Transcripts For CSPAN Federal Officials Testify On Visa Overstays And National Security 20160620

At 12 50 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Now, a house hearing on the security risks posed by people who overstay their visas and what the administration is doing to stop them. Testimony was heard from immigration officials. This is two hours at hand 45 minutes. Two hours and 45 minutes. The committee on Homeland Security and borderland security will come to order. The committee is meeting to exit. E dhs overstay and lets have art, moment of silence to honor those who were killed in the terror attack in orlando. There is more than just security along the southwest order to consider. Time into gun, terrorist have exploited the esa system by legally entering america. The 9 11 committee put it this way, for terrorists, traveled documents are as important as weapons. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, terrorists have abused the hospitality of the American People to attack people here at home. Egyptian convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings was ill legally in the United States as a cab driver after his tourist visa expired. 12 of the 9 11 hijackers abuse their visa status. 3000 of ourarly fellow americans. One of the weaknesses they exploited was the weakness of order security. Total through a combined of 68 times without arousing suspicion. Most recently, one attempted to conduct a Suicide Attack on the u. S. Capital. Int was in 2012, he had been the United States since 1999 on a tourist visa and never left. Destroywho helped evidence in the Boston Marathon bombings was able to return to the United States despite being of status on his student visa. To put the National Security risk in perspective, a widely more than 40 owed of illegal aliens do not cross the desert in arizona, california, or texas but come in through the front door with permission and overstay their welcome. Earlier this year, the department of home land security at over sought a report saying it might be worse than thought. Y in fiscal year 2015, fewer people were apprehended by the u. S. Border patrol then overstayed their besides and are expected to still be in the number, making the closer to 68 . We have a graphic up there. A little bit of math. 54 , those we think got away. 23,000 got a ways. Overstays, 282,000. The unlawful presence is up to 705 thousand based on these numbers. Unlawfululates 68 to rate versus coming over the border. These are estimates based on getaways. A lot of is, we spend time focusing on the southern border, as we should, but there is also another problem here. We have unlawful presence from b cell overstays and that is what we are focusing on today. I am concerned that they are in theified safety risks population. It has historically been the means for terrorist entries. In order to tackle the challenge comes the department has first identify those who overstay. Electronically study this has been an place for 20 years. Exitdate of a biometric and entry has been a place for five years. We have made substantial process and progress since 2005. But, in cdp has made, in fits and starts, only marginal progress when it comes to biometric exits. Land, and seaports over the last 10 years, no plan has been implemented for biometric exit capability. Is now engaged in a series of experiments such as the use of mobile devices with a metric readers designed to support a future biometric exit system. To make that a priority is missing from the department and cdp. It appears the department is turn this corner. Secretary johnson is committed to a 28 teen rollout of a biometric exit system. Ambitious timeline, but long overdue. Congress has provided a steady funding stream to allow investments to bring this online. Putting this in place as the 9 11 commission noted, and in an essential system. Ande holders can overstay disappear into the United States as the 9 11 hijackers were able to do. Those who present National Security and Public Safety show resources. Otherwise, we put a person at risk unnecessarily. Dedicate resources, at the 25 that were already departed after special agents organizations,ld we are spending too much time chasing our tales. A reliable exit system will allow Security Officials to focus their efforts on preventing terrorist attacks. That mitigates the chances to stay in the country beyond their time of admission. The American People need answers. How many overstays are out there that pose a serious threat . Can immigration officials quickly identify and remove the overstays . I look forward to answers to these important questions. The chair recognizes the Ranking Member subcommittee the gentleman from texas. I think the chairman for holding todays hearing. , i want toegin express my sympathies to the families of those lost. My prayers are with those injured. About theo learn more security implications at a housewife briefing with secretary secretary jeh johnson later today but hope the , withses before us respect to the topic before the subcommittee, i am pleased to address the overstay issue. Has paid a great deal of attention to securing our southern border and rightfully so, less attention has been focused on addressing visa overstays. 527 thousandtely is a far greater number than the 300 31,000 individuals apprehended along the u. S. Mexico border right year. Illustrating the scope of the overstayed problem. As a member of the congress representing a district along the southern border, i understand the problem with a biometric export system. Built forts were not exit controls nor were our land borders. Overcoming these challenges is in integral part of dhss path. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the progress they have made toward addressing the challenges as well as plans for fulfilling the secretarys commitment to begin deploying biometric exits at airports by 2016. To hearing how they will address biometric exits at our land border, particularly mexico. Unfortunately, the Mexican Border control does not have the technology to share. U. S. Must not restrict travel and trade important to communities like those i represent. I look forward to hearing from i. C. E. We must first stop those who plan to do us harm. It is no easy task but it is a necessary part of an sharing meaningful Border Security. I think the witnesses for joining us and yield back the balance of my time. Members of the committee are reminded that Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Mr. John wagner is the Deputy Assistant director or of Field Operations. Formally served as responsibility for all traveler admissibility programs including the trusted traveler program, the electronic travel system, and the fraudulent document analysis unit. Mr. Craig healy is with isis security and investigations division. He began his service with the marine corps. Two thousand three, he served with the first group of u. S. Special agents entering a rock iraq. The lly and parisi is is at the department of Homeland Security. She is responsible for developing the screening helices including the Visa Waiver Program. Before joining, she was working in the private sector. Federal personnel Identity Verification and credentials. For dh burns is working science and Technology Director of. Of theges the action Apex Technology program and Guides Community outreach initiatives. Entry director for partnership with u. S. Customs and Border Protection to enhance both exit and entrance to develop technology for exiting and for examining travelers. Opening statements will appear in the record. The chernow recognizes mr. Wagner for five minutes. Mr. Wagner good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear to discuss customs and Order Protection and incorporating biometrics into exit operations as it pertains maydentifying travelers who have overstayed their admission. Since assuming responsibility Energy Policy in 2013, cdp is moving forward with several initiatives. I would like to briefly discuss how we collect data. Manifestses containing biographic information on all passengers, which we run against numerous Law Enforcement and databases to identify and address potential far in advance of travel as possible. When the traveler arrives in the United States, they present their passport to the cdp officer who confirms the validity, the accuracy of the carriers manifest, and the fingerprints and eight digital photograph are collected. If they have a visa, we compare the fingerprints with what was collected at the embassy to make sure it is the same person. If they are traveling under the Visa Waiver Program, we can collect and compare fingerprints. Also, there is vetting to ensure no previous violations or risk factors which would determine if we need further inspection. We interview the traveler to determine the purpose and intent of travel. Asn we stamp the passport well as recorded into our automated system. In a prison leaves, we again receive the biographic manifest information from the carrier and run it against the intelligence databases. Aat allows us to create departure record. This is how they apprehended the