Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Sponsor Background Checks 20151205

Thought. I will introduce schumer i usually wait for the Ranking Member but i was told to go ahead. Several years ago, but when i have a short statement to put into the record because i want senator sessions to several years ago, the obama tii administration promised, quote, refocusing on limited resources and people on violent offenders, people convicted of crimes, note just families, end of quote. But although there has been more funding for enforcement in 2015, the president s promise goes unfulfilled and many criminals remain in our communities. When will enough be enough . Even those with violent criminal histories arent being removed as promised to the extent they should be. And american citizens are paying the price while Law Enforcement officers are instructed to look the other way. The Administration Says it does not have the resources to enforce the law against all undocumented criminals. But a lack of resources doesnt seem to be the problem. Its a lack of will and the policies of thiS Administration prove that. When first preparing for this hearing, several Administration Officials informed this committee that they were unable to testify because the hearing wasnt, quote, in response to a particular crisis. Congressional oversight isnt contingent on any crisis. Its a constitutional responsibility of all of us. And when you listen to the testimony today, i hope you will keep in mind that there are 179,027 undocumented criminals with final orders of removal at large in the United States today, thousands of victims andt many of the agencies own officers who are unable to do the job they signed up to do. To do we still think then that there is no crisis . I reserve the remainder of my rf time, as i said, and call on senator sessions. If somebody comes from the s fo minority, we will do them beforo we introduce our witness. Rity thank you, senator grassley, co for your strong leadership of this committee and for your commitment to oversight in ensuring that our agencies who work for the American People respond appropriately to at americas congressional representatives. Spond you framed the questions well. While we all know that the Obama Administration is removing fewer total aliens than it did a few years ago, the focus of today will be on the dramatic fall in the removal of criminal aliens i from the interior of the United States, something that runs contrary to the direct claims os thiS Administration. Countless times over the last an five fiscal years, members of thE Administration have made public statements about the need to focus limited enforcement resources on criminal aliens first. L it admits normal routine cases has fallen significantly, but a search our policies to remove criminal aliens has strengthened. On may 10, 2011, the president said we are focusing our limited resources on people on violent offenders and people convicted of crimes. Not just folks looking to scrape together an income. Just a little over a year ago, november 20, the president announced we will keep focusing on enforcement keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security felons, not family, not children. Thus the contention is that they had to stop normal enforcement and create executive amnesty programs. Since we cannot possibly remove everyone, thE Administration has said and congress rejected my proposals for reform, i will do it anyway by executive order and allow for example 4 million dopa beneficiaries to stay in the al United States and give them work permits, Social Security give numbers, access to federal and state benefits. And focus only on removing criminals and other high priority aliens. As we will establish today, not only are total removals down, but the number of removals of criminal aliens from the interior of the United States, l the socalled priority, has decreased significantly. The reason for this decrease is not because there are fewer criminal aliens in the united cr states than just a few years ago. We there are hundreds of thousandsy of known criminal aliens in the United States. Rol al in addition, new crimes are rims committed every day by criminal aliens, so while were not seeing a decrease in crimes committed across this country, we are seeing a decrease in dac removals of criminal aliens and it is not that thE Administration has fewer resources than they did in years past. To the contrary, the amount of funding available for the detention and removal of aliens has increased steadily while criminal deportations have plummeted. T h thE Administration is doing substantially less with substantially more. Under the law passed by with congress, any person found unlawfully in the United States is subject to removal. Anyone unlawfully in the United States is subject to removal. They dont have to commit a crime. And those who enter unlawfully and then commit crimes are surely higher priority to removal. There is never a reason to allow a dangerous criminal to live or remain in the United States, nos parent should ever have to bury a child because their government failed to keep violent criminals out of the country or failed top deport them once it discovered them. Vi protecting the lives of innocent americans is one of the most basic duties of the federal government. Our goal should be to keep 100 of criminal aliens out of the United States. And then to promptly remove all such criminal aliens from the interior of the United States if identified. There is nothing wrong or controversial about such policyt indeed the president and his team say this is what theyre vigorously doing. Commit but is it true . In late july the Senate Judiciary Committee Heard system from grieving family members who lost loved ones to criminal alien violence. The whole nation watched really. And we heard their moving callsy for action. St their stories represent a small sample of tragic events that oft happen every single day. So this failure cannot continue. The American People have pleaded with congress and the president to create a uniform, fair and lawful system of immigration that serves their interests, protects their security, a policy in which this nation can take pride. But the politicians and b officials for decades have promised to do that to get elected, but have failed to do so. Even the obvious need for the removal of criminal aliens, which administration deems is needed and just, is just not happening. So once again id like to thank the witness. Shes an experienced prosecutor. Were glad to have you here. And youll have to work hard to dig up something on him. