commit to cooperating with the Inspector General with that investigation looking into improper political influence and Decision Making process for changing this criteria. Understanding the importance of tps Decision Making, i have asked when our next decision st coming up. Its something well do carefully, applying the standards appropriately if and when the next decision is presented. Thousands of people in my state are depending on fair decision on this. I look forward to working with you. Thank you for staying extra. Thank you, senator. Thank you. We appreciate you being here today. We appreciate your testimony and ill look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until june 7th at 5 00 p. M. For the submission of statements and questions for the record. With that the hearing is adjourned. After the investigative. Earlier this week into a Facebook Group where Border Patrol agents joke about migrant deaths. And post derogatory comments about members of congress. He says hes directed an immediate investigation. He tweeted reporting this week highlighted disturbing and inexcusable social media activity that allegedly includes active Border Patrol personnel. These statements are completely unacceptable. Especially if made by those sworn to uphold the Homeland Security departments mission, values and standards of conduct. He noted the Facebook Comments dont represent the agency. While congress is on break this week, a look at some American History tv programs. Tonight the 50th anniversary of the stone wall riots in 1969 which became a turning point for gay rights in the u. S. Mark stain joins us from the stone Wall National monument in greenwich village. Heres a portion of the coverage where he explains how the riots start after a police raid at the bar. So some people were detained inside the bar. Others began exiting the bar. But on that night and by this time it was the Early Morning hours of june 28th. Patrons and passers by began gathering on the street outside and as the police tried to bring those they had detained into police wagons, the crowd began to erupt. Over the next few nights there was rioting in the streets, protests, demonstrations. At one point the police were trapped inside the bar until reinforcements arrived. The Tactical Police were the Riot Control Police were called, and tried to reestablish order on the streets, but the rioting proceeded over the course of the next week. Thats part of the interview youll see tonight as American History tv looks at the 50th anniversary of the stone wall riots. Also a discussion on pioneering gay rights films from 1968 and 1970. Also a conversation with people who saw the protests on changes since those rye notes 50 years ago. Thats tonight starting at 8 00 eastern on cspan3. There has been discussion about an appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We koez those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress. The house Judiciary Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee on wednesday, july 17th at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. Hell testify in open session about his report into russian interference in the 2016 election. Watch live coverage on cspan3, online at cspan. Org or listen with the free radio app. Energy secretary rick perry was on capitol hill to answer questions about his budget needs. The house science space and Technology Committee asked about Nuclear Energy security, Carbon Capture technologies Climate Science and energy waste management. He was accompanied by the Energy Department undersecretary for science. The hear willing come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Let me say good morning and welcome to todays hearing. The oversight of the department of Energy Research and development