times square bomber who was attempting to depart jfk and 2010. In fact, 349 passengers were arrested as a result of departure manifest provided by carriers. We use this to generate overstay list on a daily basis. Be more complicated then matching entry and exit data. A person may receive a six month admission into apply for and receive an extension which is relevant to determining whether the person is truly an overstay or not. T is correlated against others run through our automated targeting system, we apply criteria and prioritize the records. Theinistration information is then provided to ice. It articulates the foundation for incorporating biometrics into the aspects of our system. The biographic information we actionable but it can be an enhanced with a biometric upon departure to validate and confirm the information we are acting upon. That remains is not the technology but the infrastructure. Our ports of entry were not designed to have departure control processing. Unlike for arrivals, there is no designated space for departure control. A share a gate with domestic traffic. Where the biometric collection takes place is critical. Placing it too far in advance at the counter does not provide assurance the person who provided the data actually departed on the plane. We would be looking at the biographic manifest data which is the same system we have today. So preparing for the exit, facial comparison at jfk, a distant pilot in california, and eight handheld pilot at 10 airports across the country. Starting yesterday, we commenced airport tohe atlanta compare facial images of travelers departing against previously provided images by those travelers. This is done in a in automated session without impacting airport operations. Pilot is now integrating data into our back end system. It is critical to getting the airlines and airports cooperation as we incorporate tr existing processes. As long prayers as lawenforcement professionals, the data verification and security for the fixit thing for the existing system, the implementation of the biometric exit concept. We will continue to work closing with our private Industry Airlines anduding airports essential for the successful deployment and development of these solutions. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. Mr. Healy good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to. C. E. se discuss i role. Over 30 years i have spent my career in Law Enforcement and i recognize overstaying is an important issue. Homeland security investigations, through our terrorism unit, is dedicated to identifying and action on enforcement the overstay hers. It is accomplished and close we betation with cdp and the systemgenerated leads we receive in order to identify true overstay violators for appropriate and foresman action. I. C. E. Uses specific systems to identify the those who might cause concern. Our agents and analysts and 25th used 625,000 hours on a overstay and foresman. Theiscal year 2015, exploitation unit received approximately 971,000 systemgenerated potential overstay leads received from entryexit International Student databases and other systems. The systemgenerated leads are created using biographical and data in the system. It allows us to identify nonemigrants who have remained in the United States beyond their authorized time of admission or who have violated their visas. Once the leads are received, and automated and manual search is used against social media, public records, and other things to identify if they have adjusted to a lawful status or require further review in which case a lead will be sent out to a field office. Prioritize overstays through riskbased analysis, a targeted framework consisting of 10 tears. It was developed in close communication with Law Enforcement and government entities. To make sure our government minorities are used. We meet with partners to ensure there are targeting methodologies outlined with current and existing u. S. Government right information, trends, and priorities. To better manage investigative resource of, the counterterrorism and criminal exploitation unit relies on the previously discussed framework but incorporates focused and foresman and removal operations on individuals who are threat to National Security, Border Security, Public Safety, or who are convicted of significant criminal offenses. Year 2015, approximately 1 or roughly were determined to potentially pose a National Security or Public Safety concern. Fortunately, with further investigation, we determined many of these leads were not in fact high risk. Leads werel of these sent to field offices for further investigation. Referrals or field 10,000 investigation sent out to the field, our offices have a approximately 3000 investigation still ongoing and roughly 4000 of those investigations have been closed because even after our initial betting, it was determined those individuals were in compliance. The remaining leads are in Continuous Monitoring for further investigation. A result ofntly, as this investigations, we made over 1900 arrest of which 139 were criminal. We secured 186 indictments and convictions. Will workion, we alongside our partners in pursuing visa overstays who violate the terms of their admission. Of thelementation biometric exit system will facilitate and enhance information sharing while improving the quality of the data, thereby improving our efficiency and affect them does in identifying and removing these are overstay violators. Again for the opportunity to be here today and i look forward to taking your questions. Thehe chernow recognizes i appreciate the moment of silence earlier. Thank you. For the opportunity to appear here today to discuss dhss progress on Border Security and admissions and foresman. I am part of the dh as office. The office is charged with developing meant of policy. Screening Ordination Office this whole of government approach to screening involves decisions about how to share information and interact with one another across the government. I am here with my colleagues today to discuss over stays and biometric exit. On january 19, 2016 dhs released the entry exit overstay report for fiscal year 2015. The first such report in a generation. This provides information on the number of individuals in the country who over stayed their period of admission presented by country. The report covers 87 of all nonimmigrant travellers coming to the United States by air and sea. It reflects that 99 of these nonimmigrant travellers depart within their period of admission. At the time the report was issued, 416,000 of these individuals were suspected of remaining in the United States as an overstay. Since the report was issued the number dropped to below 355,000 individuals. While the report represents a tremendous step forward dhs recognizes it doesnt answer all of the questions. You have heard dhs officials leaf in the past, dhs identified quality errors in historic data that while now fixed prevents us from being able to retroactively produce reports for prior fiscal years. That said and for transparency, dhs provided numbers in the appendix of the report. As the report states, the ability to estimate overstay rate is dependent upon the completeness and accuracy of arrival and departure records. During the fy14 data dhs identified discrepancies from certain air carriers which resulted in artificially elevated rates. These data quality issues have been resolved for tourism travellers. The tables are an accurate for these over categories. Over the past two years dhs has made progress in terms of its ability to accurately report data on overseas. Dhs anticipates we will broaden the scope of future words with the emphasis on student visas. Dhs submitted the comprehensive biometric entry and exit plan to Congress April 20, 2016. Over the last decade with the support of congress, dhs through the combined efforts of cvp, ice and mpdds office of biometric Identity Management enhanced the capability to record arrivals and departures within the United States. Cvp is the agent for operationalizing a comprehensive entry and exit system with biometrics building off the current biographic system that exists today. Secretary johnson directed cvp to redouble efforts to achieve a biometric entry and exit system and implement at the highest volume airports in 2018. While it takes time, effort and innovation, dhs believes it put forward a responsible and thoughtful approach to achieve a sustainable solution. This solution recognizes one Technology May not be suitable for each land, air and sea environment and that one that one process may not be appropriate for all our environments. Our over arching goal is a fully integrated scaleable and sustainable exit entry enterprise including biometrics. With the ongoing support of congress most recently demonstrated in the appropriations act of 2016 dhs will continue to advance a biometric exit system that can be integrated into the current screening architecture. Thank you for the support. We will provide updates to congress well past this hearing. Thank you. Thank you. The chair recognizes mr. Burns. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to testify along with my colleagues today from the office of policy, customs and Border Protection and immigration and Customs Enforcement with whom we work closely. The mission of the science and Technology Directorate is. Is to deliver insights and solutions for the critical needs of the Homeland Security enterprise. We work closely with the operating components like icvp and oversight offices including the office of policy to address the gaps in operational capabilities and invest in efforts that will result in products to close the gaps. In 2012, cvp as for efforts to in response, the created the apex air entry which is composed of several vital parts. Apex projects are key protects in close to achieve improved capabilities. With respect to air entry and exit, our goal is to help evaluate technologies and concepts of radiations to verify the arrival and departure of Foreign Nationals from u. S. To airports. To determine candidate technologies, air conducted a comprehensive survey of commercially available standard space fingerprint iris and facial recognition technologies. We work closely with experts from the National Institutes for standard and technology to solicit assistance and analyze results. Additionally we additionally we had interagency and International Expertise from the dhs office of biometric management, the department the department of defense, federal bureau of investigation, department of state and Foreign Government partners. We identified matching algorithms for testing in the maryland Test Facility. Which many visited over the past two years. We evaluated cost, speed and operational footprint. Those that performed well were selected or scenariobased testing. Since june, 2014 air has a Diverse Group of volunteers from 50 countries of origin for our testing and we have simulated actual environmental conditions. To inform concepts of operation and scenario based testing and collect data in support of cvp cost analysis, we send teams into the field to observe current airport operations. This entailed close cooperation with field staff and airport and Airline Stake holders. Air facilitated working sessions with frontline officers to solicit operational insights and inform their projects technical road map. We engaged Industry Groups including airlines for america, Airport Council International North america, International Air transport association and the association of american airport executives to gain an understanding of the direct and indirect Economic Impacts of various biometric exit concepts of operation in the airport environment. We regularly invited airline, airport and biometric groups to the maryland Test Facility and hosted webinars to keep stake holders updated and solicit feedback. Through the air project we have gained an understanding of the state of the art technologies and how they interact with passengers and might fit into various concepts of operation. With simulated testing of the biometric exit technology complete cvp has taken responsibility for the pilots. Apex airs products will inform the path forward to the program. As we move into 2017 they will continue to assist in Data Analysis for the upcoming phases as needed and will invest in additional work should the need arise. With this transition of air exit work, the apex air project will end this year. We will share high level results and less sons learned with partners including the transportation security administration. S t will work with cvps office of Field Operations to reengineer the entry process. This work is important not only to implementing a full entry and exit process but helping cvp in international travel. Leveraging emerging and mobile technologies, well explore ways to build upon and further secure valuable programs like mobile passport control, global entry and countering and measuring. Technology is an essential ingredient of Border Security. S t will collaborate with our components and partners to Bring Technology to operational use and help enhance Border Security. I thank the committee for the opportunity to testify on this important subject. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. I recognize myself for five minutes for questions. I want to make sure we understand the scope of the challenge and the numbers. Your visa over stay report for fy15 indicated 482,000 overstays has been whittled down to 355,000. I know you understand this. For the record that was just for air and sea. Also just in b1 and b2 categories. We are missing the rest of the categories arriving by air and all sea. All over land arrivals and departures. Is that correct . Yes. If we were to explapolate about the 1 rate of overstays what would the number be if we say 1 of the additional people not measured what are we talking about here . Well have the numbers on the Canadian Border in the next report. It is tough to estimate. We measured how many visitors about total . 382 million passengers last year total. 250 million across the land border. 112 million air and sea. If we can extrapolate the same rate to total visitors im trying to understand what we think the magnitude of the overstay might be. Does that make sense, if we extrapolate the 1 rate. Yes. Let us get the numbers for you. Great. Mr. Healey, i am concerned. These numbers are pretty large. We have known 482,000 but probably more. We have gone through the process of how to whittle that down with the resources to identify who are high risk. I have questions. You mentioned you test it against several databases. In your testimony it talks about viewing social media and other means. Are these not tests that are done prior to issuing someone a visa and are the things you are finding to identify somebody high risk, they are here for 90 days. They have committed a crime just in those 90 days . And im particularly interested in social media. The committee has been concerned about use of social media for vetting people prior to issuing a visa. I want to know what we are doing with social media after the fact to identify high risk over stayers. As you are aware, secretary johnson did direct that a social media task force be created within the department. The department is about to transition into a dhs social media center of excellence which will be housed and hosted by cvp which well be a part of. In answer to the first part of the question, on a limited basis, we do utilize social media in a Visa Security Program for individuals coming into the u. S. We do we do not utilize social media to review every application. Im familiar with that. Im talking about whittling down 480,000. Yes, maam. Getting to the overstay population, my numbers are larger than the 480,000. My numbers include everything received coming out of ada so that also includes students, all visa the categories. The first thing we do is check to confirm whether or not those individuals have departed again. Will go back to adis. Well also check with cis to see if they have attempted to get benefits. Well reach out to the Intelligence Community, be more than happy in a detailed briefing to give you background. We reach out to the Intelligence Community. After those decisions are made, we continue our vetting process by prioritizing the names can read we have criteria we use in coordination with the Intelligence Committee and Law Enforcement. Well put well put the names within certain categories and rely on analysts to manually vet those names. If we are able to establish some type of derogatory information, able to establish the location, then well continue to prioritize as we go down the line. When we get to the point where the leads are ready to be sent out to the field. We in turn, sometimes well use social media if we dont have the opportunity to locate the individual. We want to enhance our ability to find that person. Than those leads will go out to the field. Once once in the field again 40 of the leads we sent out of the 10,000, maam. It was determined that individuals were in compliance. They had already either departed or had applied for and received cis benefits. The remaining individuals we will proceed, whether it be a criminaltype investigation or an administrative removal. What is the average time frame for the process that you mentioned . Somebody is here for 90 days. They have overstayed the visa and now you are whittling down the numbers. Are we talking days, weeks, months . It could be a month, couple of months, maam. Once the information the manual vetting process to go through these, forget the automated batch reviews that we do. Analysts have to go through this information. Because from our perspective it cant go into the field unless we know it is a real individual and we know where the individual is located. It can take a little bit of time. Again, again, maam, these are all just b1s, b2s. Great. It was previously reported to me that about 3 of the resources are used on these types of investigations, visa overstays. Is that an accurate percentage . I have to get back to you. Last year, total, we spent 650,000 hours on visa overstay enforcement. I have a unit and this is all they do in