Transcripts For CSPAN3 Acting Homeland Security Secretary Testifies On Migrant Children Policy 20240714

The committee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee. We are convening to hear the testimony of acting secretary of Homeland Security Kevin Mcaleenan. I want to briefly address the spectators. I already saw two signs being held un, so i want to address you. We welcome you and we respect your right to be here. We also ask in turn that you respect we ask for your respect as we proceed with the business of this committee today. It is the intention of this committee to proceed with this hearing without disruptions. If a disruption occurs, listen up, a Capital Police officer will go up to the individual and instruct they cease demonstrations. If the individual does cease, no action will be taken. However, if the person does not cease, he will be asked to leave. Were grateful for your presence here today and your cooperation and we want to move this hearing along quickly. Every time i have to stop and police have to address issues like that, that just slows us up. I would also remind all members to avoid engaging in any adverse personal references. I know recognize myself for five minutes. Today the committee is examining the Trump Administrations inhumane policy of separating children from their parents at the border and the dangerous conditions in which they are being held. Last friday we issued a staff report summarizing data on children who were separated from their families by the Trump Administration. This report was based on information that we forced the Trump Administration to do through the committee by bipartisan subpoenas after they refused to do it voluntarily for months. The report found the administrations child separation policy was more harmful, more traumatic and more chaotic than previously known. The report also describes specific case studies of ten children who were separated by the Trump Administration, including several who were under the age of two. We sent our report to the Department Last week and we will be asking our witnesses about these children this morning. Today we will hear from acting secretary of Homeland Security Kevin Mcaleenan. He was originally invited to testify at our hearing last week, but he asked for this appearance be postponed until today. We have accommodated his request and we thank you for being here today. Mr. Mcaleenan is one of the key architects of the trump child separation policy. Last april he sent a memo to secretary nielsen explaining how they could, i quote, direct the separation of parents and legal gardens and parents held in detention, end quote. He also recommended Going Forward with this policy and she agreed. The Trump Administration separated thousands and thousands of parents and children from this policy until a public outrage and a federal court forced them to stop. Mcaleenan and other senior officials admitted one of the purposes for separating families was to deter Asylum Seekers. General kelly said this attorney general sessions said this, and mr. Mcaleenan admitted as much in an interview last june. When he said, and i quote, the intent, unquote, of the policy, and i quote, policy to dissuade crossing between ports of entry, end of quote. Tranically under mr. Mcaleenans leadership, the Trump Administration failed to track separated children and their families so they could be reunited. Mr. Mcaleenan has claimed the administration, and i quote, kept very careful records when the relationships between parents and children. But nas not accurate. Our committee has now obtained data under subpoena showing a chaotic system in which children and parents have repeatedly moved to multiple facilities in which parents were repeatedly deported without any idea of where their children were. Our findings are corroborated by multiple reports from the independent Inspector General and Government Accountability office, which concluded that the Trump Administration made no serious effort to track separated children and had no plan to reunite reunify them. Finally, while mr. Mcaleenan has acknowledged overcrowding at the Detention Centers, he has claimed publicly that the reports of filthy and dangerous conditions are, quote, unsubstantiated, end of quote. This is simply not accurate. Last week we heard testimony from the igs that substantiated these reports in a graphic way. They provided photographic evidence as well. The administration wants to blame democrats for this crisis, but it is the Trump Administrations own policies that are causing these problems. It was the Trump Administration that implemented the, quote, zero tolerance policy, end of quote. Separated thousands of children and increased the number of people in detention. It was a Trump Administration that canceled effective policies from the last administration that reduced unnecessary detentions. It was the Trump Administration that shut down the Family Case Management Program in which social workers helped migrant families finds attorneys and navigate the court system with a 99 success rate for attending Court Appearance and checkins with i. C. E. It was the Trump Administration that ended the Central American Minors Program which allowed children fleeing Central American countries with a relative in the United States to apply for asylum from their home countries. These were all policy decisions made by the Trump Administration. They all increased the number of people being held and unnecessarily detained, and they all contributed to the conditions we are now witnessing. The damage the Trump Administration inflicted and is continuing to inflict will affect these children for the rest of their lives. As ive said, when were dealing with children, its not the deed, its the memory. Its the memory that will haunt them until they die. Todays hearing is one more step in our committees effort to determine the scope of this damage and begin to address it. And with that i yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, mr. Jordan. The president says theres a crisis, asked for 4. 5 billion. The democrats said its fake, its contrived, manufactured, not a real crisis. And then the real crisis gets even worse. What do the democrats do . They blame the president of the United States and they blame the hardworking people who work for mr. Mcaleenan on the border. When Everybody Knows what has to be done. Everyone knows this. Got to fix the asylum law, got to fix the decision and build a security wall. And what will help is when folks on the left will quick saying crazy things theyre saying to incentivize people to come and create this crisis that everyone acknowledged a long, long time ago except democrats and congress. I want to welcome our witness today, secretary mcaleenan. Thank him for his service to our nation. At dhs both during the Obama Administration and Trump Administration. Theres been a lot of talk from democrats on this committee about the border crisis. I hope secretary mcaleenan will offer some facts, facts, real perspective, learn from his years of serving our country and helping secure or border. Last week this Committee Held a hearing entitlinged kids in cages. The next day chit yCommittee Chairman nadler accused them of homicide. They told the people who work for this administration, work for secretary mcaleenan, quote, negligent homicide. And another thing, he said cdp was engaged in torture. This was wrong and despicable and does not to fix the problem. After months of calling this a fake crisis, democrats now changed their tune. Make no mistake the democrats only changed their tune because the facts simply cannot be ignored anymore. In fiscal year 2019 more than 688,000 illegal aliens according more than 20,000 in may 2019 alone, were apprehended between ports of entry along the southwest border. An increase of 80,000 just since october of 2018. While historically most immigrants were single adult males, 72 of all border Enforcement Actions in the last month were related to unaccompanied alien children and family units. What do democrats do when they have to acknowledge a problem that doesnt align with their politics . They look for someone to blame. Who else but the president of the United States and the hardworking men and women who work tirelessly every day to try to secure our border. Comments from democrats in congress only serve to demean our brave Border Patrol employees and, frankly,ness importan this is important, spark outrage. Abolish i. C. E. , abolish dhs, entire department. Walls are immoral, the speaker of the house said, even though theres a wall in her state. Finance health care for all illegals. Concentration camps. They called detention facilities conte concentration camps. Earlier this week selfproclaimed member an teefia went to an i. C. E. Center, set cars on fire and attempted to burn down the building. In this manifesto, this an teefia member said he felt it was necessary to take actions against these, quote, concentration camps. Not one single so call cage has been constructed by the Trump Administration, not one. During the presidency of barack obama, we didnt see outrage from the democrats then. We didnt see prominent members of congress condemning, quote, concentration camps and torture them. President trump has not built a single cage. The cages you see on twitter were constructed by president obamas administration. The only thing the Trump Administration used chainlink fence for was one temporary facilities immigrants pass when they initially are being screened. The facilities the Trump Administration built are all air conditioned, have fresh waters and supplies and folks trained to administer health care and supplies. You would never know that from listening to the democrats. After months of the administration highlighting crisis at the border and making calls for more funding, it wasnt until just before july 4th House Democrats finally agreed to pass the 4. 6 billion emergency funding bill to provide some of the resources needed at the border. Despite this crisis, someplace democrats still choose not to support this bill. Choosing instead to play politics with the border rather than work on the solutions that we all know need to happen. Fabricating stories of cruelty and besmirching the hardworking Civil Servants and protecting the border and providing assistance is not creating problems. Democrats, if theyre serious about solving the border crisis, they must address as i said before, asylum loopholes and other laws and Court Decisions that insent viincentivize alien make the dangerous journey to the United States. First they need to construct the border wall. This is one of the big of tgest concerns of our time. I look forward to hearing senator mcaleenan address the real causes, root causes at the border. Thank you very much. Enough. Before we move forward let me say to the committee, i want to first of all thank mr. Meadows for working hard with us to make this hearing happen. I really appreciate that very much. And the other thing is we will go all the way up until the call of the vote, which is going to be approximately 10 45, and then we will come back. And we will come back as soon after i think we have three votes, soon after that as we possibly can. Look at your iphones to see exactly i dont know exactly the time but i guarantee it will be as soon after that as we can possibly make it. With that now i would like to welcome our witness, the honorable Kevin Mcaleenan. Acting secretary to the department of Homeland Security. If he would please rise and raise your right hand. I will swear you in. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony youre about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god . I do. Let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated. Mr. Secretary, the microphones are very sensitive, so please speak directly into them. And without objection, your written statement will be made a part of the record. With that, mr. Secretary, you are now recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member jordan and members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Border Security and humanitarian crisis, our efforts to mitigate it and continued support we need from congress to address the underlying causes. I also intend to provide a muchneeded account of the extraordinary humanitarian actions of men and women of the department of Homeland Security and especially u. S. Customs and Border Protection of the United States Border Patrol have taken this year to protect my grants in our custody while securing our border and enforcing nations Immigration Laws. As i testified and warned publicly dozens of time this year and last we are facing an unprecedented crisis at the border. U. S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended or encountered as we sit here today over 800,000 migrants crossing our border from mexico since october 1, over 90 of whom crossed illegally through ports of entry. Over 450,000 of these apprehensions were members of family units and more than 8,000 unaccompanied children. Combined that means over 300,000 children entered our customer since october 1. Thats almost as many as the total apprehensions in fiscal year 17. These numbers are staggering, unprecedented and overwhelmed and challenged every aspect of our border and immigration system that we have been warning been and asking to address for well over a year. I first reported this a state of crisis a year ago yesterday. Since that time i and cpd leaders warned of the Border Security challenges in more than 100 briefings in hearings on the him, more than 15 congressional hearings and 55 investigations at the border, three major press conferences and more than 50 television appearances. On march 27th i went to el pass joegter a paso sector and claimed the border emergency situation has arrived. On june 10th when we asked for emergency funding in the same week the Inspector General was inspecting border securities, i was explicit about the border on cnn and went well beyond. I said our facilities are overcrowded. No american should be comfortable with a children in a Police Station for days on end. Its not an appropriate setting for kids. It took another two weeks for congress to vote on the emergency supplemental. Despite the scale of the challenge we face and failure to enact legislation that could have prevented and still end this crisis, dhs made significant strides in its effort to secure the border and help and protect migrants in our custody. Since january 2019 they gave 6,000 meals, 8,000 medical reviews. We have taken more than 21,000 sick or injured migrants to hospitals and conducted medical transportation or stood hospital watch for over a quarter million hours. With support from the coast guard, Public Health commission core, we now have over 200 officials embedded in border facilities, screening arrivals providing critical triage. And the officers that are trained and emergency personnel, i am confident no agency in the world is providing more critical lifesaving care and medical support than u. S. Customs and Border Protection. On the facilities front with the money we requested in the budget and received in the supplemental, we outfitted and stafred four new facilities to enhance conditions for those in custody and two more by the end of july. They are targeted at reducing overcrowding and conditions at the border. More recently two critical efforts are starting to make an impact and we are seeing a progress with border flow and lowering numbers the first time this year. Thanks to President Trumps direct engagement, we entered into an agreement with mexico in early june to address the flow thats making a dramatic impact, 28 reduction in boarding crossings in june. Another factor is the care and custody of migrants at the border is three weeks ago of the emergency supplemental requested by the administration on may 1. These funds are being directly and immediately applied to reduce overcrowding and improve conditions, expand medical care, provide hot meals and improve transportation and ensure adequate supplies. These have reduced custody at the border to almost high in june to under 10,000 yesterday afternoon. Health and Human Services now has adds kwet bequate bed situa. We had an average of fewer than 35 hours in custody. Throughout this the women of dhs served with diligence and compassion. Make no mistake, the situation is beyond crisis levels. We are still seeing 2,500 crosses a day. We are trying to address the flow of migration at the source by expanding our Partnership Effort with Central American governments to attack organizations while improving security and fostering Economic Development and growth. Fundamentally, however, a durable solution to this crisis lies with congress, with targeted changes to our Immigration Laws that we need to enhance the integrity of our immigration system and eliminate the gaps in our Legal Framework that incentivized families to take this dangerous journey. I will work with any american to work on this and invite you to see the situation at the border yourselves. If i can indulge one more minute, mr. Chairman . You may, please. Part of this is due to increased incarcerations under the socalled zero tolerance problem and adults crossing the border impacted families and children. This Initiative Results in an increase in prosecutions in violation of section 1325 of the immigration nationality act from 20 to 50 and included all amenable adults, even those crossing our border unlawfully with children. These prosecutions, as all criminal prosecutions do, resulted in temporary separation of parents and children. This practice lasted six weeks, ended 13 months ago and been the subject of ongoing litigation, Inspector General reports and hundreds of media stories. I have personally testified at a number of these hearings and in several media appearances and answered questions about it. I have acknowledged the initiative, while well intended, lost public trust and President Trump was right to end it. Under Current Practice governed by executive and court orders with operational guidance and separations of guardians are rare and undertaken in the best interest and safety and welfare of the child. In closing i feel compelled to address current public rhetoric surrounding the security of the humanitarian crisis. The incendiary and overwrote attacks on men and women defending our border are unwarranted and damaging. The demonization of Law Enforcement professionals, u. S. Border Border Patrol officers from all faiths and callings who have chosen a career of protecting others must stop. These false and overheated attacks are not helping resolve the crisis. Indeed they diminish the publics understanding and cloud the perception of whats happening. We need, mr. Chairman, to regain our balance. We need to understand what is driving migrants to put themselves in the hands of dangerous smugglers and embark on this perilous journey to our border and have a real solution how to solve the problem. I hope this hearing today can be a step in the right direction. Thank you very much. Before we go, can we move the signs, please . Thank you. The audience is trying to see. Thank you very much. And all of the members, by the way, have what the signs say so thats the most important thing. Mr. Raskins. Mr. Chairman, church. The policy of separating children from parents has shocked our nation. I want to go to the point you closed with. You testified in the senate child separations are now, quote, extraordinarily rare and, quote, for the safety of the child. You told the Senate Judiciary committee, quote, were talking about examples of a parent wanted for murder, a parent who had a stroke and needs to be taken to the emergency room. But the facts we learned on the ground seemed contrary to the reassuring picture. Last week hhs ig official ann maxwell told us her office saw cases in which the department of Homeland Security separated children based on the parents criminal history, including, for example, a prior charge of Marijuana Possession. Mr. Secretary, does a parents prior charge for Marijuana Possession justify taking him or her child away . So i want to start with the rare portion of this. Fewer than 1,000 juveniles have been separated from their parents crossing the border this fiscal year. Thats with 450,000 crossings of family units. This is carefully governed by policy and court order that needs to have a criminal background or issue, as you referenced, potential communicable disease. This is in the interest of the child. Carefully govern and overseen by a supervisor and those decisions are made. Criminal history, yes, is a factor. If theres an extraditable warrant or prosecution for another offense. And so do you think that marijuana a prior charge of Marijuana Possession justifies taking children away from a parent . It depends on the totality of the individual case. If there were nothing else . If there were no other factors. I would have to look at the case youre referencing. According to released hhs information about 3,000 child separation cases, the last majority of them are labeled taking place based on a parents criminal history which include prosecution charges or mere allegations of past crimes based on unsubstantiated information shared by Foreign Governments. I want to be clear on this, are separations being made based on unsubstantiated questions . If we have a crime were concerned about from the u. S. Jurisdiction, that would be cause to consider separation in that case. We also partner with Foreign Governments. We work closely with Law Enforcement in Central America and mexico. When we have referrals of criminal activity, indictment or gang facilities thats part of their collection and information and procedures, we take that into consideration. According to the hois chronicle there was a 19yearold salvadorian woman identified as maria who was abused by gang members for years. She was in the presence of a gang fight and taken into custody by police and never charged with anything. This action was another for Border Agents to imprison her and take away her 2yearold son for more than five months. Do you think that was appropriate . Again, i would have to look at the specific factors in that case. Im not sure the Houston Chronicle has the same information provided by our foreign governor partner. Again, governed carefully by policy with discretion at the supervisory level in the field for making those decisions. Weve seen evidence to suggest that Three Sisters were taken away from their father in november of 2018 allegedly because he was hiv positive. Is that a proper basis upon which to remove parents from their children . Youre referencing a specific case that i do not have in front of me. I do not have the facts to make that decision. Lets say it was, hypothetically speaking the fact of being hiv positive does not sound like it would meet the standard. There could have been other complications medically would have required temporary separation. Do you have standards you use to determine if children should be removed from parents . We have a policy by executive order and court order that is sent out to the field and implemented. Can you make that available to us . Of course. Last week a young store testified before this committee, her group was appointed by the department of hhs to advocate for Vulnerable Children, including 120 recently separated children. On average these kids she testify were 7 years old and in custody for 115 days before seeing their parents. According to miss mag da, the center found separation was contrary to the best interest of the child in nearly every single case. Do you commit to this committee today and to congress to have a policy where children will only be removed from their parents if there is a compelling reason to advance the childs own health and safety . So we also have compelling reasons for criminal prosecutions that are also irrelevant interest as understood by the court and expressed by the executive order. But i would be happy to work with this committee to evaluate our procedures on separation, to hear miss mag das testimonies on her concern and improve on what we did. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, mr. Secretary. In talking about the situation, the president said there may be some narrow circumstances in which there is a humanitarian Refugee Status that a family might be eligible for. If that were the case, it would be better to apply in country rather than make the very dangerous attorney all the way up to texas to make those same claims. Went on to say i also emphasize to my friends here we have to deter a continuing influx of children putting themselves at grace risk and families, putting their children at great risk. So i emphasize within a Legal Framework and humanitarian framework and property and process, children who do not have proper clamims of families and children who do not have proper clamsz aims are subject repatriation to their own countries. I say this not to lack compassion but we are a nation of laws and if you have a disorderly process of migration, that not only puts children themselves at risk but calls into question the ilLegal Immigration process of those properly applying and trying to enter our country. Would you agree generally with this assessment . I didnt hear you say who made that assessment but from you read, i would agree with that. It was president obama five years ago. He went on to say there have been a lot of press conferences about this and the time for we need action and less talk is what he said. You mentioned all of the different meetings you had been in. He also went on to explain how the Economic Conditions, wantsing a better life did not fit in that narrow definition of asylum in that same press conference. Could you speak briefly to the magnet that is drawing migrants here . Sure. And just one other common on that as the chairman raised in his Opening Statement, the Central American minors, that was a program that provided a categorical parole for certain minors in Central America. This administration has proposed in january in a letter from the omb acting director to congress on the budget deal and again working with chairman graham on the Senate Judiciary side that would allow for a similar approach for unaccompanied children in country closer to where they are because they dont want them in the hands of smugglers coming to the border. On the incentives, Ranking Member jordan laid it out. The main incentive has been the fact families all over the region advertised by smugglers, fully internalized. We saw it on cbs news, a woman from venezuela knew she brought her child, she would be released, is the fact the settlement does not allow us to do what we are able to do under president obama and secretary johnson, detain Families Together through an expeditious, fair, immigration proceeding. It took 40 to 50 days on average. That resulted in a clear immigration decision from a judge, either repatriation if there wasnt a valid immigration claim or determination that family would be allowed to stay. Were not able to do that anymore. Thats why we see so many families coming, a direct response to that gap in the framework. Right. This is congress job and responsibility to fix it. Nothing i say is meant to take us away from that responsibility. We sent you a letter a couple months ago highlighting eight actions the administration could take. I wanted to touch on a couple in the time i have left. One is training agents to do credible, fair interviews. We had congress say about the end of the months we will have 60 trained over the last couple of months. But that is the limit in that this is a Pilot Program. The idea of training agents is we wouldnt have that twoyear process, we would really solve this right at the beginning as opposed to mass influx that we dont know what to do with these people. We can solve it almost at the point of entry. A why are we not doing mor . There are thousands and thousands trained and we are limiting the program to 60. Firstly, we should be addressing the asylum claims at the boarder and and doing credible fairness assessment as soon as possible, and rco asylum officers on that standard could help us increase the capacity and volume. What were trying to do is balance it against the continuing crisis. The fact we have 40 to 60 of our agents doing processing care, transport, hospital watch, not on the lines. We only have ten more seconds. Work authorization. Can you explain who all is getting work visas, why they are getting work visas in the context of how people who end up crossing the border actually have a legitimate claim to be here . In that context what we are seeing for asylum claims 10 to 20 actually getting asylum at the end of the court process. Unfortunately that takes years to happen. So we are seeing employment authorizations being issued by cis. The acting director is looking again at that policy and seeing if were applying it appropriately given the context you offered. Thank you. Mr. Connelly . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome, mr. Acting secretary. I just want to read you a quote. There can be no keener revelation of a societys soul than the way in which it treats children. That was a quote from the late Nelson Mandela. Would you agree with that quote, the sentiments of that quote, mr. Mcaleenan . I have tremendous respect for the late Nelson Mandela. Thats a powerful quote. Are you a dad . Yes, congressman. You have children. I do too. I have one. Mr. Secretary, last friday the committee released a staff report on the child separation policy that summarized the data produced by you and other agency under Committee Subpoenas as referenced by the chairman. We provided you with a copy of that report last week and we agreed to delay this hearing in the anticipation you would review that report. That report included ten case studies not 100, not a thousand, and we identified specific children at your departments suggestion by number rather than by name but we had the names. I want to ask you about one of these cases. I assume you looked at the report. I reviewed the report but im not prepared to discuss in detail specific cases at this time. Well, i am. Theres a child identified in the report as child number two. We have additional copies of the report, obviously, if you need to refer to them. The records we obtained from you and other agencies showed that this child is a baby boy from honduras who is just 8 months old when he arrived with his dad at the texas border in may of last year. He was 8 months old. He was taken away from his father and sent to a facility in arizona. He then spent six months in that facility. He had his first birthday there. He spent half of his life without his dad in the custody of u. S. Officials. Meanwhile, his dad was transported to three different i. C. E. Facilities and then ultimately deported after two months. Mr. Acting secretary, why was a child of eight months held for six months while his dad was deported two months later . Congressman, the case youre referring to happened in may 2018. Do you have a date . Do you have the date . The actual date in may . Yes. We can get it to you. Again, i would be happy to go back over these specific cases with you and members of your staff as appropriate. But what i can tell you is that when we implemented the zero tolerance protocols to increase prosecution of amendable adults, including those arrival with children, i specifically directed and chief of Border Patrol echoed, that would not include parents traveling with children under 5. When weve gone back and looked at the indications and there were a few dozen separations during that time frame, we determined that there were other reasons that would comply with the current executive order, court order, for separations of children under 5 that occurred under the zerotolerance period. Ifness in that period im running out of time. I want to clarify what you said. Forgive me for interrupting but i want to make sure i understand what you said. Normally youre saying your policy would not have allowed this. Something must have happened made an exception to your normal practice, is that what i understand . Basically, yes. During the zero tolerance period if it was after may 7th or so, before then, it would have been under historical approaches. In either case there must have been another issue with the adult or concern to follow up on. Lets say there was in theory. But isnt there something wrong with deporting the dad and keeping the infant . I mean, dont we have a tracking system in place that would have caught that and said hey, weve got to link these two up, its a dad like you. Right. With his child, a baby. Eight months old. By ooii. C. E. Policy if they removing an adult who arrived with a child, its up to the adult to choose whether the child should be repatriated with him. I have a question. On the Aaron Burnett show, the acting director mr. Cute nely actually blamed the father for the death of himself and his father crossing the rio grande. It turns out, of course, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez left el salvador on april 3rd, actually his daughter had jumped into the river and he tried to rescue her. He said, and i will end on this, that father did not want to wait to go into the asylum process so he decided to cross the river. And, therefore, it was his fault. Do you share that sentiment . Is that the philosophy of your department . I think what happened to oscar is a tragedy. I think they deserve better and framework in our country who does not incentivize unlawful crossing and deserve to apply for protections as close to home as possible. Youre a dad, im a dad. Your time expired, im sorry. You would have jumped in river to help your daughter too, right . You may answer the question. Of course, congressman. Thank you. Mr. Miller . Thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Member jordan. Thank you very much for being here today. I took a trip to guatemala to see first hands the results of Human Trafficking and abuse of women that occur in the country. I saw with my own eyes the devastating impacts Human Trafficking has on the young girls and i know this same trafficking is occurring at the border, our border. We need Real Solutions to act swiftly to address the root causes of this issue. Mr. Mcaleenan, i have a lot of questions so try to keep your answers short enough i can get to them all. Nobody wants children to be separated from their parents, and we all want to ensure that children are treated with dignity and housed comfortably. What are the factors a Border Patrol agent uses, what he goes through in order to assess these illegal family units when they arrive . So by and large, the vast, vast majority, well over 99 98 of children that arrive with parents are kept together in the process. The Border Patrol agent or cpd officer will undertake the analysis under the criteria of the executive order from 2018 and court order which are consistent with prior policy that is in the interest and safety of the welfare of the child. And cases are, again, prosecution for criminal offense or serious criminal history, abuse or neglect, expressed by that parent or the child where we have a concern, or a medical emergency. Those are the main indicators of a potential separation. How many childrens lives have been saved by the Border Patrol . So i think thats a really important question. We make over 4,000 rescues a year already in the first nine months of this year, the Border Patrol made agents almost every day dive into the water with full equipment on to try to rescue families crossing the water. Its high water this time of year and its very dangerous. 3,800 so far this year. Thank you. Im glad to hear that. What is the average size of migrant groups that the Border Patrol is encountering and how is that impacting the operations . This year has been unlike any other we have seen in our history with well over 150 large groups of over 100 migrants crossing together. We peaked with a group of 1,036 crossing all from Central America. 900 plus were family units. Since mexico has started to do their operations, address the Transportation Networks we have seen a dramatic drop. We have only had four large groups since the sart of the operations and zero in july today. How is it the policy for separating children from their parents what do you use except in the zero taoleranceto . Right now our policy is identical to what we were doing before the zero tolerance practice that ended over a year ago. The same . Yes. In fiscal year 2019 the why would adults use children to help them cross the border . Unfortunately, we see that all too often. It has been a big focus to try to identify the adults and try to take advantage of what they perceive as a loop hole in the law. We have had egregious cases including a 51yearold man who bought a 6monthold child for 80 and admitted when confronted with a dna test conducting a pilot at one of our border stations. How has the settlement impeded our ability to enforce the law . It has prevented us from getting immigration results from judges. At what point would a child be separated from the adult they arrived with . At what point . It would depend on when an issue was identified. We unfortunately had a 15yearold girl a few months ago tell us that her father had raped her the night before they crossed the river. So she was immediately separated and taken care of. Its for safety. If a family unit is housed together, how are they housed . We separate families generally by demographic and gender. So male head of household families and other male head of household families. The age of the kid is also a factor. Secretary, two weeks ago on july 3, my colleague and i wrote you a letter requesting that you provide a plan within 14 days for how you will utilize the 1. 34 billion in emergency supplemental funding provided to dhs to address the border situation. I have not received a response. Without objection, i would like to enter this letter into the record. Has dhs begun receiving the emergency humanitarian funds provided by congress and signed by the president on july 1. Of course. I can tell you we were already acting in hopes of receiving that funding before the supplemental was enacted. What is the status of the plan for using the funding as congress intended . I presume there is a plan. About half of the funding is dedicated to enhanced facilities where we can provide additional space, reduce overcrowding and improve the care of those in the custody of cdp during the short stay at the border. We have erected four facilities, two in south texas, two in el paso and then well have another 4,500 spaces online and additional set of temporary facilities in those locations. Half of the money is allocated for that purpose. Whats the other half . The rest of it covers a range of issues from paying for the surge force of agents down there helping with the humanitarian mission. It adds to our medical contracts so that we can provide embedded medical professionals in our facilities. It augmentes our ability to pay for supplies and food. I referenced the 6 million meals that we provided. Just to be clear, all this money is being used for the humanitarian efforts and not for any interior i. C. E. Deportation efforts or other Enforcement Actions, correct . Thats how it was appropriated. That creates a challenge because we asked for funding for i. C. E. Single adult beds and it was not granted. Those single adults are waiting at the border for placement with i. C. E. I understand. Just to be clear, that is how the money was funded so thats how we expect it to be used. Thats correct. For purposes of our letter, we expect a response. How the money is going to be spent and on what timeline, it has to be transparent so we can actually measure your efforts against your plan. Do i have your assurancassuranc . We are transparent to our oversight on how we are spending money and we will continue to be. Do we have your assurance that you will respond to the letter with information requested. Well respond to all appropriate requests. I havent seen the letter. Ill talk to my staff about where it is in the process. I expect a response. You served as commissioner prior to your current role at the helm of dhs. 70 current or former employees are now under investigation for posting racist, sexist and other inappropriate comments about migrants and members of congress to a secret Facebook Group for Border Patrol agents with over 9,500 numbers. Were you a member of that group . No. Is mark morgan a current or former member of that group . I dont know, but i dont believe so. Sir, what are the efforts to investigate those particular comments of the members of that group . Cdps office of professional responsibility initiated the investigation within hours of those allegations coming to light. As you noted, they already placed a number of individuals under investigation. They put several on administrative duties and are moving very quickly to hold people accountable for conduct that doesnt meet our standards. When will we receive a report on the results of that investigation . Its proceeding aggressively. I would say probably this month, early next month we will be able to update on the results of those investigations. We find this conduct extremely troubling and expect to receive that report. Would you be willing to come back in to discuss that report . Certainly. Sir, last question which is this, the zero tolerance policy that was adopted, how do you define zero tolerance under this administration with regard to immigration policies . Consistent with the president s executive order from january 25, 2017, that we would no longer have exceptions to enforcement Immigration Law and to the april 6 letter which is to have all unlawful entry cases be submitted for prosecution i thought you were finished. During zero tolerance the increase for about 20 to 50 by eliminating that categorical exception. Thank you very much. Mr. Roy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Quick question in response to my colleagues question. Is it true that zero dollars are included in the supplemental for i. C. E. Deattention . Thats correct. Isnt that part of the problem . It is. Wasnt it purposeful by my democratic colleagues . I assume they didnt want to fund i want to emphasize the impact of adults. Its not just a humanitarian crisis. We have a crisis of National Security, endangerment of american citizens, migrants along the journey at the hands of cartels. It is also a Border Security crisis. 3 billion plus a year. The poster shows prices for moving people through mexico and to the United States. Do you agree it is true that certain dangerous cartels design to exploit american laws for profit to move human beings for profit and that they charge money per person as depicted in this chart . Yes. I met a family from honduras that plained they paid 10,000. Do you agree they use children as a ticket for profit tocome to the United States. Yes. How many people have come across the border and sought to be detained or were apprehended from october 1 to present, north of 700,000 . Single adults are not turning themselves in. They are trying to evade capture and embedded in that group are gang members, hardened criminals. Its well over 700,000 . Combined we are over 800,000. There are hundreds of thousands of people who krauzed our border who were not apprehended . There are. Is it not true that Border Patrol is overwhelmed . Of the 800,000, how many were uacs, 80,000. Yes. How many are single adults . Are they mostly male . Predominantly male. How many were family units. 450,000. Of those 200,000 each of adults and children. About 1. 1. People know a child is a valuable way to get into the u. S. So only bringing one family at a time. Are most dispersed throughout the United States. Are they claiming asylum or largely using a child as a ticket for catch and release . The latter. We see a number of asylum claims but it has gone down this year from the peak of 30 . Is it true that the issue of uacs could be solved with a fixed tpra and can be done on a single piece of paper. Yes. Is it true we can solve the problem by addressing the settlement on essentially a single piece of paper. Yes, that was our experience in 2014 and 2015. Is it true with respect to the family unit problem, representing the majority of the surge that the Obama Administration presented a solution and we can solve it on a single piece of paper . Yes. Is it true that the Obama Administration asked for 762 million for i. C. E. To deal with the problem in 2014, the surge where children were riding on the top of train cars. We all asked for additional appropriations at dhs. Does that amount seem correct . That sounds like the ballpark. Is it true that the supplemental just passed only provided 200 3420 0 200 millio. Thats correct. Zero dollars purposely zero dollars for i. C. E. Beds and i. C. E. Detention is that correct. Thats correct. Do you anticipate the democratic led will bring any solutions to the floor for a vote this week. Probably not this week. So for money for i. C. E. , the things we know would solve the problem, you are not anticipating that will be brought this next week before we adjourn for the august recess. I dont see legislative process. Which begs the question why. My democrat colleagues prefer to use children as political props. Thank you very much. We now will hear from ms. Spear. Thank you. Hold up. The bells have rung. Is it three . Three, possibly four votes. Im just letting you know. Thank you. Thank you, director. I was with 16 other colleagues at the border last weekend. Have you been there, sir . Several dozen times. This is familiar to you seeing families, mothers and children caged with blankets. Thats familiar to you . Is this familiar to you, too . This is what we saw at the processing center. 40 men in a cell that could probably under normal circumstances accommodate maybe five. This man is putting his fingers up showing that he has been there for 40 days and 40 nights without a shower and without being able to brush his teeth. And i confirmed that with the Border Patrol officers there. This would not be allowed as a kennel for dogs. Thats how were housing them. We know the port is filled with another 400 or 500 men, as well. Its unacceptable and it has to change. We dont treat human beings like that. Can i respond to those comments . You can after i ask you this question. I want to ask you about a case study that is in our report that you have had the benefit of looking at. You have had it since last friday. Its child number three. He was 19 months old when he arrived from honduras with his father in april of 2018. He was taken from his father and transported to foster care in new york before being released to a sponsor six months later. During the time, the toddlers father was sent to i. C. E. Detention facilities in texas, new jersey and new york before being released. Why was this 19monthold baby taken from his father . First on the conditions. There is no one in this room that is warned more often or more stroithly about the overcrowding conditions in the facilities than i have. We did not get the money for single adult beds to allow us to move the adults out of our custody from congress. I want to make that point very clear. Secondly, on this case, i would be happy to followup on specific cases. What i explained, as well. Here is the problem. You have had this report since last friday. You should have come prepared to answer these particular cases. So im wondering why you werent able to do so. I reviewed this report. I have explained to congressman connelly our policy. I directed and chief of Border Patrol implemented during the period of zero tolerance that we would not prosecute an adult that would result in a separation if the child was under 5 years old. If that happened it was likely due to another issue that resulted in the separation. I want to be clear on that. We dont know if the toddler was reunited with the father. We do. We have lots of different ways to confirm this. We also have the ability in our system to see which adults cross with which child and respond to that. We can do a very specific response on this particular case. You will provide us with a set of responses to the questions that we provide to you. Yes. One of the children that we met was an 8 year old. His mother was dead. He was brought here by his 25yearold sister and was separated at the border. There was another young 16 year old with an infant. This child now is homeless, parentless and has lost his sibling. We cant treat people like this. May i respond . We have offered modification to the trafficking victims act that requires by law that a child arriving be considered. As you saw House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings has recessed this hearing. Members are voting on a bill to raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour by 2025. Chairman cummings plans to resume the hearing after the floor votes. In the meantime, well show you the start of this hearing with the acting Homeland Security secretary. The committee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. I want to briefly address the spectators. I already saw two signs being held up. So i want to address you. We welcome you and we respect your right to be here. We also ask in turn that you respect that we ask for your respect as we proceed with the business of this committee today. It is the intention of this committee to proceed with this hearing without disruptions. If a disruption occurs, a Capital Police officer will go up to an individual, instruct that they cease demonstrations. If the individual does cease, no action will be taken. However, if the person does not cease, he will be asked to leave. We are grateful for your presence here today and your cooperation. And we want to move this hearing along quickly. And every time i have to stop and police have to address issues like that, that just slows us up. I would also remind all members to avoid personal references. I now recognize myself for five minutes. Today the committee is examining the Trump Administrations inhumane policy of separating children from their sparnts at the border and the dangerous conditions in which they are being held. Last friday we issued a staff report summarizing this report was based on information that we forced the Trump Administration to produce to the Committee Pursuant to bipartisan subpoenas after they refused to provide it voluntarily for months. The report found that the administrations child separation policy was more harmful, more traumatic and more chaotic that previously known. The report also describes specific case studies of ten children who were separated by the Trump Administration including several who were under the age of 2 m. Wie sent our report to the Department Last week and will be asking our witness about these children this morning. He asked for the appearance to be postponed until today. We accommodated his request and we thank you for being here today. Last april he sent a memo to secretary neilsen explaining how they could direct the separation of parents or legal guardians held in detention. Until public outrage forced them to stop. He and other Senior Administration officials admitted that one of their purposes of separating children from their families was to deter immigrants. General kelly said this, attorney general sessions said th this. And he admitted as much in an interview last june. When he said, and i quote, the intent of the policy to and i quote to dissuede crossing between ports of entry, end of quote. He has claimed that the administration and i quote kept very careful records when the relationship business tween parents and children but that is not accurate. Our committee has now obtained data under subpoena showing a chaotic system in which children and parents were repeatedly moved to multiple facilities in which parents were deported without any idea of where their children were. Our findings are kwaub rated by multiple reports from the independent inspectors general and the Government Accountability office which concluded that the Trump Administration made no serious effort and had no plan to reunify them. Finally, while he has acknowledged overcrowding at the Detention Centers, he has claimed publically that reports of filthy and dangerous conditions are, quote, unsubstantiated. This is simply not accurate. Last week, we heard from the igs substantiated the reports in a graphic way. And they provided photographic evidence. It is the Trump Administrations own policies that are causing these problems. It was the Trump Administration that implemented the, quote, zero tolerance policy. Separated thousands of children and increased the number of people in detention. It was the Trump Administration that cancelled effective policies from the last administration that reduced unnecessary detentions. It was the Trump Administration that shut down the Family Case Management Program in which social workers help migrant families find attorneys and navigate the court system with a 99 success rate for attending Court Appearance with i. C. E. It was the Trump Administration that ended the Central American Minors Program which allowed children fleeing Central American countries with a relative in the United States to apply for asylum from their home countries. These were all policy decisions made by the Trump Administration. They all increased the number of people being held and unnecessarily detained and they all contributed to the conditions we are now witnessing. The damage the Trump Administration has inflicted and is continuing to inflict will impact these children for the rest of their lives. As i have said, when we are dealing with children, its not the deed, its the memory. It is the memory that will haunt them until they die. Todays hearing is one more step in our committees effort to determine the scope of this damage and begin to address it. And with that, i yield to the distinguished Ranking Member. President says there is a crisis. Asked for 4. 