coordination. How many people are in the unit. I have to get back to you, i would maam. I would say well over a hundred. Okay. My time is expired. Ms. Torres from california. Thank you. What are the different challenges of implementing an entry and exit system on the northern border versus implementing that Similar Technology at our southern border. In a follow up from that for ms. Burish . Once he answers, can you please follow up and discuss the training process of how we intend to bring up to date the agents working at both borders. At the land borders, unlike on the in bound traffic we dont have facilities in ports of entry constructed to be able to stop traffic and confirm somebodys departure. Thats common on both borders. Places where they collect a toll to cross a bridge there is some natural stop and go which we can conduct some operations in. If it is a highway that goes across they dont stop until they hit the canadian or mexican inbound facility. The canadian government does record the arrival by graphically into canada. The have worked out an arrangement where we have worked out the data. On the Mexican Border the government doesnt collect that type of information. Some of the discussions wed have with them is there a possibility to help them build the infrastructure to do that and have a similar oh type of exchange. When we focus on the biometrics, none of the countries have the ability to collect the biometrics from passengers in a vehicle thats moving or stopping. There is the extra challenge of finding technology can work and look inside of a passenger vehicle or a bus with 50 people aboard to achieve those biometric short of getting everyone out and lighting up to collect it. I think looking at the numbers of non u. S. , nonmexican, noncanadian citizens crossing the land borders, the numbers are low. If we look at the numbers, visa waiver travellers they are low crossing the land borders. We are looking at efforts and what programs can build to start with those populations first and start to move out doing this. It will be a little bit of a manualtype process until the technology emerges to do that. Okay. Can you talk about the training process of bringing agents up to date on training biometrics . Timeline, time frame as to what that will take . And can you also touch on the infrastructure that the canadian has versus what we have and how the two compare . The office of policy doesnt direct training for officers. I will defer those questions to cvp. This was on the training of the biometrics. Im sorry . The officers go through an there is academy. There is ongoing training efforts on current trends. Im not talking new hires but the people that are already there and we have a new system coming up. Right. We will embark on a training regimen to teach them the new systems, with the policies are, technical requirements on how to operate the systems and what the trends are with what we are seeing and trying to accomplish as far as fraudulent documents, counterfeit. Is that eight hour program, two weeks, six months . What does it look like . It depends on the type of technology we are delivering and how complex or new it is to the office. It might be as simple as a fourhour training. If it is something brandnew and a new approach with policy implications it may be a full day, two days or a week. It all depends. What are you looking at planningwise for personnel that would be taken out of the field to do that type of training . For which we are talking about implementing a Biometric Program but you are telling me we have no answers as to how we plan to implement and train the folks that would be utilizing the program, budgets you would need to implement it. Right. When we make the final determination on how the technology will operate, there will be a personnel cost on getting officers to work the equipment. And then respond to the information the equipment will provide. If we have a mismatch on a biometric of someone departing the u. S. An officer has to respond. If we have a case where it is a Law Enforcement action an officer will have to respond. Mr. By letter recognized out of order for five minutes. Would happen this weekend in orlando is tragic. My prayers are with the victims and their families. Is at the very least inspired by islamic terrorists and demonstrates that islamic and isis want to attack our western values. When way they can do this is through our visa programs that can be exploited. This threat is not new. Empress first mandated the of 1996. The 9 11 commission taught us that to terrorists, travel documents are just as important as weapons. That is the preferred method of entry for method of for terrorists to our country. According to the 9 11 commission report, a biometric entry exit in conducting a search for two of the 9 11 hijackers who were in the United States on expired visas. This is a point that i have consistently raised since joining this committee. For example, one of the for the 1993 terrorist bombings overstate a touristy set and received amnesty when comprehensive Immigration Reform passed in 1986. He was a cab driver but he claimed to be a Seasonal Agricultural worker. The only thing he planted in america was a bomb. Followed theress recommendations of the 9 11 commission. Bypassing the intelligence reform prevention act. Our government has still not implemented the exit component of the system. It should be a priority for congress to address this gaping loophole. Should know in real turn in real time when a Foreign National has left our country. When i first came on this committee, we were talking about 40 of illegal aliens being in our country because of their overstayed visas but the departments own very incomplete data showed that in fiscal year 483 individuals overstayed their visas. More people oversteer overstayed their visas. We have always assumed that about 40 of the people here in the u. S. Illegally overstayed their visas. Can we now say that is a gross understatement . Were you surprised to find that more individuals overstayed their visas then were apprehended crossing the southwest border . Aboutsa population 1 overstay their visas. Your accounting people who come in multiple times. Individuals that overstay their time of admission on a visa. We calculated it for the b1, b2s come at 1. 74 overstay. If you extrapolate that over time, that number decreases. You cannot draw a comparison to the people crossing the land border in between the ports of entry. You disagree that more people overstay their visas across the land border . I dont disagree. Or 2 of people overstay their visas but i am not sure i understand the correlation with the southwest border numbers. I am not surprised by these numbers. I wanted to let you know that we are as committed to trying to track down and that these these numbers vet for Public Safety purposes. The numbers come to us. We followed them to where they take us. I began to introduce legislation that makes a simple tweak to our laws. If someone in illegally crosses the southern border, they are unlawfully present in the United States. If they overstay their visa, they are unlawfully present in the u. S. And yet the penalty is different even though both people in the situation have the same legal status. And our law unlawfully present. Crossing is ar crime while overstaying a visa is a civil offense. That theake sense penalty is different and why doesnt it make sense for the same penalty to be applicable to both . We will take that question for record for the record. Thank you. Mr. Healy, let me address my first questions to you. On the way to doing so, i want to admit that i have a particular it interest in this subject. In 1996, i introduced a bill that became law that has still not been fully implemented. If the law had been implemented, i think we wouldve done a lot to address the question of visa set hey are these visaoverstayers. Let me tell you what the figures are. This administration removed 12,500 in 2009. 10,400 in 2011. 4200 in 2013. 3500 in 2014. 2500 in 2014. In 2015. I would like to go to the overall figure. We have heard estimates as to the percentage of people in this country illegally. Let us take 50 . 10 Million People in the country illegally. Becausethem are here they overstayed their pieces. 5 Million People are here in illegal status. The administration reported 2500 of those. 20th of 1 . Why are you not prioritizing these individuals . Year the fewest of any under this administration i know they favor amnesty. Is this part of their amnesty efforts . Thehen you take a look at removal process, when you look at the cases that we have worked and individuals have gone into proceedings and you look at the removals for that year, the removals process can be quite lengthy. They grab someone today, will not necessarily be removed anytime soon because it will take a while to go through the process. Our prioritization scheme along with the resources that we have. I understand that. But the Administration Stands convicted by their own acts. Have not requested the money sufficiently to do so. How many investigations were conducted last year . We sent out 10,000. 10,000 individuals whose identity and location you knew but you did not consider to be a priority as they had not been convicted of serious crimes. That is not true. The investigations were sent out to the field investigators to try to locate and remove these individuals. To add another point, if we send a lead to the field or we dont have the location of an individual or if we have a teenager who may not necessarily be of age but we are away they are in our old if we know someone has applied for a benefit that they have yet to receive it, all of that plus the individuals we cannot locate in the field, they get continuously monitored. 95,000 people were and weously monitored periodically check those against the Intelligence Community, against cis, and a this to see if we have the information to send them back to the field. Had you chosen to do so, many of those individuals would have been deported. You mention their application for a benefit. There is an immense amount of fraud there. Is that by sending so few home and deploying such a small percentage of the visa just get into the country. If youre not convicted of a serious crime, you will be allowed to stay. That is the wrong message to send. Illegal immigration and sends the message that the administration is trying to implement amnesty by another means. It is a wrong message to send if you are serious about addressing illegal immigration in america. Thank you. This inlk a lot about the district. 49 of all visa overstays people we gave it we gave a permission slip to enter this country. They came to this country with a permission slip. Known as a visa. And a lot and decided to stay. 68 numbers you have here, is an alarming number. These people chose to violate our trust. That is low hanging fruit for enforcement. We are not chasing a footprint in the desert. We have a name, some biometrics. We know where a lot of them were headed. A work visa or student visa. But too many times, they overstay. Contacte and why not the university and find out what their statuses. Maybe they need to have their visa extended. Then, we start reducing this number from 68 to a lower number and then we can focus on the real problem in the country which is our southern border being infiltrated by individuals with if areas ideals. Whether that be drug or Human Trafficking or intent on doing harm to this nation by doing terror. They will exploit our poor southern border. Take them at their word. Requests tot of government agencies. I just sent a letter, several letters to the department of state asking about a memo, a white paper used to justify them circumventing the veep the will of congress that we passed in december in ways where we try to get Foreign Nationals to theumvent our process and will of congress depreciated with the white house to allow those people to travel to the United States. They wrote a memo to justify that. We have asked for that repeatedly and i am asking for it again from the department of a to provide what we requested to congress. Peary asked mr. Clouse keep about the body armor unaccounted for. Can you respond to why we have . Ot gotten a response to this i was not aware you did not get a response to this. Entry exit visas. It turns out he was an f1 student visa overstay. He was supposed to go to Ohio University and was in as it to sis. Why did ohio not lead the u. S. Government know that this gentleman who came to their university was no longer enrolled there. These are common sense things that American People expect us the number ofwith illegals in this country. That gentleman is not in the country anymore by the way. About an exit system. Right now we are checking airline manifests. Japan, i will scan my thumb and they will no that i left the country. Congress has mandated that system. What are we doing . Im not aware that japan is doing biometrics on departure. Im not aware of many countries doing what hundred percent biometric exit on departure. Some countries have put in automated gates to speed their own citizens apart or from that country so there are some automated gates that they do allow people to use but they also have officers and departure control systems set up so it is easy to put up a gauntlet of machines to get everyone going through. We are working to deploy the biometric capability on departure. We launched a pilot yesterday. When do we expect the federal government to finish this project . We will have this deployed in operational by 2018. The secretary is committed to doing this. Several steps we have to take before we get there including launching this pilot which we did yesterday which will give us the final requirements for what this solution will look like. I appreciate you saying 2018 and i look forward you coming back to this committee and telling us this is done, we will now when people have exited the country that have entered from a foreign country. I yield back. Chernow recognizes chernow recognizes mr. Lee from texas. Chair recognizes mr. Heard from texas. I would like to thank my colleague. I recognize you have a difficult job. It has been argued that an accurate entry exit system would enhance isis efforts are reducing need to review leads that turner to be false positive. Could you point to the committee how leads are generated and sent to the field offices . Yes i can. The information, the referral, is received from arrival departure information system. From there it gets plugged into the automated targeting system cvp belongs to. This is all basically automated. We are bouncing it up to the Intelligence Community, a batch request. We send it over to see i s to cis to see how many applied for benefits and we will go back to adis to see how many departed in the window between receipt and processing. About 971,000 number i provided you, we have already eliminated 141,000 records in that Click Exchange between us in cvp. We are going to wait for the response from the Intelligence Community. We will take appropriate action depending on how we prioritize something depending on the response. Now we meet with a group of interagency Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement partners. They have giving us a tiered system to prioritize individuals in terms of u. S. Security interests. Im more than happy to close in a closed setting to give you greater detail. Once the information comes to us and is prioritized, i have to have analysts who have to manually vet all of that information. We are looking for any type of derogatory information across 22 Government Systems that will enable us to turn around and validate what we are doing and locate the individual. It will continue to work its way through the chain. Once we get to that determination its going to be sent out to the field office. The referral goes out as a collateral lead investigation. The field offices provided with a jacket. All the information we have. The field office has requested to go for received. It can go down and administrative road. That is helpful for the American People to understand the process you go through to identify the leads you have to follow. What a biometric exit capability reduce that amount of time because it allows you to focus on people that are actually still the country . The example i would use, those investigations that could send out to the field, 40 of those deemed to be in compliance. Its not efficient use of resources. If we have the appropriate system we will be able to better apply those resources towards a legitimate enforcement use instead of somebody whos ari left the country or accrued cix benefits and we cant take action on them. Is there currently a backlog of unmatched overstay records for terrorism and Public Safety threats . In what way . Is there as you vetted the potential leads through the Intelligence Community, those 22 agencies, and there was derogatory information, is there a number that you have not been able to begin an investigation on . Some of it would be the information received. We might have a name and a date of birth. We might have john smith staying down at a hotel in disney world. Depends on the individual and the information. This group, the compliance enforcement advisory panel, they are essential to assisting us in getting us the information we need quickly so we can follow up on leads. Do you have a percentage of those folks that have been identified in one way or another as having an overstay that have derogatory they have derogatory information and you have a limited amount of information to conduct your investigation . Yes, sir. Even if they leave goes out to the field and it is exhausted, meaning the agents cannot locate the individual, it circles back around and goes back into our tank and that would be inclusive of our Intelligence Community engagement as well. If we dont have enough to move forward, we will hold it in our tank and if we will bounce those requests of other systems to update and refresh the record. Thank you. The chair recognizes mr. Jackson lee. Ms. Jackson lee. Let me acknowledge the representatives hear from the department of Homeland Security and add my personal appreciation to your service. We are having this hearing and it was scheduled before the heinous and horrific terrorist attacks of this past weekend. We know every day that you are on the front lines in many of you i have engaged with on a number of issues. We also live in a nation that deals with the issues of Civil Liberties and civil rights and we understand security has to be responsive to that. Before i asked my questions, let me make a few comments. As i look at the Pew Research Center we know there are about 93,000 overstays it out of canada, 123,000 out of europe and about 42,000 out of mexico. 