5 billion. The democrats said it is fake. Then the real crisis gets even worse. What do the democrats do . They blame the president of the United States and they blame the hardworking people who work on the border. When everyone knows what has to be done. Everyone knows this. Got to fix the asylum law. You have to build a Border Security wall. What will also help is if folks on the left will quit saying crazy things they are saying that i think incentivise people to create this crisis that everyone acknowledged a long time ago. I want to welcome our witness today and thank him for his service to our nation at dhs both during the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration. Been a lot of talk from democrats on this committee about the border crisis. I hope he will offer some facts and real perspective, learn from his years of serving our country and helping secure our border. Last week this Committee Held a hearing entitled kids in cages. The next day, Judiciary Committee jerry nadler accused negligent homicide thmpt chairman of the house Judiciary Committee told the people who work for this individual, quote, negligent homicide and said another thing, said cbp was engaged in torture. This rhetoric is wrong, despicable and does nothing. Democrats have changed their tune. Make no mistake, the democrats have changed their tune because facts cannot be ignored anymore. More than 688,000 illegal aliens including nearly 133,000 in may were apprehended between ports of entry along the southwest border. An increase of approximately 80,000 just since october of 2018. While historically most immigrants were single adult males, 70 of all in the last month were related to unaccompanied alien children in family units. Who else about the president of the United States and the hard working men and women who worked tirelessly trying to secure our border. Comments from democrats in congress i think only serve to demean the Public Service and frankly and this is important, to spark unnecessary outrage. Think about what we have heard from them. Abolish i. C. E. Abolish dhs, the entire department. Walls are immoral the speaker of the house said. N noncitizens should be able to vote. They called detention facilities concentration camps. Earlier this week, selfproclaimed member showed up at an i. C. E. Detention center outside of seattle, set cars on fire and attempted to burn down the building in his written manifesto this member wrote that he felt it was necessary to take action against these quote concentration camps. Not one single socalled cage has been constructed by the Trump Administration. Not one. During the presidency of barack obama, we didnt see outrage then. President trump has not built a single cage. The cages you see in the news were constructed by president obamas administration. The only thing the Trump Administration used chain linked fence for is one temporary facility through which immigrants pass when they are getting screened. The detention facilities are all care conditioned, have fresh water and supplies and folks trained to administer health care and those supplies. You would never know that listening to the democrats. After months of making urgent calls for more funding, it wasnt until just before july 4 that House Democrats agreed to pass the funding bill to provide some funding resources. Despite the size and scope, some democrats choose not to support this bill choosing instead to play politics with the border rather than work on the solutions that we all know need to happen. Fabricating stories of cruelty and providing humanitarian assistance does nothing to help solve the problem. Democrats are serious. Theyre serious about solving the border crisis, they must address the Settlement Agreement and the other laws and Court Decisions that incentivise aliens to make the dangerous journey to the United States. Most of all, they must stop obstructing the Border Security wall. This is one of the greatest challenges of our time and it is getting worse by the day. I look forward to hearing and we stand ready to work with our democratic colleagues to address the real causes of the crisis at the southern border. Before we move forward, let me say to the committee, i want to first of all thank mr. Meadows for working hard with us to make this hearing happen. I really appreciate that very much. And the other thing is that we will go all the way up until the call of the vote which is going to be approximately 10 45 skpmpt then we will come back. And we will come back as soon after that as we possibly can. Look at your iphones to see exactly to know the time. I guarantee you it will be as soon after that as we can make it. I would like to welcome our witness. If you would please rise and raise your right hand, i will swear you in. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Let the record show that the witness answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated. Secretary, the microphones are very sensitive, so please speak directly into them. Without objection, your written statement will be made a part of the record. With that, you are now recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Thank you, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member jordan and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Border Security and humanitarian crisis, our efforts to mitigate it and the continued support we need from congress to address the underlying causes. I intend to provide an account of the extraordinary actions and u. S. Customs and the Border Patrol have taken this year to protect migrants in our custody while securing our border. As i have testified dozens of times this year and last, we are facing an unprecedented crisis at the border. We have apprehended and encountered over 800,000 migrants crossing the border since october 1. Over 90 of whom crossed illegally. Over 450,000 of these apprehensions were members of family units and over 80,000 were unaccompanied children. Combined, that means over 300,000 children have entered our custody since october 1. Thats almost as many as total apprehensions. These numbers are staggering and unprecedented and have challenged every aspect. We have been warning about and asking for congressional action to address this crisis for well over a year. I first publicly referred to the border as in a state of crisis a year ago yesterday. Since that time we have warned of Border Security and humanitarian challenges in more than 100 briefings and meetings on the hill, more than 15 congressional hearings and 55 congressional delegations, three major press conferences and more than 50 television appearances. I went and declared that the breaking point in our immigration system had arrived and cbp was facing unprecedented humanitarian challenges. On june 10, nearly 40 days after we asked for maenchlsh funding and the same week that the dhs Inspector General, i was explicit about the seriousness about the situation on the border on cnn and went well beyond the Inspector Generals statements. No american should be comfortable with children in a Police Station for days on end. It is not an appropriate setting for kids. Despite the scale of the challenge we face and the failure to enact legislation, dhs has made significant strides. The team has conducted over 400,000 medical Health Interviews and completed more than 80,000 assessments. With support from the u. S. Court guard and expanded contracts, we have over 200 medical professionals embedded in border facilities screening upon arrival and providing critical capabilities from january 1. Combined with our 2,300 agents and officers who are trained, i am confident that no Law Enforcement agency in the world is providing more criteria life saving care or medical support than u. S. Customs and Border Protection. On the facilities front with humanitarian funding we requested and received in the supplemental professionals have instructed and staffed four new facilities to enhance conditionwise two more anticipated by the end of july. These facilities are targeted at reducing overcrowding and improving conditions. Two critical efforts are starting to make an impact. Thanks to the direct engagement, we entered into an agreement with mexico to address migration flows, 28 reduction in border crossings in june. The other key factor allowing us to make progress is the care and custody is the repeat of the emergency supplemental. These funds are being directly applied to provide temporary facilities and improve for all demographics, expand medical care, improve transportation and ensure adequate supply at all ports of entry. These efforts have reduced from a high of almost 20,000 in june to 10,000 yesterday afternoon. For unaccompanied children it has adequate bed space. We reduced from 2,700 kids at the border to under 350 yesterday afternoon with an average of fewer than 35 hours in custody. And throughout this period, the men and women of dhs have served with compassion. Make no mistake, the border flows remain beyond crisis levels. We are still seeing 2,500 crossings a day. To continue to mitigate this, we are pursuing a strategy that addresses regional flows at their source and expanding Partnership Efforts to attack criminal organizations and improve security while fostering Economic Development and growth. A durable solution to this crisis lies with congress. With targeted changes to our Immigration Laws that we need to enhance the integrity and eliminate the gaps. I will work with any member willing to discuss the problems and solutions and invite you to see the situation for yourself at the border. If i can indulge one more minute. You may. Part of the stated purpose is for the committee to receive testimony regarding increased prosecutions and how the prosecution of adults crossing the border in violation of Immigration Laws impacted families ask children. This resulted in an increase in prosecutions in violations from 20 to 50 and included all adults even those crossing our border unlawfully for children. These prosecutions resulted in temporary separations of parents and children. This practice lasts six weeks, ended 13 months ago and has been the subject of ongoing litigation and hundreds of media stories. I have personally testified in a number of these hearings and in several media appearances and answered questions about it. I have acknowledged that this initiative lost the public trust and that President Trump was right to end it. Under Current Practice along with operational guidance, separations of parents and guardians are rare and are undertaken in the best interest of the child. I feel compelled to address current public rhetoric surrounding the Border Security and humanitarian crisis. The attacks on the men and women securing our border are unwarranted and damaging. The demonization of Law Enforcement professionals, u. S. Border patrol agents, i. C. E. Officers from all racial and ethnic back grounds who have chosen a career about protecting others must stop. These false and overheated attacks are not helping to resolve the crisis and cloud the perception of what is happening. We need to redeem our balance. We need to understand what is incentivising to put themselves in the hands of dangerous smugglers and have a real discussion on how to solve the problem. I hope that this hearing today can be a step in the right direction. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before we go can we move the signs, please . Thank you. The audience is trying to see. Thank you. And all the members, by the way, have what the signs say. Thats the most important thing. Thank you very much. The policy of separating children from their parents has shocked the nation. I want to go to the point that you closed with. You testified in the senate that child separations are now, quote, rare and for the safety of the child. You said we are talking about examples of a parent wanted for murder, a parent who has had a stroke and needs to be taken to the emergency room. But the facts that we have learned on the ground seem contrary to that reassuring picture. Last week hhs official told us that her office saw cases in which the department of Homeland Security separated children based on the parents criminal history including, for example, a prior charge of Marijuana Possession. Does a parents prior charge for Marijuana Possession justify taking his or her child away . So, i want to start with the rare portion of this. Fewer than 1,000 juveniles have been separated from their parents crossing the border this fiscal year. That is with 450,000 crossings. This is carefully governed by policy and court order that needs to have a criminal background or issue, potential medical emergency or risk of abuse or neglect from the parent to the child. This is in the interest of the child. It is carefully governed and those decisions are made. Criminal history is a factor if there is a warrant or prosecution for another offense. So do you think that marijuana a prior charge of Marijuana Possession justified taking children away . It depends on the totality of the individual case. If there were no other factors . I would have to look at the kind of case. According to recently released hhs information on about 3,000 child separation cases, the large majority of them are labelled as taking place based on a parents criminal history which can include prosecutions, charges or allegations of passed crimes based on unsubstantiated allegations. Are separations taking place based on unsubstantiated evidence regarding suspected criminal back grounds sdm. When we have an allegation of a serious crime that we are concerned about, that would be cause to consider separation of that case. We also partner with Foreign Governments. We work closely with Law Enforcement in Central America and mexico. When we have referrals of criminal activity, conviction, indictment or gang affiliation that is substantiated we do take that into consideration. Let me take a case like that. According to the Houston Chronicle there was a 19yearold woman who had been abused by adult gang members for years. She was present at a gang fight, was taken into custody by the police but was never charged with anything. This interaction was enough for Border Agents to imprison her and take away her 2yearold son for more than five months. Do you think that was appropriate . I would have to look at the specific factors in that case. Im not sure the Houston Chronicle has the same information provided by our Foreign Government partner. That is governed carefully by policy. We have seen evidence to suggest that Three Sisters were taken away from their father in november of 2018 because he was hiv positive. Is that a proper basis of which to remove children from their parents . You are referencing a number of specific cases that i do not have in front of me. Lets assume it was. Hypothetically speaking, would you remove . For the fact of being hiv positive does not sound like it meets the standard. There could be other do you have written civil standards that you use in able to determine whether children should be removed from their parents in. We have consistent with the court order. Can you make that available to us . Of course. Last week testified before the committee her group is appointed by the department of hhs to advocate for Vulnerable Children including 1250 recently separated children. On average, these kids, she testified were 7 years old and were in custody for 115 days before seeing their parents. The center found that separation was contrary to the best interest of the child in nearly every single case. Do you commit to this committee today and to congress to have a policy where children will only be removed from their parents if there is a compelling reason to advance the childs own health and safety . We also have compelling reasons for criminal prosecutions that are also a relevant interest as understood by the court and expressed by executive order. I would be happy to evaluate and to hear the testimony about her concerns and to consider ongoing how we can improve what we do. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for being here. In talking about the situation, the president said there may be some narrow circumstances in which there is a humanitarian or Refugee Status that a family might be eligible for. If that were the case, it would be better for them to apply in country rather than to make the various dangerous journey all the way up to texas to make the same claims. Went on to say, but i also emphasize that we have to deter a continuing influx of children putting themselves at great risk and families putting their children at great risk. I emphasize that within a Legal Framework children who do not have proper claims at some point will be subject to repatriation to their home countries. Going on to say this is not because we lack compassion, but because in addition to being a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws and if you have a disorderly and dangerous process of migration, that puts the children at risk and calls into question the Legal Immigration process of those properly applying and trying to enter our country. Would you agree generally with this assessment. I didnt hear who made the assessment . From what you read i would agree with that. It was president obama five years ago. He went toto say there were a lot of press conferences about this referring about this and the time for it, we need action and less talk is what he said. You mentioned the different meetings you have been in. He went on to explain thou the Economic Conditions wanting a better life did not fit in that narrow definition of asylum in that same press conference. Could you speak briefly to the magnet that is drawing migrants here . One other comment on that. The Central American Minors Program ended. That program provided a categorical parole. This administration has proposed in january in a letter from the acting director to congress on the budget deal and again working with chairman graham and Senate Judiciary side that would allow for a similar approach, applying for asylum especially for unaccompanied children closer to where they are because we dont want them in the hands of smugglers coming to the border. The main incentive has been the fact that families all over the regi region has been the fact that the settlement does not allow us to do what we were able to do which is detain Families Together through an expedition immigration proceeding. It took about 40 to 50 days on average. That resulted in a clear immigration decision from a judge either repatriation or determination that the family would be allowed to stay. Thats why we see so many families coming. Now, definitely, this is congresss job to act. Its our responsibility. Were supposed to fix it. Nothing is meant to take us away from that responsibility. We sent you a letter a couple months ago highlighting eight actions the administration could take. I wanted to touch on a couple of them in the time that i have left. One of them was training agents to do credible fear interviews. We got your response and i think by the end of the month, well have 60 trained. But that is the limit in that this is a Pilot Program. The idea of training agents is that we wouldnt have the twoyear process. We can really solve this right at the beginning as opposed to this mass influx that we dont know what to do with these people. Why are we not doing more there is thousands and thousands of agents at the border who can be trained to do this and we are limiting this Pilot Program to 60. I agree strongly with the principle to be addressing the asylum claims at the border as soon as possible and that training immigration officers are all technically immigration officers under the statute could help us increase the capacity and vol volume. We are trying to balance it against the continuing crisis. We are doing care, transport. We only have ten more seconds. Work authorization. Can you explain the process of who all is getting work visas, why they are getting work visas in the context of how many people that are crossing our border end up having a legitimate claim to be here. In that context, were seeing for asylum claims 10 to 20 getting asylum. Unfortunately, that takes years to happen. So we are seeing employment authorizations being issued by cis. The acting director is looking at that policy and seeing if we are applying it appropriately given the context you offered. Thank you. And welcome. I want to read you a quote. There can be no keener revelation than the way in which it treats children. That was a quote from the late Nelson Mandela. Would you agree with that quote . Tremendous respect for the late Nelson Mandela and that is a powerful quote. Are you a dad . Yes, congressman. I have one child. Last friday the committee released a staff report on the child separation policy, summarized the data produced by you and other agencies under Committee Subpoenas. We provided you with a copy of that report last week and we agreed to delay this hearing in the anticipation that you would review that report. That report included ten case studies, not 100, not 1,000. We identified specific children at your departments suggestion by number rather than by name though we have the names. I want to ask you about one of the cases. I assume you looked at the report. I reviewed the report, but im not prepared to discuss specific cases at this time. Well, i am. There is a child identified as child number two. We have additional copies of the report if you need to refer to them. The records we obtained from you and other agencies show that this child is a baby boy from honduras who was just 8 months old when he arrived with his dad at the texas border in may of last year. He was 8 months old. He was taken away from his father and sent to a facility in arizona. He then spent six months in that facility. He had his first birthday there. He spent half of his life without his ds in that facility. He had his first birthday there. He spent half his life without his dad in the custody of u. S. Officials. Meanwhile, his dad was sent to three different i. C. E. Facilities and deported after three months. Why was a child of 8 months held for six months while his dad was deported two months later . Congressman, the case youre referring to happened in may of 2018. Yes, sir. Do you have the date . Do you have the date . The actual date in may . Yes. I can get it to you. Okay. And, again, i would be happy to go back over these specific cases with you and members of your staff as appropriate. What i can tell you is that when we implemented the zero tolerance protocols to increase prosecution of amenable adults, including those arriving with children, i specifically directed and the chief of Border Patrol echoed that would not include children traveling with parents under 5. We have gone back and looked at the cases, a few dozen separations during that timeframe we determined that there were other reasons that would comply with the current executive order, court order for separations of children under 5 that occurred during the zero tolerance period. If this is in that period i would imagine im running out of time. Forgive me for interrupting. I want to make sure i understood what you said. Normally your policy would not have allowed this. Something must have happened that made an exception to your normal practice, is that what i understand . Basically, yes. I mean, during the zero tolerance period, if it was after may 7th or so. If it was before then, it would have been under historical approaches. In either case, there must have been another issue with the adult. All right. Or concern that we wanted to followup on. Lets say there was, in theory. Okay. Isnt there something wrong with deporting the dad and keeping the infant . I mean, dont we have a tracking system in place . Sure. That would have caught that and said hey, weve got to link these two up thats a dad, like you. Right. With his child, a baby, 8 months old. By i. C. E. Policy, it is up to that adult to choose whether the child should be repatriated with them. On the erin burnett show, acting director, mr. Cucinelli, actually blamed the father for the death of himself and his daughter crossing the rio grande. It turned out, of course, that Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez who left el salvador april 3rd, his daughter had jumped into the river and he tried to rescue her. Mr. Cucinelli said, and ill end with this. That father didnt want to wait to go into the asylum process so he decided to cross the river. A and, therefore, it was his fault. Do you share that sentiment . Is that the philosophy of your department . I think what happened to oscar and valeria is a tragedy. They deserve better. They deserve a Legal Framework that doesnt incentivize il lawful crossing and they deserve an opportunity to apply for protections if warranted as close as home as possible. You would have jumped in the river to help your daughter, too, right . You may answer the question. Of course, congressman. Thank you. Mr. Miller . Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member jordan. Thank you very much for being here today. In april, i took a trip with my colleagues to guatemala to see firsthand the results of Human Trafficking and abuse of women that occur in the country. I saw with my own eyes the devastating impacts that Human Trafficking has on the young girls, and i know that this same trafficking is occurring at the border, our border. We need Real Solutions to act swiftly, to address the root causes of this issue. Mr. Mcaleenan, i have a lot of questions, so please try to keep your answers short enough so i can get to them all. Nobody wants children to be separated from their parents. We all want to ensure that children are treated with dignity and housed comfortably. What are the factors a Border Patrol agent uses, what he goes through in order to assess these illegal family units when they arrive . So by and large, the vast, vast majority, well over 99 , 98 of children that arrive with parents are kept together in the process. The border agent or cvp officer encountering that family will undertake the analysis from the president s executive order june 20th 2018 and the court order consistent with prior policy that is in the interest of the safety and welfare of the child. And cases are, again, prosecution for criminal offense, serious criminal history, abuse or neglect expressed by that parent or child. Those are the main factors of separation. How many childrens lives have been safbed by the Border Patrol . I think thats awe really important question. We make over 4,000 rescues a year, already in the first nine months of this fiscal year, weve made 3800 rescues. Rescues on the river have gone up tenfold. Were seeing agents almost every day dive into the water with full equipment on trying to rescue families crossing in the waters, high water this time of year. Its very dangerous. 3800 rescues so far this year. Thank you. Im glad to hear that. What is the average size of migrant groups that theyre encountering between the ports of entry and how is that impacting the Border Patrol operations . With well over 150 large groups of more than 100 migrants crossing together we peaked with a group of 1,036 migrants crossing as one group from Central America, 900plus of them were family units. Since mexico has started to do their interdiction operations, weve seen a dramatic drop. Weve had four large groups since the start of mexicos operations and zero in july, to date. Wonderful. How is it the policy for separating children from their parents, what do you use except in the zero tolerance . What is different in this administration and past administrations . Right now, our policy is identical to what we were doing before the zero tolerance practice ended over a year ago. The same . Yes. Okay. In fiscal year 2019, the department of Homeland Security identified nearly 5,500 migrants, presenting as family units that turned out to be fraudulent. Why would adults use children to help them cross the border . Unfortunately, we see that all too often now. Thats been a big focus this year, to try to identify those adults that are bringing children with them that are not their own to a loophole in the United States. A 50yearold man bought a 6yearold child for 80 and admitted that when confronted with the dna test by Homeland Security investigations agent conducting a pilot at one of our border stations. How has the florida settlement impeded our ability to enforce the law . Its impeded us getting immigration results from judges thabd be affectuated. At what woint would a child be separated from the adult they arrive with . It would depend on when an issue was identified. Unfortunately we had a 15yearold girl a few months ago tell us on her second day in custody that her father had raped her the night before they crossed the river. And so she was immediately separated and taken care of and sent to health and Human Services as a result. So its for safety, isnt it . Correct. If a family unit is housed together, how are they housed, in a room with other families . Yes. We separate families generally by demographic and gender. Male head of household families with other male head of household families, same for female head of household families. Age of the kids is a factor. We try to keep people in the same group as possible depending how long theyre at the border. Thank you, acting secretary, for coming in. Secretary mcaleenan, two weeks ago on july 3rd, my colleague, congressman garcia and i wrote you a letter, requesting you provide a plan within 14 days for how you will utilize the 1. 34 billion in emergency supplemental funding provided to dhs to address the border situation. I have not received a response. Mr. Chairman, without objection, i would like to enter this letter into the record. So ordered. Mr. Mcaleenan, has dhs begun receiving the emergency humanitarian funds provided by congress and signed by the president on july 1st . Of course. And i can tell you that we were already acting in hopes of seesk that funding before the supplemental was enacted. What is the status of the plan for using the funding, as congress intended . I presume there is a plan. Sure, of course. About half of the funding is dedicated to enhance facilities at the border where we can provide additional space, reduce overcrowding and improve the care of those in custody of cvp during their short stay at the border. Weve already erected four temporary softsided facilities, two in south texas, two in el paso and well have another 4400 spaces online and an additional set in those two locations as well. So half of the money is allocated for that purpose. Whats the other half . The rest of it covers a range of issues from paying for the search force of agents and officers down there helping with the humanitarian mission, temporary deployment. It adds to our medical contracts so that we can provide embedded medical certified medical specialists. I revensed the 6 million meals we provided folks in our custody since just to be clear all this money is being used for the humanitarian efforts . Correct. And not for any interior i. C. E. Deportation efforts or other Enforcement Actions, correct . Thats how it was appropriated. That creates a challenge, congressman. We asked for funding for i. C. E. Single adult beds and it was not funded. Those single adults are waiting at the border. I understand, sir. But just to be clear, that is how the money was funded so thats how we expect it to be used. Thats correct. And for purposes of our letter, chuey garcia and my letter, we expect a response, how the money is going to be spent and on what timeline. It has to be transparent so we can measure your efforts against your plan. Do i have your assurance well receive that plan . Were transparent to our oversight on how were spending money and well continue to be. To we have your assurance that youll respond to the letter . Well respond to all appropriate requests from congress. Will you respond to our letter on july 3rd . I havent seen the letter. Ill talk to my staff about where it is in the process. I expect a response, sir. Mr. Mcaleenan, you served as cvp commissioner prior to your role at the helm of dhs. 70 current or former employees are now under investigation for posting racist, sexist and other inappropriate comments about migrants and members of congress to a, quote, unquote, secret fa Facebook Group for Border Patrol agents. Are you aware of this secret group, sir . Ive been made aware, yes. Were you a member of that group . No. Is mark morgan a current or former member of that group . I dont know but i dont believe so. Sir, what are the efforts to investigate those particular comments of the members of that group . Office of professional responsibility initiated an investigation within hours of those allegations coming to light. As you noted, they already placed a number of individuals on investigation, put several on administrative duties, cease about desist letters, moved quickly to hold people accountable for conduct that doesnt meet our standards. When will we receive a report on the results of that investigation . Its proceeding aggressively. I would say probably this month, early next month well be able to update on the result of those investigations. Okay. We find this conduct extremely troubling and expect to receive that report. Would you be willing to come back in to discuss that report . Certainly, or cvp will come and brief. Zero tolerance policy that was adopted, how do you define zero tolerance under this investigation with regard to immigration policies . Consistent with the president s executive order that we would no longer have categorical exceptions toim grags law, one and two under the attorney generals april 6th letter, to have all 1325 unlawful entry cases be submitted, that was the goal, submitted for prosecution by doj. During zero tolerance the prosecution increase of 20 amenable adults to 50 amenable adults by eliminating that categorical exception. Thank you very much. Mr. Roy . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Quick question in response to my colleagues question just now. Is it true that zero dollars are included in the supplemental that just passed for i. C. E. Detention for single or family units . Thats correct. Isnt that part of the problem . It was. Wasnt it purposeful by my democratic colleagues . I assume that they did not want to fund what im trying to emphasize is the impact it has on adults waiting at the border. Its not the humanitarian crisis, we have a crisis of National Security, over stretched resources, endangerment of texas communities and migrants along the journey. Its also a border crisis. Cartels, massively profiting by moving people through mexico to the United States. Correct . Yes, 3 billion plus a year. Poster behind me shows crisis. Crisis for moving people through mexico and to the United States. Do you agree that it is true that certain dangerous cartels have an entire Business Model designed to exploit american laws to move human beings for profit and they charge money per person as depicted in this chart . Yes. Met a family from honduras that explained they paid 10,000 to come across. Do it you agree they use children as a ticket for profit to come to the United States . Yes. How many people have come across the border and sought to be detained themselves, sought detention or were apprehended, from october 1st to present, its north of 700,000, correct . North of 500,000. Single adults are not, by and large, turning themselves n theyre trying to evade capture and embedded in that group unfortunately are criminals, smugglers. Combined were over 800,000. Then there are those hundreds of thousands of people who cross our border in that time who were not apprehends, correct . There are, yes. Is it not true that Border Patrol is overwhelmed and dealing with housing migrants rather than policing the border . Housing, transportation and care, the border is less secure. Of those 800,000, how many were uscs, 80,000 . Yes. How many were single adults, 250,000 or so . Correct. Of those, are they mostly male . Predominantly male, yes. How many were family units, over 400,000 . 450,000. Of those 200,000 each of adults and children, about 50 50 . 1. 1, because people know that child is a very valuable way to get into the u. S. Theyre only bringing one child with them. Are most of those family units dispersed throughout the United States . Yes. Are they claim ago siel um or largely using a child as a ticket for catch and release . The latter. We have seen asylum claims but its gone down from the peak of 30 from those encounters claiming asylum. Is it true that the issues of uacs could be solved and done on a single piece of paper . Yes. Is it true we could largely solve the problem of family units rushing our border and being caught and released by addressing the florida settlement and extension of that settlement ninth circuit judge on a single piece of paper . That was our experience in twurn and 2015. Is it true that with respect to the family unit problem representing the majority of the surge across our border that the Obama Administration supported a solution to the floridas problem and again we could solve it on a single piece of paper . Yes. Is it true that the Obama Administration asked for 762 million for i. C. E. To deal with the unaccompanied alien children problem in 2014, the surge where chern were ariesk on top of train cars . We all asked for additional appropriations at dhs to deal with the unaccompanied child surge, yes. That amount seems correct . Sounds like its in the ballpark. Thats what im told. Supplemental just passed only provided 200 million in spobs to a much larger crisis today and came with significant restrictions on how it could be used . Thats correct. Zero dollarses, purposely zero dollars for i. C. E. Beds and i. C. E. Detention. Is that correct . Thats correct. Do you anticipate that the democrat led house of representatives will bring any of these solutions that will be done on one piece of paper to the floor for this week . Probably not this week but im sure hopeful on a shared set of facts for solutions. Money for i. C. E. , things we know would solve the problem and largely address the crisis, you are not anticipating that will be brought to the floor this next week before we adjourn for summer . I dont see that. Which begs the question why, and ill tell you why. Democratic colleagues dont give a damn about the National Security and prefer to use children as political props. Thank you. No more questions. Thank you very much. As i said earlier when i opened, we need to be careful about the motives of our members. And that goes to both sides. With that, we now will hear from miss spear. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Hold on. The bells have rung. Miss spear will be the last person. Well go into recess and we will let you know exactly we have three votes, i understand. Is it three . Three, possibly four votes. So im just letting you know. Miss speier . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I was with 16 other colleagues at the border at mccallum and brownsville, my second trip to the border. Have you been there, sir . Several dozen times. All right. So this is familiar to you, seeing families, mothers and children, caged with mylar blavenths . Yes. Thats familiar to you . Yes. Is this familiar to you too . This is what we saw at the processing center. 40 men in a cell that could probably, under normal circumstances, accommodate maybe five. This man is putting his fingers up showing that he has been there for 40 days and 40 nights without a shower and without being able to brush his teeth. And i confirmed that with the Border Patrol officers there. This would not be allowed as a kennel for dogs yet thats how were housing them. You know the sally court is filled with yet another six, 400 or 500 menace well. Its unacceptable and it has to change. We dont treat human beings like that. Now im going to ask you to can i respond to those statements . You can after i ask you this question. Case study that youve had the benefit of looking at since last friday, child number three. 19 months old when he arrived from honduras at the southern border in texas with his father in april 2018. He was taken from his father and drpted to foster care in new york before being released to a sponsor six months later. During the time the toddlers father was sent to i. C. E. Detention facilities in texas, new jersey and new york before being released. Why was this 19yearold 19monthold baby taken from his father . First on the conditions, no one in this room has warned more often about the overcrowding in our facilities than i have. Ive been asking congress for help. We did not get the money for single adult beds that would allow us to move those adults out of our custody from congress. I want to make that point very clear. Secondly on this case, as i said to congressman connelly, i would be happy to follow up on specific cases. I dont have the details on this case today. Here is the problem. Youve had this report since last friday. You should have come prepared to answer these particular cases. So im wondering why you arent able to do so. I reviewed this report. And ive explained to congressman connelly our policy. I directed and the chief of the Border Patrol implemented when we during the period of zero tolerance that we would not separate we would not prosecute an adult that would result in a separation of their child if the child was under 5 years old. If that happened, it was likely due to another issue in that adults history or in the situation with that child that resulted in the separation. So i want to be clear on that. We dont know then if the toddler was ever reunite d with the father . We do. We have lots of different ways to confirm this. Reporting biweekly the results of their own class and reunifications of that class. We also have the ability in our system to see which adults crossed with which child and respond to that. We can do a very specific response. You will provide us with a specific response to the questions we provide to you . Yes. Let me ask you this. When did the children that we met was an 8yearold. His mother was dead. His father was elderly. He was brought her by his 25yearold sister and was separated at the border. There was another young 16yearold with an infant that has a mother in new york, but is going to not be reunited with her sponsor for as much as 60 days. Some of these cases are being handled in a way that doesnt recognize if youre a family unit, the family unit should be retained. And i want you to look at ways of improving the system. 25yearold sister and 8yearold child is a family unit and they should not have been separated. This child now is homeless, parentless and has lost his sibling. We cant treat people like this. May i respond . Yes. We offered both the senate and house Judiciary Committees in their consideration of legislation modification to the act that requires by law a child riesk without a parent or guardian be considered unaccompanied. Health and Human Services where they make the best decision on a placement with a sponsor. We would like to have more flexibility to adjust the kind of cases you just revensed. I want to work with you on that. We stand in recess. We will reconvene half an hour after the last vote begins. Okay . On the floor. We stand in recess. The House Oversight committee is still in recess so members can vote on the bill to raise the minimum wage to 15 an hour by 2025. The bill has passed by a vote of 231199. The bill now goes to the senate. Until the committee resumes questioning of acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin Mcaleenan, here is some of this mornings washington journal. Treatment for individuals in customs and Border Protection custody. What are those standards now and how would your bill change those standards . First of all, lets back up and describe the situation on the border. You have an overfilled, concrete room with cold floors. Children soiled themselves without diapers, vomit on their shirts, given burritos that are still frozen to kids to eat. Youre seeing one bathroom for 400 people. Youre seeing open toilets where the women have to stand and guard with their body around another young woman to use the toilet. It is just so subhuman, these conditions. And so my background, john, is that im a Board Certified emergency physician, have done flight medicine, been medical command in the city of pittsburgh during my training. Ive also am an expert in Public Health and trained humanitarian at harvard with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative as well as training with the icrc and have responded after the Haiti Earthquake and became medical director of the largest internally displaced camp at the portauprince right after the Haiti Earthquake. I saw at the border overcapacity system with multiple failures, understaffed, underequipped, underresourced and underskilled to meet the humanitarian needs of these women and children under their custody and therefore, mind you, under their responsibility. So i introduced the humanitarian standards for individuals in cvp custody act that are based on a triage system, prehospital triage system that i have done for many years, as well as some basic standards for humanitarian treatment regarding Public Health necessities, water, sanitation, hygiene, food, nutrition, shelter. Thats what i did. When it comes to those things, are there standards now that just arent being met . Thats the problem. We studied the standards that cvp following i. C. E. And this bill, mind you, is specifically only for cvp. The ones at the front lines, right . They are following these standards. They are not real standards in the sense that theyre very vague. Theyre not specific. For example, Health Screening is observation and question, are you okay . And just look at them. Doesnt say they need an interview, doesnt say theyre required to do it in a language they understand. Doesnt say they have to have vital signs and physical examination. Its not a real screening triage to determine whose life is in jeopardy or who is high risk of dying. Under their standards, which they met, six children have died. Six children have died. The 7yearold from guatemala, had she had vital signs initially when she presented, she would have beenv survived. Does it provide new funding to allow cvp to have the resources to actually do this . Well, we this bill would be the blueprint that the 4. 5 billion that was just given in the supplemental would be applied towards, one. Two is that this bill in and of itself is an authorizing bill. Then the appropriators will then look to fund this blueprint so that we can treat migrants more humaneely, with more professionalism at the border. Were talking with congressman raul ruiz, democrat of california. Phone lines are open for you to do so. 