17,000 central america. We go down with south Africa South America this overstay issue is not predominant anyone area. I believe the president s approach of focusing on those that would do us harm is the most important approach. Let me add to the record that this is a total of 44. 9 million nonvisitor emissions in the United States expected to depart of this number an estimated 500 27,127 individuals overstayed. That is 1. 17 . Today am going to say the congress has higher responsibilities right now. I think we need to if you are a terrorist on a terrorist list most americans will not realize department of Homeland Security can only abide by the law. The fbi can only abide by the law. They cannot stop terrorists or individuals who have been investigated from buying a gun. I hope we can pass that this week. That we can have that legislation passed. The bending of the assault weapons is something the secretary of Homeland Security has offered to provide security to the American People. That bill is ready to be passed right now. So i believe we will find the alleged perpetrator, now dead, that did the heinous attack on the gay community, heinous attack on americans, latinos, dominant numbers of these individuals were from the hispanic community. This individual was not an overstay. Was the individual do you have any facts that he was an overstay . Y that, he was a u. S. Citizen born in new york. We are here confronting an issue that is important. The American People believe there should be regular order , i believe in conference of Immigration Reform. In fact, you would have a process for admission. Or you would have a process for the overstays to engage in regular order. I think that is important. I want to raise one question about technology. I have supported Pilot Programs dealing with the technology, the Biometric Technology of overstays. Youre much better at overstay situations in the airports or aviation than you are at the land areas as i understand it. Would you share with me what you are doing Science Technology if you do it quickly. I have one last question on dealing with this technology that you need to better refine the issues of overstays. For all overstays you come in legally and it expires and you dont leave. Thank you. To follow up, it is as mr. Wagner said. An application issue. Biometric technology is rapidly evolving. How do we take the actual pieces of technology and build them into the operational process . The border situation is very different from the operations of the airport. We are continuing to look at all biometric to allergy Biometric Technology to make sure we can bring the Proper Technology to the table linking it to the operational process. I will stop as he said he wanted more time. I do. I am gratified for that. The gentle ladys time has expired. Could i get this last question out on the record . I cut everybody off a little after five. If you want to submit it for the record. I will do that for the record them. Mr. Craig healy, i would be interested in student overstays, which is somewhat difficult and whether or not we include, incorporate the institution they are supposed to be going to as an assist or a partner in determining, a reporting feature that universities have to utilize with respect to students. I would add employment as well because a lot of visas, individuals have their families here and then without employment, looking fo employment they may be considered an overstay. I was going to ask about student visas in my next round so i will ask the panelists to answer concerns about the student visa process. Those are not in this report just so we know. I want to note esther healy, in healy, in your testimony you said for ctc eus frowny one list, you listed a series of projects and initiatives and one of them is called the recurrent vetting program. Lets talk about the student visa process and compliance with universities, information flow in how that works. Yes maam. In terms of the Student Exchange and Visitors Program we do have on several fronts in terms of overstays, we would not treat them any differently than we would any other overstay category. In the numbers i referenced earlier, those are not only being fed in terms of submissions coming in in other words if the school determines a student is no longer within a program and they terminate the student, the school will report that to see cbus and that will come into us. Could you talk about the compliance rate . Nearly 100 compliance rate for passing information to you. Are there any fines . There could be. I will have to get you specifics in terms of the actual program. From our perspective, we do have a robust compliance program. We do unannounced psych site visits. As you are aware every school is mandated that they be certified every two years. We have a robust engagement with schools. Its required that the schools are designated School Officials report information. If there is a problem with the student they are required to report that within a 30 day period. A new program in terms of field representatives. 60 individuals geographically placed around the country. The job is to be the in between. They visit schools to make sure the information flow is continuing. In terms of your question about recurrent vetting, as a part of our prioritization process, every student that is legitimately in the United States attending school, when derogatory information comes in, it is that it against it is vetted against every individual student. In terms of specific compliance rates i would have to get back to you on that. Will next years report include visa overstay information on students as well . We plan to include the student visas. As well as the u. S. Canada land border, nonus, noncanadian travelers. I want to follow up on the report, entry exit overstay report. I ask unanimous consent that it be entered into the record, the one that has been referenced several times today. Table one gives several countries are over 2 . You note in your testimony there is consideration to potentially using these overstay numbers to impact future inclusions in the Visa Waiver Program. Can you clarify what is being looked at related to that . Overstay rates is part of something larger called the disqualification rate. That is one of the requirements for a potential country to become a member country. We do look at those overstay rates. In the testimony it says we are looking at i can find the exact page, looking at future use of this information related to visa waiver countries. I was wondering what that meant. Thank you for that question. As we have testified, we have been working on the reliability and accuracy of that data. As that data improves, we would use that information for making determinations on whether a countrys status remains and whether their designation in the Program Remains or we need to take additional action. Is that currently being utilized to make a determination . There is not a Visa Waiver Program country that is currently over the 3 requirement. For the nonvisa waiver countries weve got afghanistan at 10 , burkina faso, 18 , chad, 17 . Djibouti, 17 . These are huge numbers. What is the information in this . Are you using it to decide whether countries should continue to have a certain number of nieces or trying to visas or trying to address the issues of noncompliance with the country . The department of Homeland Security and the state Department Issues the visas. Is there any are we continuing to issue visas to these countries that have 20 to 30 overstay rates . Is there any sort of punishment or accountability . That might be a question better referred to the department of state. Is there any coordination any of you can speak about from this information to the department of state . The department of state has the numbers that you have referenced. Has the report information. I recognize ms. Sheila jackson lee. I am going to ask for a more explicit response from mr. Wagner and mr. Healy on the jobrelated visas. In terms of any precise numbers you may have of those. I want to recite these numbers again because i think it is worthy of including in the record. 44. 9 million nine immigrant visitor admissions. The record shows estimated 527 thousand 127 individuals overstay their visas. 1. 17 . The report goes on to say in other words 98. 8 of nonimmigrant visas comply with their terms of admission and departed on time and in fiscal year 2015. Do have isolation of the numbers dealing with those who are overstays as it relates to work . We have not broken those out yet but we will include those in the use report. This years report included about 85 of all travelers so all the other visa classifications covers about 15 of commercial air passengers. I think that will be very helpful. Let me get to the bottom line of what my concern is. This should all be about, as we look at how we help you do your job, and i have already said a metric of new laws under the title we have been speaking about, comprehensive Immigration Reform, which refines and defines, probably in a more detailed manner, what happens to overstays maybe based on the level of threat. Im not arguing for overstays. There are persons who are in the United States unauthorized. But i think the question for the American People is the issue of security and the level of threat that these individuals represent. Mr. Wagner has reinforced the Public Information that the deceased actor and terrorist for the event in orlando was not an immigrant. The individual was a citizen of the United States born in new york. Im concerned that the department of Homeland Security is taken away from a major responsibility dealing with the level of threat. Mr. Wagner, mr. Healy, youre in Homeland Security investigations. Have you been able to assess overall the 500,000 individuals that have overstated . Can we include in the report and assessment of the threat they represent which i believe is what the American People would be concerned. Let us look at that for inclusion in the next years report. Some analysis of what the overstay population encompasses. I think that would be helpful. That is something we would have to consider and provide that information at a future date. Let me continue that line of questioning. In your recollection and help me. I have served on Homeland Security im trying to just monitor Mass Shootings. San bernadino, it wouldve come to your attention, were any of those individuals virginia tech, an individual from the asian community. Connecticut, newtown, colorado in the theater. Do any overstays come to mind in any of those Mass Shootings . I may not have calculated all of them. I cant think of any of hand. We all want to do our research to make sure we are giving accurate questions. Coming to your mind at this time, and i believe that if one was it would probably remain very viable. A enough for you to remember an individual because it wouldve come to your attention as to what kind of person perpetrated those particular incidents. Colorado was not, column i was columbine was not. Newtown was not. San bernadino was not. Individuals whose status though they were immigrants as i recall. Going back to 9 11, let me say that i am not ignoring that. I use the term Mass Shootings. 9 11 did have overstays. My question would be, after 9 11 my question would be, after 9 11 the department of Homeland Security was created. Do you feel you have enough structure in place that you would have caught or been drawn to the overstays that were part of the acts of 9 11 . I believe we would have identified them with the systems that are in place now in the measures in place now i believe so. Can you expand on those systems without breaching confidentiality . One of the things we do is we take the visa database the state department provides us and we run recurrent checks every day on that information and if someone appears on a watchlist that has a current visa one of the things we look we say is, have they left the country. We will provide that information to the fbi. To the Intelligence Community. We have ways to identify those in real time when those things happen. Madam chair i will yield back. Mr. Healy, did you want to comment on the investigation part of it . I was going to add that we rely heavily on our Law Enforcement partners to help us prioritize so im comfortable that they are providing good guidance for the individuals should be targeting and focusing on. Let me thank you, madam chair. I think i want to leave my time at the microphone with the ultimate question of the threat to the people of the United States. I think any hearing we have needs to be in that context. Thank the men and women. I cannot help saying that this week we must pass nofly, no by. If you have had discussions about terrorist activities or threatening comments toward the American People you cannot buy an assault weapon or any guns of any kind. I think the gentle lady for time has expired i will go to another round. I appreciate the patience of the panelists. Mr. Healy, you mentioned testimony of 10,000 leads last year. 1910 arrests. 86 indictments and 80 convictions. Is that number of arrests to convictions, that seems like a small percentage of arrests. Is that pretty typical or he could you or could you speak about those arrested but not convicted . Not only criminal arrests but administrative arrests. In a situation where they might be a criminal prosecution following as part of an investigation or that might be virtue of the fact that an administrative arrest because the individual was an overstay. Do you know how many were criminal arrests and administrative . I believe and can you walk me through the process of and administrative arrest . What does that mean . What happened after the arrest . An individual will be encountered and issued a notice to appear and it could be broken down into a couple of different categories. If there is derogatory information, it may be a custodial detention. The individual might receive a notice to appear and they are required to appear before an immigration judge. If its a Visa Waiver Program, they are not required to appear before an immigration judge because that is waived by virtue of the fact that the person came in through the Visa Waiver Program but it would not go down the criminal route, not go through the u. S. Attorneys office. It would be internal administrative protocol thats run by ice and enforcement and removal operations. The individual might receive a notice to appear and they are required to appear before an immigration judge. If its a Visa Waiver Program, do you know how many were administrative of the 1910 . If you dont i have them. I will get it for you. This may be for the record. Since you brought it up. Those who have been given notices to appear. Are you tracking those that do not appear and do they go back into the system . That is correct. We can get those numbers. Are they included in the 355,000 remaining . They may be sort of left your numbers and came back to the numbers. They would come back to us and want back up in our Continuous Monitoring. Mr. Burns, can you talk about the the apex program and how that is going to inform our implementation of future Biometric Exit Program . The apex air program was indicative of the departments commitment to answer the question. It was really a collaboration between cvp and smt to look at the issue. We brought in all of the stakeholders that would have to deal or be impacted by what we were doing. It was important to bring in the Airline Industry and everybody that would be a part. The first couple of months was getting everybody to identify the problem from a operational perspective but also from Airline Operational perspective as well. The team was broad and inclusive. We worked with industries small and Large Business to identify the technology. The three we deemed would sit in this construct, to bring them across the border to start the process. Biometric technology is here to stay. I think it will help answer the question. The issue is, its application within the environment. The simple thing is lighting or the environmental conditions of humidity will impact how we work it. We ran a series of operational simulation to see how well pieces would come together and all of that information is provided to cvp so they can build into their longer acquisition program. We started knowing that whatever the products we were going to bring out had to fit into their acquisition program. Operational requirements, cost and the fed analysis. All those things that would help them make a successful decision, was provided to them. We made sure we look at it from a holistic perspective. We work to see, what can we do to speed up entry as we brought things forward for exit. Five seconds added to an entry process is huge amount of time. We were down to looking into operational processes that were working with the general public was important. 