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001, independents 2027488002. House committees process yesterday when will it see floor time and an actual vote . Next week. Im very hopeful it will be up for a vote on the floor next week before everybody leaves to their districts in august and, of course, you know, i dont know if senator Mitch Mcconnell will bring it up for a vote in the senate. However, theres a lot of bills that must pass congress. Theres a lot of things that the president wants. I bleefb Speaker Pelosi is very wise in her ability to make sure that we do the right thing for children. In terms of must pass bills, we heard news this week of a possible deal coming together between Speaker Pelosi, democratic leadership and the white house on raising the debt ceiling and lifting those budget caps. Whats your understanding of where we are on that deal . Its pretty much your understanding and what were reading in the news and our sources that theyre getting close to a deal. I think its very important that the government pays its bills. What should the deal include, in your mind . The deal . I cant go into specifics because im not prifby to that back and forth, but definitely the we should be paying our bill so that we dont default and ruin our American Economy and create a Global Economic crisis. Tweet from one of the congressional reporters on capitol hill, quoting Steve Mnuchin saying the white house and congressional leaders have agreed on top line budget cap numbers and are working on offsets. Can you explain what that legislative speak means . In other words, where are you going to take away in order to put money into other positions . So thats what that means pretty much. So well find out today. Perhaps more information on that deal and well, of course, keep you updated. Stay here on cspan and watch the action on the house floor starting in about 15 minutes this morning. The next 20 minutes were talking with congressman raul ruiz. Getting your phone calls. Glenn is up first out of illinois, democrat. Good morning. Caller hello and good morning. If we get rid of trump and put our Vice President in there, hes got no nose for that border deal. Hell throw them cages out of there so quick it will make your head spin. Pence. Thats the one we need in there. Thank you. Your thoughts on the Vice President . You know, i think his recent visit to the border was another press hit or stunt to sway and distract from the very Gross Facebook posts that they have found from certain Border Patrol agents, to sway the Public Opinion from what lawyers and independent observers have seen, which is the complete inadequacy of a system to care for children and women, often times intentional, sometimes not intentional but simply because they dont know how and they dont have the resources to do that. The caller talking about getting rid of President Trump. Al green sought to do that yesterday through his impeachment resolution. It was eventually tabled. The House Democratic leadership leading that effort to try to table that resolution. Where did you come down on that . I voted to table it. We have mueller, who is going to come in and testify. We still have a lot of different information that needs to be uncovered. If were going an impeachment doesnt remove the president. A senate vote has to remove the president. We have to make sure theres not only enough but the best set of circumstances and context in which a president , under the constitution, can be impeached. Al greens impeachment resolution dealt in large part with the president s comments about the four freshmen democratic congresswomen and his thoughts on them. Does that mean high crimes, misdemeanor, bribery or treason . And, unfortunately, the electorate voted for a man who disparage women, a man who disparaged immigrants and is continuing to do that, is using divisiveness, hate and fear to augment his political base. And thats not the ideal form of leadership that our country needs but he is campaigning, has used the electoral system to his advantage. Shonda is next out of ashburn, virginia. Republican. Good morning. Good morning. This is shonda. Thanks for having me on. My comment is about the border. Can we all agree that five years ago the majority of migrants, immigrants migrating to the you state were men and not family units . When the Detention Centers were down there, we were better equipped because we didnt have that many people comeing in. Now we have this influx, the crisis we are all talking about, and i think we can all agree on, were not equipped to have family units. When you have thousands coming in by the day, what do you expect for them to what kind of conditions when they dont have money . Theyre just not equipped. We could put up a tent city overnight. To build facilities that are i mean, just for them to be in the condition that its a Good Condition to bring children and mothers and pregnant women. We just dont have the facilities to do that. There are too many people coming across. Thanks for the call. Congressman . Yeah. So i have been a medical director for tens of thousands of patients after the most devastating earthquake and in the most impoverished country in the hemisphere and i saw that these standards can be applied. For example, the amount of la treen latrines. Providing space, private secure space for them to bathe and shower, providing soap and toothbrushes and also creating a location where theres enough space that is dignity. Many of these places do not require a complete infrastructure makeover. Theres a lot of capacity within our government to mobilize. I worked in a tenth hospital in haiti along the 82nd airborne, the army. I was able to see the enormous capacity, logistics to meet these needs. I do agree that right now the system does not have the capacity. Therefore, were going to have to do a lot of memorandums of understandings and contracts with other emergency federal agencies as well as nonprofits and local hospitals to make sure that children dont die. Because what we do have the capacity for is to ensure that children dont suffer needlessly. Today on capitol hill before the House Oversight government reform committee, acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin Mcaleenan will be testifying. What question would you ask him . I have had the opportunity to ask him questions and have had conversations with other Border Patrol agents about these standards. The Border Patrol agents also want these standards. Improving the standards and conditions in which they work will also improve their workplace and ensure that they have the capacity to have a licensed Health Care Professional to do a Health Screening, have Emergency Care providers on call, over the phone to triage and help them make decisions whether a child needs to be transported to the Emergency Department or can remain in their facility. And so a lot of these provisions and the humanitarian standards bill addresses the Public Health. So it will prevent the spread of illnesses. It will prevent deterioration of an individuals health. Therefore you prevent them from getting sick and you prevent other agents from getting sick as well. Were airing that hearing on cspan 3 at 10 00 this morning. You can see Kevin Mcaleenan, the acting Homeland Security secretary there. You can watch cspan. Org. Alan is next out of durham, North Carolina, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, america. I just wanted to say you have people locked up. Jj watt, kevin durant, when there are Natural Disasters, people go and help other people. We recognize these people go help. How can this congressman and several others are going down there and getting donations and having fun until the money does come and build the tents themselves, to do something other than talk . I am tired of these people talking, especially congresspeople and not, you know, rolling up their sleeves. Get your body down there then why arent you asking people to donate and give those people clothes until your written law comes through . Alan, i hear your frustration. I grew up in the Public Health and Community Organizing communities where we actually do things rather than talk. In this case, personally ive worked with different agencies to assist them to help these children and women and families. The issue is that there are very strict rules where cvp cannot accept certain donations or certain assistance. They dont allow anybody to come into the facilities where the children are at. My bill will allow members of congress to go in and do oversight and inspections. Theres a lot of organizations who are much better at coordinating humanitarian aid rather than the 435 individual members of congress right now. I hear your frustration and think theres a point. A lot of people want to bicker. Theres the opportunity to donate monies to nonprofits. Theres opportunityies to work with your physicians. The president of the American Pediatric Association saying american pediatricians are waiting to be let in to assist these children but theyre not allowed. Why respect they allowed . The claim is for security reasons. They havent been the bureaucracy of not having gone through the background checks and all the other necessities to come into a facility. The other thing is the less amount of outsiders, third Party Individuals come in and see the horrendous conditions, the less statement theyre going to make. Cvp would rather shut their doors and not allow the public to see whats happening inside. About ten minutes left with congressman raul ruiz in california. Betty is waiting in louisiana, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Ive been listening to the discussion and the one thing that hasnt been brought up is stop it. Stop the influx. The analogy would be if you have a tub thats overflowing,s the faucet is running full force, you keep yelling for buckets. But the buckets arent the problem. How about turning the faucet off . Were out here. Were not were listening to this, all of this. Handle it like youre supposed to. Congress, do something. Youre not taking any steps at all to shut the faucet off. Thats a great analogy, betty. Thats a very, very good analogy. So this is where we need senators, when you get seated, we will have mr. Keller. Thank you very much. Mr. Keller . Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you, Ranking Member jordan. Thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here today. I know weve been discussing the tragedy at our southern border and how our Public Officials are handling that and dealing with it. And i want to applaud those who work every day on our border. Thank you for your service. Its a tragedy as a father and grandfather of two little girls, its a tragedy when children suffer under bad circumstances. We talked about ways we might impr improve the trafficking vekts act. Items mr. Roy brought up that i think you said would be helpful in making sure we stop the crisis at our southern border. Is that correct . Thats correct. Are there other items we could put in place to help you and the people of the United States that work for customs and Border Patrol to help their jobs . Sure. You just mentioned two things that could help, modifying the florida settlement to allow us to detain Families Together in an appropriate setting through the immigration proceeding, amending the tpra, but also weve added the opportunity for children to apply for asylum from Central America. But the third change is modification of the front end of the asylum process, incredible fear standard. Currently its a possibility of proving an asylum case. We recommended a change to make it more likely than not that you can prove an asylum case. We think that would allow for valid claims to come through and better align that front end test by an ultimate decision by an immigration judge. If congress were to fix those items the way youre recommending, how long would it take you to implement policy and changes to improve the conditions and make sure theres not such a crisis at our border . I think a fairly Immediate Impact of flow coming to our border and we have historical context. Secretary johnson made the decision to detain family units, we had a 90 drop off in family units crossing the border within a matter of weeks from those first flights riesk in Central America. I think well see a quick change in the flow when the loophole is closed. Thank you for that. I guess i would want to say then if congress would do and if the democratic leadership would give us those tools to allow you to do your job, we would cease seeing children being trafficked up to our border . I believe thats the case. We need people to be in custody, adjudicated at the border. Weve sewn a dramatic drop. Thank you, sir. I would say this for my colleagues. I would encourage you encourage my colleagues, the speaker and the democratic leadership to not only do these things but physical the other immigration policies that are broken so we dont have this crisis at our border if we truly care about children and whats happening. Im committed to make sure we help that happen. I would encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to push for that resolution. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. July 6th, the New York Times published details. Here is what the times wrote. Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chicken pox were spreading among hundreds of children and adults held in cramped cells. The stench of the childrens dirty clothing spread to the agents own clothing. People in town would scrunch their noses when they left work. Children cried constantly. One girl seemed likely enough to kill herself that the agents made her sleep on a cot in front of them so they could watch her as they were processing new arrivals. You were asked about these the next day on abc news, these allegations and you said they were, quote, unsubstantiated and you explained because theres adequate food and water, because the facility is cleaned up every day, because i know what our standards are and i know theyre being followed, because we have tremendous levels of oversight, five levels of oversight. That includes the departments independent Inspector General, correct . Yes. And it also includes lawyers who monitor compliance with the florida settlement to ensure that the children are protected, correct . It does include the court oversight, which is part of the monitors. In a sense in that statement youre citing all these various levels of oversight. It includes iag and lawyers who do the monitoring under floresiag testified in front of our committee friday along with a lawyer who inspected that facility and interviewed children. Ig inspected five detention facilities in the rio grande valley, housing over 2500 children. She found more than 800 had been held longer than the 72 hours permitted under the flores agreement and internal standards. This included at least 50 unaccompanied children younger than 7 years old, many of them in detention for over two weeks. Do you agree, you must, that holding Young Children in overcrowded detention cells for over two weeks violates both the flores decision and the ted standards . Not only do i agree, while the ig was touring our facilities june 10th on cnn i said no american should be comfortable with children in a Police Station for days on end. Its not an appropriate setting for kids. The ig, quote, teams also documented additional assistances of noncompliance with applicable Detention Centers, noncompliance with standards applicable to the detention of alien children, including lack of access to hot meals, showers and a change of clothes. You dont seem to be disputing the igs findings that dhs violated flores and its own detention standards. I would like to unpack these if i have time at the end ill let you unpack that. I want to reference what a lawyer who visited clint as part of the flores oversight was testifying to, quote, seeing children who were dirty, children who wore clothing that was visibly stained with dirt, nasal mucus, breast milk. None of the children reported having access to soap to wash their hands. Many children had not showered, bathed for days. Many had not showered or bathed once since crossing the border. They reported they did not have access to clean clothing. So i get i understand that there is a debate about why were where we are, but there cannot be any debate, and i assume you agree, that when youre dealing with children, there are basic standards, humanitarian standards when it comes to their treatment that need to be followed. This is gut wrenching testimony that we got. Its unconscionable we would treat children this way in the United States. And what she was witnessing clearly does not comply with dhss detention standards and the flores agreement. Ill let you speak now i just want to ask you, beseech you and your department to take more ownership of the treatment standards here, leaving aside why its happening. Weve got our own perspectives and they probably differ from that. Once a child is in that situation, its a matter of human compassion we treat them with decency and humanitarian response. Mr. Chairman, i would appreciate the opportunity to answer the remarks of the congressman. Thank you. So, first, i do not agree more that overcrowding of children in our facilities is not an appropriate situation or result. Thats why i asked for a supplemental that included 3. 3 billion for health and Human Services to increase their bed space capacity for unaccompanied children. In my Opening Statement i explained within weeks of receiving that funding weve reduced our custody population of high near 2700 to about 350 at the end of the day yesterday. From over 1200 kids that were with us for more than 72 hours to fewer than 50 at the end of the day yesterday. Thats what we were able to do with the resources we asked for and waited for two months for congress to act upon. I agree with you, we need to take ownership of the care and custody of children at the border but we need Congress Help to do that. As soon as we got it, we applied it effectively and urgently. To clarify the various allegations that you walked through in terms of difficult situations at the border, i personally have explained those situations that were in the igs findings multiple times in public, press conferences and hearings and how concerned we were about it, why we needed congress to help change the law and provide the resources necessary to care for children. You referenced the flores monitors. Those that visited clint station interviewed children in a conference room. They did not go into the custody areas of the facility. They did not see the supplies available. They did not see the toothbrushes available. I was in clint last week. I talked to a coast guard volunteer in charge of procurement. He told me they had tens of thousands of toothbrushes in the sector, including available at clint station. When i said the allegations were unsubstantiated, i was speaking to the flores monitors who said the children didnt have toothbrushes, food. Clint had 700 kids in custody at one point. Absolutely it was overcrowded. 200 in a single day, after a difficult journey, held in squaller conditions by smugglers. We have clothes there. Were giving them new clothes. Its really challenging when youre that overwhelmed. Weve added additional showers to make sure every kid can take a shower within the first 24 hours when they roiv at that station and its been a huge effort on behalf of those men and women to do their absolute level best to take care of children. I want to make sure that this committee has that context and doesnt assume we took it lightly or are just shrugging our shoulders. Were fighting this children, asking help from congress. As soon as we got it, we applied. Its a much better situation for children at that border now. Mr. Kosar . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Some of my colleagues comments, secretary mcaleenan, can you tell me how the recycling of children is a problem at the border . Sure, congressman. And this is part of our efforts to identify how these loopholes in our law are generating behavior that puts children at risk and how we can address it, not only with our border resources but our investigative partners at Homeland Security investigations. Early in my tenure, hsi deployed agents to the border in the rio grande where we see most of the family units riesk to focus on the potential for adults bringing children with them who are not their own, just to try to evade enforcement of our Immigration Laws. In that initial several weeks with the referrals from the Border Patrol agents they found 15 of those individuals, a risk with this family. We dont think this adult is a parent and it was substantiated that they were not related. Child recycling is the worst example of it. I. C. E. Has three significant cases, multiple cities around the country where theyve identified a small group of children, five to eight children, who are being used by dozens of adults to cross our border, seeking release into the United States. So, theyre pursuing those cases in the appropriate prosecutions. Its a huge indication that gaps in our framework are putting children at risk. Youre aware of that even in early 2014 that the cartels were actually in Central America, extorting families to send their children to the United States . Are you aware of that . Yes, im aware. So we are enabling this enterprise to move forward. Now youre familiar with child protective services, are you not, in this country . Broadly, yes. If i took my child from flag staff, arizona, and went to seattle, knowing that theres a 30 chance thats going to be some type of criminal enterprise along the lines, not knowing that im going to get food and water and protection, would my child be able to stay with now still dont really understand the complexity of what youre under, so is it easier to take care of individual men coming across or family . What takes more work from your standpoint from your work force . For processing and care, we have very high standards for children in our custody, and anywhere in federal custody. Single adults is what our structure was built for. These stations were built most of them decades ago, primarily the crossings end were single adult males from mexico. They were with us just a few hours before being repatriated. Thats the structure thats existed on the border for decades. This sort of population with unaccompanied children and families is a difficult challenge for us given the resources we have at the border. The status of some of a child going through this long arduous journey, theyre probably pretty debilitated health wise. We see a lot of disease and illnesses. In some case weve had immediate surgery. They came to the border to have surgery. We are being faced with a younger and sicker population this year than weve ever seen at the border before. And its going to get worse for you. My understanding is yesterday or last night the World Health Organization actually declared an outbreak of ebola. Now that they cant contain in kongala. How is that going to implicate you in looking at the people unites and how will it slow down the processing of individuals . Well, having medical professionals in our facilities gives us a chance to screen children and adults arriving into facilities to ensure they dont have a communicable disease. The its something were going to watch carefully. Im in close contact on the Ebola Outbreak and we have a responsibility at the border to be aware of it. Is there one thing we could have help with hhs that you would ask for that would expedite some of those issues . So the Public Health Service Commission core, these are uniform doctors and Nurse Practitioners that have been in the border facilities with us. The funding and support for those tremendous professionals in uniform working alongside us is a huge benefit, and helps us carry out our mission. Thank you very much. I yield myself now these minutes to ask questions. I sit here, mr. Secretary, and wonder the things that always has bothered me and is bothering me about this hearing is it seems that we have a tendency to i want to say sugar coat, but clearly theres something going wrong down at the border, a lot. My republican friends have said that we just declared and said this was an emergency. Ive been begging for a hearing before i became chairman. Begging. And the thing that i think bothers me the most is that when i see the pictures and i hear the testimony by the way, im going down there myself, and id love for you to accompany me, because i want us to see the same things. I can tell you that im at a point where i begin to wonder whether there is an empathy deficit, an empathy deficit. So mr. Secretary, i was disappointed when you decided last year to ignore the request for documents that i made with representative meadows. A bipartisan request. And you refused to reduce a single produce a single document about these kids. Which is why we had to issue subpoenas. How much money have are we spending . How much money are we spending of the american peoples dollars, theyre hardearned tax dollars, how much are we spending . On which issue . On all of them. Just give me a ballpark figure. Ill take it . Department of Homeland Security is a 60 billion entity with fees. Cbp is about 15 billion. Yeah. Thats a lot of money. In april of this year you gave an interview with lester holt at nbc. You claim that the children you separated were, and i quote, always intended to be reunited. You also said that, and i quote. Really, it was done very effectively. Border patrol agents kept very careful records. Between the relationships between parents and children. And those connections were made very expeditiously by health and Human Services working with the department of Homeland Security, end of quote. Given everything that has come out and everything that we now know, do you still stand by that Statement Today . Is it your testimony today that you reunited these children effectively and expeditiously . Mr. Chairman, in that interview, and in response to a number of questions and hearings on the same topic, what ive talked about then as cbp commissioner is our Border Patrol capturing the relationship between children at. Have not historically interfaced with one another in a way thats easy to track the files thats something were going to improve under the funding we got in the supplemental. That said, i think the response to the order and how fast the majority of children were reunified spoke to good captures of data and a tremendous effort by hhs and i. C. E. To find the child and parent and bring them together. I think thats in the record of the Court Filings in the weeks after that ruling. Thats interesting you raise that. The judge in that case said your agency did a better job of tracking immigrants personal property than their children. So you could find their keys, but you could not find their children. Come on, now. Im referencing the result yeah . Well, we talking about the same case. You quoted from it and i did. Im talking about the results im talking about human beings. Im not talking about people that come from as the president said, sh holes. Those are human beings. Human beings just trying to live a better life. So the problem with your claim is that it is contradicted by the facts. We now have documents and they show this not to be true. And i dont say that lightly. Your claim is also refuted by not one but two independent inspectors general. In 2018, dhs issued a scathing report that this, and i quote, dhs was not fully prepared to implement the Administration Zero Tolerance policy or to deal with some of the aftereffects. Dhs also struggled to identify, track, and reunify families separated under zero tolerance due to limitations with its Information Technology systems including a lack of Integration Systems between systems, end of quote. The igo also found that the Trump Administrations public claim that you had a, quote, central database, and listen to this, mr. Secretary, the ig said it was blatantly false. They also found that, quote, theres no evidence that such a database even exists. End of quote. Mr. Meadows, to his credit, has often said, and we all have said we want transparency, and can you understand when we hear that kind of information listening to the ig who was independent, see what and listen to our colleagues who have been there right on the ground, and then we hear youre talking about a database, no database. That seems to go in the opposite direction of transparency and, therefore, when we hear about stories coming out from you and your agency that everything is pretty good, youre doing a great job. I guess you feel like youre doing a great job. Right . Is that what youre saying . Were doing our level