1700 people from 18 to 81. We looked at all the cities. All ethnicities. It has to work everyone in the traveling public. My understanding is there is an aer report that is going to be delivered to us. Can you give us a timeframe . We are in the process of completing the highlevel report of our findings. Its not as detailed as we would like because many of the companies that brought the technology did it under the agreement that their intellectual property would be protected. I can get back to you with the specific date. Mr. Wagner, in your trying testimony, said the compliance a. P. I. S. Guys call it in 2015 the number was 92 . Can we talk about what steps are being made to bring that is close to 100 as possible and what of the reasons it is not 100 . The airline transmits the information to us. We do prearrival vetting. We compare it against whatever the airline transmitted. We keep a log of discrepancies. If there is data missing, the airline is subject to a fine for that. We issue very few fines these days. Maybe about a dozen last year total. Generally for a late transmission of information or missing crew data. We can get you a break down of that. Where we see the technical issues of data birth where they the month and the day instead of the day in the month, formatting issues like that especially when his keystroke in overseas by a airline personnel. By and large that the unit is accurate or you what we found with outbound, even on the departure manifestly are not there to validate each transmission. What we are finding with the mobile technology we deployed, lets confirm the accuracy of what airlines are providing. We are finding it was in the high 90 percentile of accuracy. When we conclude our report on the mobile technology will include those figures. I understand the differences of what we can do and what we cant and that we do not have a similar exchange with mexico. Is there anything we can do with mexico to address providing some better information for land ports of entry in the Mexican Border shortterm and what are ideas for longerterm . We continue to hold discussions about the databases they do have. What kind of information are we showing ready. At the land border they do not have a system or the technology or infrastructure to collect the passenger level they collect license plates but at the traveler level they dont have a system. Its a case of, we can build it on our side or maybe we have this opportunity to work with mexico to build the infrastructure to collect it and both of us use it. The ideas and concepts kicked around but we have not solidified an approach that will work. A lot of what we talked about so far in the focus of the hearing is tracking people who are overstaying. You mentioned in testimony, the Pilot Program making sure they could have a fraudulent passport, stolen passport and you can match their fingerprint to them but it still may be that there is fraud involved and that is not the person it is supposed to be. The Pilot Project we have to match the facial recognition, im interested in the outcome of that. I think mr. Hurd has legislation to make that permanent for all passengers. Can we comment on the fraud case . You may match biometrics to their passport but it is not the right person we have a whole another problem. We have seen the amount of altered or counterfeit type documents decreased tremendously especially in the commercial air environment. Where the risk remains is a person with a legitimate document that does not belong to them. A stolen document, borrowed document. That is where the risk is because you can compare the person against it. Most of the countries issue electronic passports that at least at the minimum have a photo including u. S. Travel documents. But we are able to do with the facial Comparison Technology is read that ship, open it up, take a picture of the traveler, compare the two using algorithms to tell us with some probability that it does belong to that person. A couple of imposters. A person using an illegitimate document that does not belong to them. A couple of weeks ago at jfk we had a woman arrive from a flight from ghana. The officer did not think the picture matched with the traveler, put her in front of the camera and recorded it and it turned out she she turned out to be a person from liberia who had been denied a visa previously last year. Knowing that she had a u. S. Passport would not routinely subject her to fingerprints upon entry. Using this comparison, we can confirm she is an imposter. The fact that she was not denied a visa. Incredibly helpful to make that determination of you the of who the true document holder is. Mr. Healy, if you were in charge, with unlimited resources to do your job to whittle down those that have overstated and quickly be able to locate them and take appropriate action, what else would you need . Im also interested in local Law Enforcement. Often the first people encountering individuals. The information flow between federal and local officials and what access they may have. I think we are going in the right direction with the work we are doing. From where we have come from to where we are now. No system is perfect but all the players that need to be engaged are engaged. Cbp is in the process of pulling it together in terms of the automation process which is making it a lot easier for us. In terms of local engagement, through our field offices, our task forces, we are at the hip with local partners. They also can be part of this process as well. What i would hope for, i would hope that we continue to move in the direction we are moving and i think we will get there soon. I do want to followup on mr. Barlettas question. Right now if somebody overstays less than what is it, they cannot come in for two years if it was a short overstaying and 10 years if it was long overstay. Those are really the only disincentives or accountability items. Would it be valuable to provide some other accountability to these overstayers to make it a crime . To have some fines . Maybe a harsher penalty of not being able to reenter . Are there thoughtful disincentives we should consider . People that overstay as time goes on the numbers get whittle down. They are subject to the threeyear to tenure bar of getting a visa to come back. That information goes to state and they have to go to state and apply and state their cases. Once they depart the United States or are removed, it has been difficult to come back in unless they deal with the wafer and there are procedures to do that. I do not know if making them into a criminal act would change behavior of people who would stay here. Are individuals who left 60 days late consider the same as individuals you caught 60 days later and put out . That is a different behavior. I believe it would be the same. Do you feel that those disincentives are adequate . I think people that will stay here permanently will try to stay here permanently. It will be difficult to come back in once a person leaves that has been identified as an overstay. I think we have exhausted a lot of items here. Let me give the opportunity for any members of the panel to share perspectives you were not asked about that were not in not in your testimony. Is there anything else you want to leave with us we have not considered on this issue . Just for the record, i want to clarify that i have that number. Out of the 1900 that you asked about, 130 of those were criminal. 80 of 130, not 80 of 1910 . 80 convictions of 130 criminal arrests. Thats a higher rate of conviction. Great. I would like to add just to followup on what we discussed, our plan is to deploy this solution in fall of 2018. The secretary has charged us with doing that. We have put together a strategy contingent on the Government Procurement process to spend the fees that congress has made referenceto us as a of 1 billion over 10 years to do that. Several steps that will be engaging industry and doing requests for proposals over the next 18 months to be able to get there. There are some tight deadlines but we will be going through that structure procurement process to be able to take that money and put it onto a contract and be able to spend it to deploy solutions. Anything else to and . Thanks. I appreciate the hard job you all have. Theres obviously some differing perspectives about what is more important, 1 , or 480,000. I think at some point quantity has a quality all its own when you talk a lot the magnitude of individuals. It only takes one person to be a risk to Public Safety and National Security. We need to be vigilant about doing everything we can to make sure that those that are trying to use our system and our processes that are trying to do us harm are very quick way identified and the public remains safe. I appreciate all the effort that are being made related to that. A lot of work has been done, but we have a lot of work left to do. We look forward to partnering with you to close some of these gaps that are still there. I appreciate your testimony today and appreciate all the work you do. I also thank the members for their questions. I think weve already had him for the record. We would ask you to respond to additional questions in writing. The hearing record will be held open for 10 days. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] today, Veterans Affairs secretary Robert Mcdonald talks about changes being implemented at the v. A. In an ongoing effort to provide better access to Veterans Health care. This Brookings Institution event is live at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. At 5 30 p. M. , the senate will hold procedural votes on gun amendments. We get this preview from capitol hill. The senate on monday is set to take votes on four gun amendments and we are joined by todd ruger with cq rollcall. This past week, senator Christopher Murphy of connecticut spoke on the senate floor for nearly 15 hours about gun violence. What role did that play on getting senate