best in a challenging what does that mean . What does that mean when a child is sitting in their own feces, cant take a shower . Come on, man. What is that about . None of us would have our children in that position. They are human beings. And im trying to figure out, and i get tired of folks saying oh, oh, they just beating up on the Border Patrol. Oh, they just beating up on Homeland Security. What i am saying is i want to concentrate on these children. And i want to make sure that they are okay. I will say it. Ive said it before, and ill say it again. Its not the deed that you do to a child. Its the memory. Its the memory. And so and i told the head of Border Patrol the other day, i said i want to know whats happening in the meantime. We are the United States of america. We are the greatest country in the world. We are the ones that can go anywhere in the world and save people. Make sure they have diapers, make sure they have toothbrushes, make sure theyre not laying around defecating in some silver paper. Come on. Were better than that. And i dont want us to lose sight of that. When we are dancing with the angels, these children will be dealing with the issues that have been presented to them. How do you say to a twoyearold, your mother, we cant find your mother, but we can find her keys. We can find her keys. Got your mamas keys. And so i just think we can do better. And we can go on and on and on, but im hoping that we will see some immediate improvements. I just want i just want to see an improvement, and i want to see it, and i want to see where we go with this filing. Finally let me ask you this, mr. Secretary. And that wasnt the only thing in the report. The Inspector General at hhs issued a report in january of 2019. That report found that the Trump Administration and i quote, faced significant challenges in identifying separated children including the lack of existing integrated data system to track separated families across hhs and dhs, and the complexity of determining which children should be considered separated. They also criticized your agency, dhs provided orr with limited information about the reasons for the separations which may impede orrs ability to determine appropriate placements. As a result, the ig found that the separated children, and i quote, were still being identified more than five months after the original court order to do so. Both the ig reports were issued before you made your statements in april. So mr. Secretary, have you read those reports . Yes, i have. And then how in the world can you sit here today under oath and defend your statement that you kept very careful records that you worked with hhs very effectively and efficiently and that you reunited children expeditiously . Respectfully by the way, very expeditiously, you said. Respectfully, i actually highlighted that issue before you asked the question. But and ive testified on it before. We did have a lack of integrated databases. That is correct. What ive testified before and what i stated a few moments ago was that the cbp data was carefully captured. It was not available in an integrated fashion from an i. T. Perspective, but when you put all the information together with what hhs and i. C. E. Had, they were able to work within weeks to reunite the vast majority of the adults and childrens. And at this time, every child as an identified has on identified parent. Secondly, i would welcome the opportunity to see our men and women and how hard they are working to care for children. They are Holding Children that were not their own, broad across by smugglers, putting formula and baby bottles together. Theres no one defecating in a mylar blanket. We are taking care of these children thanks to the resources we finally have. Theyre moving very quickly through our facilities to a better situation. Id be happy to show you that at the border. . Im looking forward to it. Well make the arrangements as soon as possible. Ranking member. Mr. Secretary, would it have helped if you got the resources when you asked for be them . Of course. When did you become acting secretary . April 10th of this year. A couple weeks later you asked for money . Yes. You asked for money because you wanted to address the underlying problem. They wont build the Border Security wal or fix asylum. Say its contrived when it is a crisis. Then it gets worse and then they blame you who took the position in april and asked for help three weeks later and then they wait two and a half months to send the money. And when they send the money, we had the picture of the ho individual males in the adult males in the facility. You asked for i. C. E. Bed money. What did they say . They didnt provide it. Didnt provide it. And yet youre the bad guy. You take the position in april, ask for resources a couple weeks later. They deny the resources for two and a half months and then when the problem is so bad, they say its your fault, even though yoif been trying to address the underlying problem, and then you say at least give us the money to address the crisis. It gets so bad they finally send the money but put limitations on it because they want the political issue. We all care about the kids. This is ridiculous. Let me ask you this. We all know theres a crisis on the border. Does accusing agents of torture help the crisis . No. Does accusing agents of working at concentration camps help the crisis . No. When the chairman of the house Judiciary Committee accuses folks working hard of negligent homicide, does that help the crisis . Of course not. Would abolishing i. C. E. Help with the crisis . No. Would abolishing your agency help with the crisis . No. Does waiting ten two and a half months to get the 4. 6 billion you asked for two weeks after you took the job, does that help with the crisis . No. And it left children in these situations way too long. Weve proven as soon as we got the resources, we were able to put them in a much better situation. Does denying money for i. C. E. Beds help with the problem . No. Thats contributing to overcrowding thats still existing today. I dont know how many times youve said it already. Two things right now would help. Give you the money for the i. C. E. Beds, and fix florez. And i think you said to mr. Keller, you think that would be almost immediate action, immediate help within a couple weeks you would see the message sent so these people wont take this dangerous trip y. That would help immediately . Thats right. Yet the majority doesnt want to do it. Doesnt want to do it. Chairman just called it a deficit. He accused you and your agents and your agency of a deficit of empathy. You want to respond to that mr. Secretary . I can tell you the men and women of dhs where is that picture . I want you to take as long as you want. Put this picture up. Does that look like a deficit of empathy . That happens every day on the border, doesnt it . Right. I wonder why would an agency if they have a deficit of empathy create a border search and rescue team to try to protect people making the crossing. They make over 4,000 rescues a year on their own time so they can help people in dangerous conditions. Where is the deficit of empathy there . These are predominantly latino Border Patrol agents with children of their own. Theyre trying to protect them on the line and trying to do the best they can. You said theyre predominantly latino Border Agents . Thats correct. Majority of them are of hispanic dissent . Border patrol agents, yes. Yeah. It doesnt help. It doesnt help. At some point we have to get past all this and focus on what is driving the problem. And we all know what it is. Florez has to be fixed. The asylum law, the lop hole, it has to be addressed and while were getting that done, why dont we give you a few more dollars to take the adult males, have enough beds for them so theyre not in the facility like the picture before. That would be great. And by the way, maybe if we had a Border Security wall, that would help as well. Not all these people are coming to ports of entry. A lot of folks are coming across, too. I mean, all this is part of the all this is part of the problem. Lets fix it. Lets fix it instead of just saying the things weve been saying. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much. Mr. Norton. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And i want to thank you for your testimony, and i know i speak for this entire committee when i thank the border personnel for the work theyre doing well beyond the call of duty. There is no disagreement about that. I just want to see where we were in order to see where weve gotten because some of your testimony is helpful in showing progress and i understand youre fairly recently there. What you had to deal with is a policy where 4,000 children were separated from their parents since mid 2017. There was a cancellation. I want you to note this of what had proved one of the few successful policies that was from the obama era where which apparently kept people out of detention and its called the Family Case Management Program where families had to report having within released, had to report and there was a 99 success rate on that. Only a tenth of what the family detention costs. Then there was another Trump Administration policy where they targeted sponsors of children for arrest and deportation, and im talking about 170 potential sponsors who came forward for these children. Then they were deported, so you can see the effect that would have. That has chilled that humanitarian response. Now, congress has prohibited that practice now, im pleased to say. But it is still having an effect, because dhs and hhs are sharing records, so people are not stepping forward. And then, of course, there was the metering process. And weve discussed that in this committee. Dhs found that limiting the volume of Asylum Seekers and here im quoting, entering at ports of entry leads some aliens who would otherwise seek legal entry into the United States to cross the border illegally. Mr. Secretary, i take it you agree that those policies, some of which you were not a part of, did exacerbate crowding at cbp facilities . Could i tackle those one by one . Remember, i have only for being at our Ribbon Cutting for the new department of Homeland Security head quarters. Happy to do that. I need you to answer i have a limited amount of time. Did it exacerbate the policies or not, sir . No. What ive just described did not exacerbate the policiess . If youre going to ask in a blanket way, id prefer you raised four issues. Im going to let you go back in a moment, but i have limited time. Will you agree that this family Management Program which i described 99 success rate, people showing up was successful . Would you agree that was a successful way to relieve overcrowding, and yet, get compliance with the law . So, i can agree it was successful in ensuring compliance with the law. We have families that are not detained we dont complete the process in a way thats effective. 99 of the families showed up. Appeared for their initial hearing. At this point we have 150 cases of final orders of removal and if families have not showed we can only go on the sta disings we have for us, and so youre saying that that program where you had such a high rate of compliance was not successful after all, even given the figure i just gave you . They appeared at their initial hear, but they did not complete the process in a way that allowed for repatriation. Im only trying to show that if you release these families, they will show up. You seem to want to avoid any credit of these families for compliance with what the law says. Show up here, 99 showed up here. Why did you get rid of that program . Because it wasnt working. Because it was actually more costly to continue to pay for it day after day when a family was released than complete a proceeding in 40 to 50 days in custody. Because we have 150 orders of families that are not showing up to be repatriated. Thats not successful. Thank you. The gentle ladys time has expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ive been to the border, and i have absolutely not seen any indication of a deficit of empathy. In fact, just the opposite is what i have seen over and over and over. Im returning back to the border at the end of next week. And it is unbelievable that such accusations would be hurled against you and those agents who are working so hard and giving so much of their time, and so ask for seeing improvements, theres no question as you have testified that as the funds came, which the democrats continuously held back from coming, as the funds were made available, improvements have been evident. And theyve been stunning. Id like to ask you regarding the cartels renting of children, ive seen that agents are now even beginning to find paper fliers advertising. This type of thing. Is that true . Yes. I mean, weve seen direct facebook advertisements in Central America. Smugglers will use any means necessary to get customers. How much does it cost to rent a child . It depends. Weve had indications in Homeland Security investigation in Border Patrol agents it could cost anywhere from a few hundred or even in some cases less than 100 up to 1,000 or more. Walk us through the process. Parents, someone responds a child is offered . Yeah. In many of these communities in Central America, its pretty known who the alien smuggler is whos willing to bring you to the United States is in the communities. Theyll have a situation where Everybody Knows if they bring a child, theyre allowed to stay in the u. S. They call it a passport for migration. I heard that directly from a person from guatemala. If they have an individual who wants to go to the u. S. , and someone has a child they want to be delivered to a relative in the u. S. Or they want to rent them, they say take my child and theyre smuggled to the u. S. Border. And the cartel . Theyre getting paid for the fraudulent document, the smuggling event, and the child is being put at risk. Any idea how many children are being trafficked like this . So thats a huge concern. Weve identified 5500 cases of fraud in family units in just the eight weeks or so weve had special agents helping our Border Patrol agents with the investigations. 15 of those theyve interviewed have turned out to be fraudulent cases. That tells me that we might be scratching the surface of this problem. And the number of children put at risk might be even higher. If i could give you a stat, of the first units interviewed, 352 were fraudulent, 14. 2 . 920 fraudulent documents uncovered and weve prosecuted 1600 individuals were smuggling a child with fraudulent documents. So thats just in the last eight weeks weve been doing this operation. Unbelievable. Another issue is that obviously the treatment of migrants. Weve heard in this room that there are people being held in rooms with no Running Water. We heard several days ago that people are being forced to drink from toilets whereas the regional Border Patrol chief, chief border agent aaron hole has disputed these allegations and have said theyre absolutely not accurate. That no one is forced to drink from toilets noting that cells either have water fountains or five gallon jugs of water. Whats the truth of the matter . Thats our requirement by our policy. Again, its overseen by multiple layers of oversight. Every station ive been to has both Running Water and sometimes a faucet will break temporarily, but has Running Water or the five gallon jugs outside. Children must be in the least restrictive setting. Their doors are not even locked or theyre able to move around freely. We are providing water consistent with our policy. Directly available in our custody. Maintaining Border Agents has got to be in recruiting, a serious problem. I know youre working on it. Theres about 7,000 fewer than needed as i understand it. Does it help when some elected officials refer and liken our agents with nazis and claim the agency is running concentration camps . I talked about it in my opening how unproductive and unacceptable demeanizing Law Enforcement professionals who chose a career protecting others is. It does not help. We are turning the corner on our recruiting due to about three dozen process changes over the last several years at cbp. We hired more agents and that agents last year than we started the year with and were going to do it again with the shutdown. Were making progress, but it is a challenge. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I yield back. Thank you very much. I want to just clarify something. Because we have a way at times of hearing a few words, and then we repeat them over and over again. He said something that i didnt say. And i from the very beginning i said i dont want us to get confused with regard to the mr. Secretary, with regard to the good work that the folks down there are doing. What i was saying, and i know what i said, is that you were a cosigner of the zero tolerance document. Is that right . Would you agree . Would you like the context on that or just yes or no . No. I just want to make a point. Just trying to correct him. You were involved in that i signed a memo presenting options for increase prosecutions for immigration violations at the border. Ill give you time later to explain that. All im saying and i felt, i felt that there was an empathy deficit there, in that. Not knocking the Border Patrol people, and didnt say that. Now, mr. Gomez. Thank you, mr. Chair. Before i start, i want to break up my questioning. The percentage of the individuals coming from that are apprehended at the border, thats the percentage from mexico . Whats the percentage from guatemala . Whats the percentage from the three countries, guatemala, hond due ras and nicaragua. For every month of the year guatemala has been higher than mexico and four of the five months the numb has been higher from number has been higher from honduras as well. Additionally, have you heard of the fact that net migration from mexico is inherently zero . Additionally, the undocumented population in the u. S. Has decreased and thats because a lot of mexicans are returning back to mexico. Definitely seen studies on the firth point. Im not sure the second point is accurate at this stage given the flow weve seen this year. The reason i want to bring that up is that there was a claim made earlier that says immigrants know if they bring a child to the border that theyll be able to cross and to get asylum into this country. And it seems that we only focussed on what they called the magnet. Right . Right. But yet, at the same time, if do the mexicans also know about this magnet . The fact that as you claim . Actually, were able and more successful at repatriating mexican families but as you noted, the numbers have been down for mexico not necessarily because they couldnt take advantage of the same loopholes but because mexicos opportunity creation has exceeded the push for migration. Theyve also had a very significant demographic shift. The birthrate is about similar with the United States. I dont believe that thats a lack of taking advantage of the loophole. Okay. My point thats exactly my point. Everybody always makes it seem that this is, like, that theres this big magnet that draws immigrants to this country, and its just here. But theres also the push factors in other countries economics, violence that push those people to flee. Right . And we like to make pretend things are very simple, but theyre not. And sometimes when the hard lines of zero tolerance, people think thats going to solve the problem. Its not. It has to be in coordination with a strategy thats developing the countries and helping the economics in the countries in order for the people not to leave. You know, shifting millions of dollars of aid from the northern triangle countries to venezuela is not smart when it comes to immigration. I believe that venezuela has a different issue and we have to get money to that country, but that complicates the situation. Before i run out of time, i want to move to a different issue can i respond to that point . I believe in multifaceted strategy requires engagement in Central America. Ive been there three times in the last six weeks. I met with all three president s including the incoming president of el salvador. Targeting transnational crime organizations is an essential part of the administrations strategy. I appreciate that. One of the things we also have seen is an increased use of for profit prisons and safety issues. Since 2017 the value of i. C. E. Contracts awarded to private detention companies has increased. The two biggest contracts geogroup and core civic were paid a total of 810 million, but there has been some questions regarding some Serious Problems at these private prisons. The ig reported on five i. C. E. Detention facilities including one run by core civic, and it said identified problems that undermined the protection of rights the humane healthy and safe environment. Next year theyll be awarded more than 141 million in new contracts. Secretary, do you agree that i. C. E. Should not reward a contract thats putting the health and safety of detainees at risk with more than 100 million in new contracts . With any government contract you want to ensheure the contractor is meeting the requirements. The contractors are committed to comply with the performancebased standards issued in 2011 in the last administration, and those kind of issues that are identified are corrected and followed up on. Mr. Secretary, i ran out of time, but the issue regarding the use of for profit prisons is a concern, some of the safety complaints that are coming out of the prisons is a concern. I would love to follow up on that, but with that i yield back. Mr. Norman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I really appreciate you coming, and listening to some of the questions youve had, its like shooting the messenger. Its like pointing to a cancer patient and blachling the doctor because hes not getting the chemotherapy to treat the cancer patient and saying that youre responsible for that. And mr. Chairman, i appreciate you clarifying the deficit of empat empathy. I think thats who you were talking about here. Im glad it was not. I take issue with the rhetoric weve had over the last couple weeks with drinking out of toilets, children in cages. If that had the money as mr. Jordan said, that would not have taken place at any level. No nobody wants to see children like that. Like my colleague said, it can be solved on one sheet of paper with curing the florez amendment. Ive been to the border as many others. Ive seen that Border Patrol agent jump down, arrest a fleeing alien, tackle him, not know whether hes going to be shot or live to see his children. Ive seen that sheriff who had a dinner when he woke up at 3 00 in the morning and 12 thugs were attacking him and shooting his house up. Ive seen the families robbed repeatedly. Theyve got their cars chained because of what the drug cartels are putting all of those families through. I appreciate your effort, and i appreciate you taking these kind of questions knowing that its most of them are for politics, and its behind this these cabinets that we can fix this. On the theres been a lot of confusion on who shows up for immigration hearings. Can you get some clarity on that . Sure. The appearance rates are a very important issue. Thats overseen by the department of justice, executive office of immigration review. But they published a whole set of statistics to provide context recently on their website. And i want to just offer the big picture and then a specific more recent stat of concern across all demographics about 44 of those nondetained removal cases end with a removal order meaning that obviously the alien did not show up for their hearing at the end of that process. So they got a final order from a judge, when they were absent from the hearing room. For the recent border entrance, the people crossing now and especially family units, the number appears to be significantly higher. Weve worked on a pilot with the department of justice since last september. And in that pilot its called an expedited docket. Out of ten cities, unfortunately about 85 of those cases final orders of removal have been issued in absence as well. So i want to thats what were dealing with on the appearance rates. The overall appearance rate, 44 in absence for the recent family cases that have been on the expedited docket, its 85 . Thank you. And one other thing. You were youve been very open and frank about the overcrowding conditions, and you were quoted in the media saying that certain claims were unsubstantiated. Which claims were you referring to . The florez monitors claims based on interviews, not actually going into the facility at clint where they said the children didnt have access to water, food, toothbrushes q and werent being given showers were days on end. Those were not substantiated. And thats unfair for the whoever brings that up to even make that kind of claim. And again, thank you for what youre doing. Ive seen people break down in tears about the death seen. Thank you. I yield the balance of my time to mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman. Just a couple quick questions in the minute i have. Empathy hear today. My colleague discussed the individuals that you said up to 4,000 people, children or migrants have been saved by Border Patrol. Yes . Thats correct. In this fiscal year . Yes. Great empathy for the lives saved, yes . Right. Empathy for jared vargas who was murdered in san antonio, texas last summer by somebody who was here, captured, released, murdered. His mother, lor kri, a dear friend of mine no longer has her son. Empathy for the people at least individual that i believe is murdered by allegedly two guatemalans in iowa. Border patrol and i. C. E. Are on the front lines trying to prevent those here illegally, not from carrying out the kinds of crime i just described. Thats correct. And oftentimes without all the resources necessary. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we will move. I want to thank mr. Ruda for managing the suspensions on the floor yesterday. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming today, and my thanks to i. C. E. And dhs and all the hard working men and women there trying to fulfill their mission on a daily basis in a difficult situation. Often in ways that they were not trained for, and i recognize that. And i also agree with many of the members talking here about we need to get the rhetoric out of this. The rhetoric that you talked about in your Opening Statements, the rhetoric about build the wall and have mexico pay for it. That type of rhetoric simply acts as a diversion from what we need to do. I do think most americans recognize that this is a multifaceted issue. From beginning with the northern triangle countries and the fact the president has cut off aid to those countries, creates economic consequences that causes even greater levels of immigration. I do applaud the administration for working with mexico to try and stop that immigration at that border. I also recognize that we need to have strong borders and ports. And willing to work with anybody across the aisle to accomplish that. But i also think all of us want to make sure that we have the appropriate response for a country as great as ours at the border to make sure that those who have come here are treated with dignity, respect, security, and safety. Mr. Secretary, i want to discuss a key finding in the committee staffs report. According to the dhs data, even after separated children were reunited with their parents, hundreds continued to be detained with their parents for weeks or months in socalled family detention. At least 380 children spent time in family detention. More than 300 were held for more than 20 days past the legal limit. Some were held in detention for up to 5 months. Under the Obama Administration, there was a successful alternative for families seeking asylum that didnt have them in longterm detention but President Trump cancelled it. It was the Family Case Management Program which we talked a little bit about earlier. And that program had a 99 success rate. Costing taxpayers 36 per day versus 319 per day to keep them locked up in detention. And you said that program wasnt successful. Id like to understand why and if you could elaborate briefly, i would appreciate it. Sure. And thank you for your comments. The program wasnt successful because thats not the only measure of success. The appearance rate at an initial hearing is great. Thats a start of a court process, but what were looking for is consistent appearance rates and if a final order of removal is issued . Can i ask you this. It says 99 of these recently released families represented by an attorney attended all Immigration Court hearings. That data is from the department of justice. Are you disputing the data from the department of justice or are they wrong . Im saying we 150 orders of final removal, and none of those families have shown up to be removed from the United States at the end of the process. If theyre not detained, theres theres a difficult chance to effectuate the final removal. Its an i. C. E. Officer going into a community to find the family. You are saying the data is wrong and the justice departments information is incorrect. Its incomplete. It results in repatriation or or finding somebody has a right to asylum or a right to stay in the United States. When that decision was made, who made that decision to cancel that program . I dont know. At the time i was at u. S. Customs and Border Protection. We have appropriations language and funding this year and were look at how to redesign the program. You have no idea who made that decision . You have no idea if there were any conversations or otherwise that talked about the implications if the program was cancelled and how it might be used as a deterrent to people coming to the southern boarder . I dont as i sit here today. Id like to ask you one of the challenges weve had is having enough people to administer the needed services at Border Protection as well as addressing the needs of those who have made it to the southern border. As of march, there was 2000 open positions in the cbp. Is that correct . In terms of the Border Patrol levels, yes. We were down almost 2000 from our authorized not necessarily the appropriated levels. We just approved funding for additional people and additional beds, but to some degree, there was already an existing backlog of over 2000 positions not filled. Can you help us understand why we need more people and arguably we do when we havent filled the 2000 vacant seats that have been vacant for quite some time . Supplemental funding doesnt provide new positions for cbp or i. C. E. In my understanding. Thats salary funding, but weve improved our hiring over the last several years. We ended the year with a net gain last year and this year despite the shutdown, despite the politicizing of their mission which is challenging as a recruiting mission. The humanitarian crisis is immediate. The funding were applying both in facilities, medical care, transportation, and contracts to augment our ability to care for people in our custody right now and get Law Enforcement agents doing their duties on the border. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you, very much, mr. Meadows. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Secretary, today has been interesting because ive seen some of my colleagues on the other side of this particular room actually come together in a way i have not seen in previous hearings. I want to thank you for being straightforward, giving us the facts. One of the facts that i found out the other way that was very troubling to me is how there are actually cards and directions given to people trying to come into our country to actually tell them how to use children to circumvent our laws. Is that correct . Weve seen all manner of smuggling organizations communicating to potential customers and to those crossing the border, how to bring a child with them to be allowed to stay in the United States, yes. Would you say there is a coordinated effort among some south of our border to actually exploit children to circumvent u. S. Laws . Absolutely. Ive got a document full of individual cases that have been identified by hsi through their interviews and dna testing and almost every single summary says something to the effect the subject stated he made the attempt because he heard in his hometown anyone traveling to the United States with a child will be released. Ive looked at some of the documents. It really bothers me. I saw the cost of purchasing a child, and were talking about 160. 84 in one case. 250, and when you can buy a child in some of these countries to use them, they become not only trafficked but used over and over again. Have you found that some children are actually recycled in this process . Absolutely. I mean, july 17th of last year i talked about the crisis at the border. Over a year ago. What i highlighted was that the vulnerabilities in the Legal Framework were incentivizing smugglers and families to put children at risk. The recycling problem is maybe the worst manifestation of that. We have three ongoing cases, significant cases that i. C. E. Is managing where a small group of children, five to eight in each case have been used by dozens of different adults to cross our border seeking release into the United States. All right. So let me ask you a question. Because mr. Roy brought it up and mr. Jordan brought it up, and even miss spears brought it up from the other side. If we were to appropriate money and allow you to keep Families Together when they come across and one of the things, it was a brother and a sister, i believe, but if we appropriated the proper amount of money to make sure that we keep family units together, we address florez to allow them to stay there, would that help solve the problem where this trafficking of kids is not necessarily eliminated but substantially reduced . That change would make the biggest possible impact not only on the flow but protecting children. Im hearing you right. I want to make sure im clear. Ive had some of my other colleagues that when the cameras not rolling, theyre willing to work on this, and i think its important on this committee to address this issue, and i think weve got an opportunity to address it. Theres going to be a budget caps deal. And that budget caps deal will probably be voted on before we leave here in august. And what youre telling me if we address florez in how many billions of dollars would you need to build a facility to make sure we can keep Families Together and keep kids safe . Actually, it was in the hundreds of millions range. It was requested in the supplemental youre saying not even billions of dollars . No. What wed find quickly is a response f. If people not not successful in coming with a child and being released, youre actually getting a decision from immigration judge resulting in repatriation for the vast majority, that means others would not try to come. We dont to change our asylum laws. We can make kids safe if we address florez and give you less than a billion dollars, we can keep Families Together and keep kids from being trafficked . In an appropriate setting and fair and expeditious proceed snchlgt. Let me say this. Mr. Chairman, you know that this matters to me because i join you on that letter over a year ago, and i will say this. That request is still out there. I have some other recommendations because we want to make sure that were seeing this, and that we actually provide oversight. I think its time for us to come together, and lets do it in the next seven days and i yield my balance of my time to the Ranking Member. Five seconds. Mr. Chairman, youve had 13 minutes. I got the rest of us got five minutes and you get 13 . Youre going to limit me to five seconds . Ill give you a minute. I think the gentleman from North Carolina is on target, and as the secretary said, the immediate results and immediate better care and safety for these kids. Mr. Secretary, whens the last time you were at the boarder . Yesterday. Yesterday. You know exactly whats going on. You got the most recent knowledge of anyone in this room. Probably and more experience in this area than anyone in this room. So just a few minutes ago mr. Norman asked you about claims about conditions down there. I think your response was they were unsubstantiated. Does that mean not one Single Person you talked with who works in your agency could confirm some of the things said like kids dont have toothbrushes, drinking out of toilets, all the other statements made, not one Single Person could confirm those things . So in terms of toothbrushes, thats accurate, yes. Drinking out of toilets, thats accurate, yes. Totally unsubstantiated. Correct. Time has expired. Thank you very much. Secretary, the Nonprofit Law Firm americans for immigrants justice has conducted numerous interviews with kids processed through cbp facilities at the border. There are children multiple children who have reported to aij that officers punished them for no reason. Its not punishment. Its abuse. Secretary, i want yes or no answers to these questions because these are simple questions. First, kids reported being forced by cbp officers to kneel on concrete floors for extended periods of time. Are officers permitted to force children to do this . No. Kids reported being forced to stand in front of air vents in very cold rooms. Are cbp officers permitted to force children to do this . Of course not. Kids reported officers kicking them awake every few hours while theyre lying on the floor trying to sleep. Are officers permitted to do to prevent children from sleeping by kicking them awake . No. And any yes or no will suffice. Kids reported officers withheld food and water to the point where teenager mothers are unable to produce milk to breast feed kids. Is that allowed . Not from anyone. Majority of kids reported cbp officers treat them like animals calling them animals. And told kids theyre dirty and never should have come here. Are cbp officers being trained to call kids animal and dirty . Verbal abuse is not permitted that r they being trained of course not. Advocates are hearing these reports directly from child after child after child. These arent oneoff accusations. These are consistent broadbased accusations from the majority of children that aij lawyers are interviewing. That denotes a systemic problem. And that denotes a tolerated culture of abuse. So i need a yes or no question. And yes or no answer to this question. Will you commit today to immediately order an investigation into these allegations of abuse of migrant youth . There are too many reports. Im sorry, but doing a here and there review of whether these some of these reports mentioned today you can say are sub stanchuated, unless youve done a comprehensive investigation, you cant say that. Will you make that commitment to do this investigation today . Any specific allegation that we can be given will be followed through on and investigated fully. There are lots of specific allegations. I am asking you today because we have a pile of them, will you commit to immediately order an investigation into these allegations of abuse of migrant youth . Any specific allegation will be investigated immediately. So if i give you yes. Specific allegations, you will commit to doing an investigation . Thats correct. And we do this routinely. We have built relationships with advocacy groups. Im reclaiming my time. I want my next question. Thank you for commitment. I can give you more context i dont i have another question i want to make sure i ask now. A 15yearold boy was reunited with his family. Hes lived here since nine months but was taken from Family Members. He went out a shower and toothbrush while he was detained for five days. His mom didnt know where he was. His mom was in the United States just two hours away when he was apprehended. Do you agree this is a violation of the statutory definition of unaccompanied minor . Id have to see the details of the case. You know the details. It was in the newspaper. I dont. It is tiresome that every time youre asked a detailed question and you did this in the Homeland Security sub committee, you never seem to be answer or bring answers to detail answers to questions. We followed up with a briefing. Lets not get into the briefing. That was unacceptable. You dont know anything about the case im talking about . Im not going to comment on specific cases here today. How many children reclaiming my time, how many children have been apprehended in the interior of the United States who dont need the statutory definition of a uac . Im not confirming that theres any mistakes on following the statutory definition. There are. Of an unaccompanied child, but id be happy to look at individual cases. Im not going to refer individual cases to you. I want answer. I want you to look into how many children have been detained by your agencies who dont need the statutory definition of unaccompanied minor and have been housed with true unaccompanied minors. I want an answer to that question and the number. Are you suggesting that an unaccompanied child that has a parent somewhere in the u. S. Is not unaccompanied . Yes. Andly read you the statutory definition. Because it is it specifically says as used in the section means the placement of an unaccompanied alien child in an alternative to a facility and the term means a child who has no lawful immigration status in the United States, b, has not attained 18 years of age and with respect to whom 18 years of old. With respect to that has no parent or legal guardian in the United States or is available to provide care and physical custody. Someone who is 9 months old whose mother is two hours away does not meet the stat torry definition of uac. Would you acknowledge that . I would have to look at the details of that case. Come on. Any parent in the u. S. I know you are tapping i would like a commitment that you are going to get us the number of children youve detained that dont meet the stat utory definition. Mr. Secretary, you received a whole list of cases and incidents. You said you would look into it and if there were such cases im not trying to put words in your mouth. Correct me. That you would look into them. Im curious, are there such investigations going on now . Yes. Thank you for asking. We created and went through our office when i was acting and then commissioner. A direct relationship with advocacy groups bringing forth allegations so they could be referred. Weve closed out dozens of investigations. Many were unsubstantiate substantiated. Many resulted in disciplines of office and agents that hadnt handle the cases properly. We want to make sure we are holding ourselves to the highest account. If we do get specific cases, we will follow up on those. Thats a connection i belt when i was at cbp. You are committing to that right now . Yes. Any specific allegation will be followed up on. Absolutely. That is our responsibility. Thank you very much. First of all, mr. Mcaleenan, thank you you are here today. It is unfortunate it is a fly out day and a lot of congressman would miss your fine testimony. I would like to have you come here again because five minutes isnt enough and too many people arent here. Ive been at the border twice myself. I think you are doing a tr tremendous job. I was impressed with the job you were doing there and the high moral despite some people saying there is no crisis at the border. One of the things that intrigues me is sometimes people are coming here with people that are not their parents. If one parent tries to grab the child away, we have Court Hearings and hoop law and we would never stand for aunt or uncle grabbing a child away. Could you elaborate on the concern of children being here who somebody purports to say is their parent but turns out isnt a parent or relative . It is a concern for the safety of the child to make sure they are with a parent or guardian. Also a legal requirement. Protection and reauthorization act. That is an inquiry agents are making at the border to try to determine that an adult crossing is the actual parent or guardian. Unfortunately we are finding in too many cases, that is not the case. How do we find out. When we have the time and space to do good interviews and questioning often determine through the answers and presentation of the documents that might be fraudulent birth certificates or behavior of the child. Looking uncomfortable. Weve expanded that practice from 400 agents alongside with doing more indepth interviews. Found out almost 15 of those cases were actually presenting a fraudulent family. Thats shocking. Do the cartels that are the ee pid owe mee of owe vil do anything to encourage this behavior . They are advertising that if you bring a child with you, youll be released in the u. S. There is a whole fake document operation in three countries. Weve identified 900 fake documents in the first few weeks of this. When children come here are they purchased orchid napped . Weve seen all. Weve seen rentals, purchase orchid nap. Delivery to a Family Member in the u. S. And o. You do dna testing . We have done hundreds of dna testing. A 51yearold bought a six month old for 80 in guatemala. It is a real concern. We want to expand our dna testing coverage with the Rapid Technology coming out. One other concern which may be a difficult thing for you to worry about. I was concerned when i heard testimony. In america, we go through a great deal to make sure something doesnt happen to a child if one parent would object. It occurs to me that if somebody shows up, even if it is their child. Do we know if the other parent is there, whether that parent is agreeing to allow the child to be brought into the United States or if the child shows up and is eventually purports to be the aunt or uncle, which i understand was going on. Do we have anyway of knowing whether this is going on or for all we know this is a situation of the parent ob skondiabscondit the other parent even knowing. We do have that happening. We have a smuggler paid by a parent who is here in the United States. Most of these uncompanied children are being released to parents who are also here unlawfully and may not have permission to work here in the United States and these children are being released to a sponsor under the operation of law and restriction in the current appropriations and supplemental. The fault is to allow them in the country even when another parent somewhere else would want that child to stay with them . Correct. Weve had all three countries say that those governments should have some say. Absolutely. If they are ignoring the wishes of the courts in Central America. That is just appalling. I thank you for being here. I intend to go back to the border in el paso and talk to your folks again. I encourage my colleagues to go and see what a fine job you are doing despite being underfunded by congress. Youll see a dramatic improvement in el paso from 5,000 in custody to 500 today. Ms. Hill. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I completely rewrote my question line. We need to acknowledge across the board. This is hard. This is a hard thing. It is something americans cant agree on and we as policymakers cant agree on. In the meantime, people are hurting. In regardless of the politics, i dont believe anyone looks at pictures of children in cages and feels good about it or proud to be an american. Im guessing you dont either and neither do those Border Agents that feel a major dissidence between what they siended up to do and what they are doing now. If someone showed up at my door asking for help, im glad i have a doorbell and i get to make a decision if that person is there in need or to rob me because it is my house and my door. Border patrol agencies should provide the function of guarding the door but shouldnt be caring for kids. If someone comes to my house bleeding, im not going to be the one to pull out a sutur kerch kit, i would get them to the hospital for treatment. Lets be real, it is not the Border Patrol agents who should be doing that job. Mr. Secretary, we are in this reality of a severely divided government. There are people in this room who believe we need to abolish Law Enforcement agencies at the border and no matter what the circumstances, we should keep our doors closed to everyone. The president s policies and remarks are that belief. The vast majority of americans are somewhere in between. I think that is something you struggle with. How do you greet a family at the door. How do we do everything we can to make sure kids are not abused by those seeking to take advantage of the american val use. I appreciate your desire to work on some immediate decisions. I dont think if there were a democratic majority, we wont get rid of the situation. I do want to talk about how the people make it to court. We are not going to put more money in detention beds when people see images that make us sick to be americans. What do we do . Knowing the reality is not what you want it to be. What can we do somewhere right now is going to get fewer kids to be in those situations and make an impact. Just acknowledging the reality of what we could actually pass here and now with the kind of divided government we have. So i guess i dont want to accept yet that better system we had before in the prior administration, having families kept together for 40 to 50 days in a campus setting with recreation, education, courtrooms on site is not something we could concern in this environment. Is there something we could learn more about this kind of campus setting and even begin to propose to people . I dont think people understand there will could be a difference. These are the images in peoples minds. That doesnt sound crazy but also isnt what people think will happen. I invite you to visit one of our family centers. If there could be a dialogue about how to do this better and even improving the standards that exist there, if we could get the funding to do so. Thatsity rig thats the right way to handle this. We are not seeing vresolved cases. More likely for families. They are more likely to cut off bracelets, not to show up for a hearing. A situation at the border is a much better solution than what we are doing now. Are there agencies. I realize money has to be a huge part. Lets assume cbp is going to play a role. Do you think there will be other agencies. Case management needs to be a part of it too. How do we make sure people still show up to court . It needs to be a meaningful discussion that both parties would raise and for the next step. Department of Homeland Security has provided Technical Assistance on the way to measure that. For any member that wants to have a serious dialogue on these issues. I agree in talking about the reality. One thing we talked about earlier and being able to educate people with how this world works in the areas where these people are coming from. We know this because there are many who think just being from guatemala, honduras or these places should qualify you for asylum. We heard claims of criminal activity. Honduras is incredibly violent. It has one of the most corrupt governments in the entire world. The criminal Justice System is directly connected. The elite, power people and different cartels. Guatemala is controlled in a lot of ways by powerful criminal organizations. Their criminality justices is flat out inept. In el salvador, crimes dont go punished. We dont call the clerk of court but we have a relationship with the clerk of police in el salvador and do share information with them. How many of the cartels are directly connected with the governments in those countries . I dont want to cast raw dispresences. The cartel is not as present. They are more violent gang activity. 40 prediction in murder rates. It is a little more complex than painting a broad brush on all three governments. Thats what im saying. You dont treat it as a normal criminal justice inquiry. Sure. Our liaison that work in these countries. Many of the programs we get information from are supported by the state department. That gives us greater comfort when we are using different information from partners. You are confident in those . No blanket statement. In these areas, it is because weve vetted the process and have the information we can verify. Ill piggy back that with you having to deal with the partisan nature of congress. What are three concrete steps to help you in the situation at the border. The dialogue we had that trafficking victims act. Weve offered a process in january and may in one of my first weeks of acting secretary the process where children could see protection directly from their home country or neighboring country. We would have the balance to repatriot those children that didnt meet those standards. The third as we address those claims to a more rational connection to the results under an immigration judge. Those are the three changes. With that to the Ranking Member. Miss hill said she doesnt think the democrats are willing to change floors. You dont give up hope. Lets hope they can Work Together and we can change the floors decision. If you dont, nobody is going to show up. Right . You used a number earlier. 1500. What was that number about . That was the final version of removal that had not been effectuated. None of those that have gotten a final order have shown up for removal. If we dont change flores, they dont show up in the day in court. They are not going to show up until we can deal with this flores decision. Right. It puts i. C. E. In the position. It would be better to keep them in the facilities you described. Within 50 days, they sit down in front of a judge. Everyone hears their case. A decision can be made and families Stay Together the entire time but they dont want to fix that . Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary for being here. I want to focus on basic facts. I hope youll answer the questions not as a political employee but in the spirit of when you were in the university of chicago. When the zero tolerance policy was being planned, at any point, did anyone in the room ask how will the parents and children come together afterwards . I was not in every room where conversations were had. Ill paraphrase, you were probably in the room where these conversations were made. In the conversation expanding to all adults crossing the border and the zero tolerance, cbp working with hhs made changes to the system to idea guy better relationships between the adult and child crossing the border. You recommended you had a process in place . On how we would effectively capture the data so they could be later in the process. The belief was that the adults would be later in the process. Hss would have the child at that time and make the sponsor decision to reunite them at the appropriate point in the process. What went wrong. Yp were they not able to be united . If you go back and look at the Court Filings. Early in the process, the hss sponsorship or the i. C. E. And immigration process for the adults. In a matter of weeks, all put together on spread sheets. Those were able to be made. At this time, every single child has had their parent identified and has been reunited or a decision made that they cant be for welfare issues or the parent has decided not to be united. Your testimony is there isnt a single child that hasnt been reunited or parent hasnt been identified . Theyve identified the parent in every case. It happened every two weeks in this matter since last june. Let me ask you this, in a self reflective moment, are you proud of how all of this happened or do you have some regrets . Ive answered the question and said a couple of times. Weve lost the public trust. The president was right to end it. If i could go back and do it, i would. How about in terms of the program, how we are treating kids. You are blaming congress. What would you say. Where have you fallen short . Thats a big question to try to help the country in the department of Homeland Security has been a huge honor. Weve accomplished a lot. Id like to go back to 2014 and 2015 from the flores court changed the rules. They made a hard decision but it was a right decision. It stopped the crisis. There was a gap there. As the government, we didnt work with the cob res to advance here we are today with a scope well beyond that. These border facilities are well beyond that. Youve testified before. Youve been with the Department Since 2014 you are testifying you anticipate we could have a surge again. Did anyone suggest we should design these buildings in a different way. When the system works properly when they have the adequate resources, the time children spent is low. 24 to 48 hours. To rebuild the entire infrastructure. El paso. Two years ago, it was one of the lowest centers. This year has increased and that could not have been anticipated. The problem is to rework that system so those kids can go directly to hss. I yield my time. Second green. Thank you for coming today and your testimony. Last week, i talked and shared my view as a emergency medical professional. I think repeating the situation. Lets say a Natural Disaster occurs or something as bad as 9 11. There are thousands of patients rushing into er department. There are patients in the hallways. Doctors are running from place to place. It is not the physicians fault that scenario has come upon them. It is not the nurses fault. This is the kind of crisis. One that no one could anticipate and the are overwhelmed. They are faced in a crisis that would happen and they need to respond to with the resources on hand. I really appreciate that and actually empathize significantly because ive delivered patients. I delivered a baby in a parking lot. She was so overwhelmed. You do what you have to do when you are overwhelmed. Thats kind of where you are. In emergency medicine, we teach our doctors to be very cautious because a child could be sick and not look sick. They tend to fall off a cliff. They look great, and then they crash really fast. If you arent trained, which by the way took four years of undergrad, four years of medical school and three years of residence den si. When the physician codes that patient and they die anyway. That doctor and team has tried really hard. It is not their fault either. They are doing the best they can. I had both of those comments. It would have been better to have more capability in the high access areas. Weve been responding and increasing ten fold. You mentioned two new facilities and more coming on. Is that right . It is interesting. Flow throught the pipe is a situation. If you increase the flow, just a little bit of change gives you a lot more flow. Talking about the adult situations. The facilities condition for the housing of adults. We requested 200 million worth of we didnt get any of that funding. Thats why we are experiencing back up which is taking Border Patrol time away from policing or making the situation possible. Youd be able to shift resources to take care of those families and children. Id like to give my time to the Ranking Member. Thank you. One question, it would be better for them. People seeking Refugee Status to be in country rather than making a dangerous journey up to texas and make those claims. Do you know who said that . Other than me . President obama. That seems to be the same thing senator graham is proposing. Thats correct. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I know it is really frustrating. From my residence, president obama is not the president. I think you are serving your agents by being here and telling the truth as much as you can provide more to us. Actual information will create the sense of urgency to help. Mr. Secretary theres been a lot of discussion about rhetoric. Dismissing those including my colleague about what we saw at the border. On june 28, 2019. You were asked about allegations of shocking conditions at clint, texas. You soed, quote, unsub stant yagss last week regarding a single facility created a sensation. Dismissing a report. In may 2019, before you made that statement, the Inspector General issued a report. Mr. Secretary, were you aware of the report and the poor conditions you talked about. The length of time and overcrowding and the soiled clothing. Were you aware of that report . I was offered the opportunity to explain what i was talking about. I can do it again. Yae. Im curious. When you say that, it is misleading to the american people. I hope not. One of the things i started in my opening is all of the times ive warned about the crisis. For me, you hear people saying that much of what we are saying is rhetoric. It is also backed up. I appreciate you trying to urge us and trying to identify there is a crisis. I said no american should be comfortable with a child being in a Police Station for days. Im telling you as a mom. Be cautious. When you say unsubstantiate substantiated when they gave you a report before that. It does mislead the people. To be clear, i was talking about the flores monster comments that did not go into the station that claimed there were no toothbrushes, they didnt have water or access to showers or all those things. Flores was a case that talks about that the maximum you can keep a child is 20 days and the things you have to have. Like food and drinking water. Appropriate food and drinking water. Adequate vent lags. Separation from other adults whenever possible. Talking about toy lets and sinks. Whats wrong with flores that Everyone Wants to change it . The simple provisions. You want to keep kids longer. It has been clear from this administration. You want to keep kids longer. We want to keep Families Together. In a cant be done in 20 days. Tell people that. You want to keep the kids longer. We want to keep high standards. We need to be able to finish the proceed g proceedings. I want to go through something else. These are things that your agents on the ground told me. Stop throwing money at this. One specific person. Another said, we werent trained for this, to separate children. He said specifically, im not a social worker or medical care worker. The separation policy isnt working. What two you say to that. Money is needed to mitigate. We are applying it now. Throwing money at it is just going to manage it. We are trying to have people that can identify Mental Health and are suicide al. Weve done that hundreds of times. Tell us about the policy. Out of 4750 families those separated from a parent because of a criminal history or prosecution. Because of medical issue. Mr. Chairman, if i have more time at the end, id like to ask further questions for clarification. Thank you very much. Ms. Alexandria ocasiocortez. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you secretary for coming in and offering your testimony. Under the request of information from dhs, showing that more than 2,000 were separated from their parents in the two months following your memo some more than a year. Did you all consider the emotional and mental impact of taking children away from their mothers and fathers. They are strained with the chris sis and the stories they are hearing. The abuse of women and girls upon the process of getting to the United States. Thank you. Reclaiming my time. Did you consider the dehume nicing effect on the officers specifically in forcing them . Enforcing the law often has impacts for everybody involved. That is something they sign up for but something we want to provide for with services for anyone who needs it. Do you agree with the order that halted your separation policy . I agreed with the halting from last year. There have been reports that President Trump and miller wanted to restart mass separations. They wanted to this would violate the court order. Is that true. Saying those prosecutions are not on the table at this time. You are saying those reports are incorrect and they wanted to restart the child separation. Im referring to the president s statements. Privately. Not in my experience. In your experience, the answer is no . First of all, im not going to speak about conversations with the president ive personally had. Im not aware of other deliberations with other officials. Mr. Secretary, there were reports that the president offered you a pardon foreclosing the border to Asylum Seekers. A report that President Trump told you he would grant you a pardon if you were put in jail for blocking Asylum Seekers. Ive answered the question. Ive never been asked to do anything unlawful by the president nor would i . Are you aware of the propublica report indicating there were about 10,000 current potential officers in the Facebook Group . I am aware of the article. Did you see any posts from the report . I did. Did you see the posts mocking 3450ig rant childrens deaths . I did. Did you see the report planning violations to myself and photo shopping images of my vie lant rape . Yes, i did. There is an aggressive investigation on this. You heard the most senior ledder at boarder patrol saying these posts did not meet our standard of conduct. They already put those office evers on administrative duty and issued cease and desist orders to others. Do you think this could have led to a culture in cbp of dehumanizing culture. This is an agency that rescues 400,000 people a year and dedicated to the people they work with. So you dont think having 10,000 officers in a violent, racist Group Sharing rape memes of members of congress points to any concern of a dehumanized culture . Those posts are being investigated. But i dont think it is fair to apply them to the whole group. Mr. Secretary, one last thing. How did 10,000 members join this group including, i believe, the head of cbp . Ill double check. Including the cbp chief. How are they in this Facebook Group without anybody knowing . This is the subject of an ongoing investigation. Sna will also be considered and followed up on. Let me ask you this. With these entries, do you think the people who make those p kinds of statements which reflect what they are feeling should be on the force . Just curious. It depends on the individual statement and standard violated. That is something this investigation is looking at. The appropriate discipline would be meted out up to and including approval. I ask for the unanimous accept ens. Without objection, i yield you five minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to be seated with this distinguished committee of which i am not a member but i am so grateful to all of you for your work and for creating a better government we can be proud of. Thank you for being here. Ive been sitting through some of your testimony. This whole exercise i can tell you on the house Judiciary Committee. This plays out as well. It is very frustrating when i hear folks talk about. It is not that we dont want the solutions. Some want to see more hard lined policies that essentially shuts our front door where it becomes someone elses problems and others would truly address the challenges in a holistic and compassion at way. Weve talked about the crisis and problems that have arisen. There is no doubt that the increasing number of families. The challenge, many of whom i respect. There are some very bad ones that need to be rooted out. The good ones are feeling more and more desondent because there is no consequences or accountability for the bad ones. I worry about them and my community. Which has shouldered the responsibility of being a good ser servie serve ant in a very dark time. I worry about the immigrants who are looked as a problem to be fixed instead of people to be helped. I was privileged to testify before this Committee Last week. So much of this comes down to a choice and how we choose to approach a challenge. I will tell you, el paso, texas has chosen to respond in a way we create humanitarian standards for migrants as soon as they are released from custody. We literally wrap our arms around people in need. We have a fraction, a miniscule fraction of resources and we have done far better. I feel the matter of choice is pretty transparent when weve chosen to separate children and block entry for legal Asylum Seekers and the Protection Program that sends legal Asylum Seekers back into mexico. I apologize for that but i felt like i had to get that off my chest. I have a couple of questions for you. I shared with you the day you were sworn in that i felt you had a problem in i. C. E. And one of the problems was that they were detaining people that could be paroled. Of those that should have been and could of been paroled. After nearly being held in detention nearly a year decided to go on a hunger strike. Had tubes forced down their nose to be force fed. They were so depressed and they could have been paroled. Two were paroled. Seven were deported. I ask you to look at what is happening in the i. C. E. Facilities and do a deep dive. Have you done that . That deep dive is ongoing. The number of cases where we had long detentions is being looked at. We have data. Ill be getting back to you on the findings. Im going to ask you if you would provide my office with an accounting of all i. C. E. Facilities for the last six months, the number of vak seaso filled in the last six months. We keep hearing there are no i. C. E. Beds. The president can announce interior raids he would need i. C. E. Beds. Individuals are held in deplorable conditions. Would love that information. Would you get that to my office . Well follow through with that request. Absolutely. Thank you. To committee members, i want to thank all of you. I know this is get away day, this is an urgent matter. Thank you all for being here. We are go getting ready to shut down now. We will now hear from our Ranking Member. Mr. Secretary, do you want to change flores so you can keep kids longer like asserted . We want to complete an immigration preceding and get a result so we can have a system of integrity. You want to keep kids together to give them the due process that our law determines for them to achieve. Thats right. It was common sense for the previous administration. When this administration wants to do it, no, no. We cant go there because of this floor flores decision. If you change that, it keeps Families Together. Our due process. Ranking member. A judge can make a final decision. It will make everything better for everyone concerned. For the congress, for the agency. Thats all you would have happen. Theyll do it. That is the part they said earlier. We are willing to work on that one thing that would fix that one thing to help the situation on the border. Republicans are ready. Im ready. My guess is these families. That picture. That little girl and her parents are probably ready for that too. They wont do it. Lets do that. If one thing happens with this committee. One thing happens. Lets fix that. Lets fix that and stop all the stuff weve heard about and do what you know with your 20 years experience, more experience than anyone in this room, what you know has to happen. You came here and said. I bet at least 8, 10 times what has to happen and they wont do it. I hope theyll get that done. Thank you for your service. Thank you for their service and for being here today. I yield back. Im going to give you mr. Secretary im not finished. I give you 1 30. Thank you. Keeping kids longer of various conditions is the issue. I believe that cbp agent and that throwing money at this continuing this isnt working. Mr. Secretary, please share with me and the Ranking Member, in the 1980s, we had more people come to our border. Detention was rarely used. Can we look at those houses. I can share the information with you if you dont have it. I dont want to leave folks thinking i wouldnt want to support some sort of resolution to this that is humane that gives agents on the front line more time and training. However, i think we should be very cautious when you say lets just keep them longer. I dont want people miss characterize flores. When you look at flores, it is all of these conditions. You keep that case. We kept her longer. That is one thing my colleagues dont understand. Detaining people, is inhumane and harmful. What did you say, we leave them with the memory. You cant keep them longer. Thats not going to fix it. Thank you very much. I want to thank everybody. This is a difficult conversation because these are difficult situations. I want to thank you, mr. Secretary. I know you had a hard stop at 1 30 and now we are approaching 20 of 3 00. As i listen to all of this and the other day i said this. I want to make sure we concentrate in the meantime, people may differ about what they observe. We did have the ig report and we did have them tf befoestify bef. You seem to not be in agreement with the igs. Did you Say Something . I accept the conclusion with the ig reports. My own comments were at least as specific on the challenges it was creating in our facilities. Thats the point. I want to address that but i am convinced that a lot of the policies is led in large part to what is going on. Let me be clear. I get tired of people saying that folks on our side of the aisle. And beating up on Border Patrol and beating up on others. There is nobody that i know probably in this congress will fight harder than federal employees, period. I know that they are often unseen, unnoticed, unapproached and unapplauded. I get that. Lets keep in mind, we are dealing with children in many instances. People who are simply trying to build a better life. When i think about the idea, it seems to be a policy that says, well i got over the ladder and into the country. So pull up the ladder so nobody comes. Im not sheaing you are saying that. That is not the america i know and not the america i want for my children and for generations yet unborn. Most significantly too, we need to keep in mind and i will say over and over again until i die. The deeds you do to children will make very welcome back to haunt us. It will definitely haunt them. I think we need to treat these children p when we are dealing when we have that for our own. They are human beings. That same little child will be like the persons who saved my life at Johns Hopkins hospital. Most of the people there that saved my life, half of them were first generation. Thats the beauty of america. Our diversity is not our problem. It is our promise. With that, id like to thank our witness for testifying today. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days within which to submit additional written questions for the witness. You must submit them to the chair and which will be forwarded to the witness for his response. I will say to you, mr. Secretary. You made a lot of commitments here today. We want to follow up. We are going to follow up on all of them. Because time is of the essence. I ask that you please respond to those inquiries as rapidly as possible. Ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned. Tonight on the cspan the House Oversight Committee Hearing with Kevin Mcaleenan testifying about the Trump Administrations family separation policy at the u. S. mexico border. Thats at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org and on the cspan radio app. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the apollo 11 moon landing. A poll shows nearly three quarters of americans watched footage, either live or recorded of the moon landing. Friday at 10 eastern watch the footage of the apollo 11 mission, beginning with flight preparations. In the meantime we have been performing final checks on the tracking beacons and the instrument unit which is used as the Guidance System during the pilot phase of flight. Liftoff on apollo 11. Its one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. And then on saturday at 8 eastern the landing and moon walk. And on sunday morning at 10 30 eastern coverage of the apollo 11 returning to earth and greetings from president nixon. I want you to know that i think im the luckiest man in the world. I say this not only because i have the honor to be president of the United States but particularly because i have the privilege of speaking for so many in welcoming you back to earth. Watch the 1969 News Coverage to ha of the historic apollo 11 mission. This weekend on book tv, saturday at 8 55 00 p. M. Eastern the book this land is our land. For most migrants etimology can mean the difference between life and death. In their new book justice on trial they examine the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett kavanaugh and the future of the court. Theyre interviewed by david savage. We saw a very different judge kavanagh. On thursday when he really came out strong and it was fascinating to learn, in fact, that was the person he really had been early on. As the court has become more political in its decision making, you know, when it makes law rather than interpreting the law as it is written, that creates a very political situation and its not all together surprising that the process itself becomes more political. At 11 eastern kim wehle talks about how to read the constitution and why. The question i get a lot on television and regular conversation is can he do that, can the president do that. My answer is thats the wrong question. My answer is if he does that, whats the consequence. What are the processes for holding a president accountable. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan 2. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is on capitol hill next week testifying in back to back hearings about possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump and russian interference in the 2016 president ial election. Her live all day coverage on wednesday july 24th starts at 8 30 a. M. Eastern. Watch online or listen with the free cspan radio app. Ahead of next weeks congressional testimony by former special Counsel Robert Mueller, former acting fbi director Andrew Mccabe offered a preview oft