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before i introduce you, id like to swear you in. Do you affirm that the testimony youre about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but theh truth so help you god . I do. H an thank you. D i would like to give a short introduction, but for everybody that would like to have a full biography, id invite you to goa to our Committee Website that has such a biography of director saldana. Sarah saldana is director of the u. S. Immigration and custom u. M enforcement, commonly referred to as i. C. E. Director saldana was nominated by president obama and confirmed by the senate in december of last year. T year previously she served as the se u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of texas and as you just heard, severed very well there. For ver and served also as assistant u. S. Attorney for the northern l district of texas and worked in private practice. Im ready for your Opening Statement. Thank you, sir. Before i begin that, i just wanted to thank you personally. I had all my Senior Leadership from across the country, 26 rshp offices across the country, field office directors, senior attorneys, our special agents in charge of our Homeland Security Investigations Unit in last week to maryland actually, week before last i think. And you were asked by our folks to provide a video in support op our Overall Mission and our su efforts. And they got a great kick out os it. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to do that. Thank you. Thank you chairman grassley if i may proceed now. Ranking member leahy i believe may be here later. And distinguished members of thr committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. As secretary and i have both stated and as the senator sessions has mentioned, it is mo thE Administrations objective and my objective personally to focus on a smart and effective enforcement of our Immigration Laws. This was very similar to my focus as a United States t attorney and assistant United States attorney before that where i had to make difficult decisions over ten years on which cases we could prosecute, which areas we would prosecute them in. I had 100 counties, 100,000 square miles to cover and over 3,000 federal laws to enforce. So we could not take each and every case and we are approaching our mission als similarly at i. C. E. Sion i will tell you, i took this job last year over senator cornyns admonitions because i wanted to lead this Extraordinary Group of ex women and men at immigration Customs Enforcement which have a very significant Law Enforcement mission which i began as United States attorney. And i had the small hope i think i shared with you senator cornye that i could bring even somewhat rational voice to a set of issues that are just chalk full of highly charged often misapprehended by so many in the country and yet of such great importance to the country. Bottom line, those individuals who pose a threat to Public Safety or who are apprehended crossing the border illegally y are enforcement priorities. These priorities were set forth by the secretary a little bit ta more than a year ago. And they guide our enforcement efforts, everything we do cradle to grave. I know most of you are familiar with our priorities. One focuses on Border Security, National Security, Public Safety. Kn priority two includes those people who have committed significant and repeated misdemeanors. And those who are apprehended unlawfully in the country after january 1, 2014. That was intended to stop the flow. And priority three focuses on those individuals who have been issued a final order of removal after that same date. So with these priorities as our guide, we are gaining ground in our efforts to remove dangerous criminal alien from the interior of the country. G despite overall apprehensions oh the border declining, removal numbers are lower, but we are removing at a greater proportion of dangerous criminals in our overall removals, thereby achieving the president s objective of trying to get the most dangerous criminals out from our midst. In 2015, 98 im really proud of these numbers. 98 of all removals lined to one of the three enforcement th priorities before of the roughly 235,000 removals we had in 2015, 59 , almost twothirds, were 9 convicted criminals reflecting a 3 increase over 2014. Thats proportionately. 014 pr i know the numbers are as you say, but thats proportionately. When we drill down further and look at interior removals only, that figure relative to the total jumps to 91 are criminals. T with respect to all aspects of our enforcement including transfer of undocumented immigrants, we focus on individuals who threaten Public Safety and are working with approximately 3,000 state and local Law Enforcement agencies to take custody of dangerous individuals and convicted criminals including felons, significant repeat misdemeanorsf criminal gang participants, before theyre released into the community. Of course this committee very well knows that there are also l times when despite our best efft efforts, and i will assure you there is no one sitting on their laurels at immigrations and Customs Enforcement including the director. We are very actively continuinge to pursue criminal aliens, but s they do despite our best efforts get released from our custody. We cannot remove any undocumented immigrant, and this is really important, really important, i want this committee, but the American Public equally important, that i. C. E. Doesnt willynilly release people. We have to have a final order of removal from the immigration courts. And appropriate travel documents to the country of origin. In addition, the decision that limited our ability to remove ly and detain removal of aliens. It restricts the amount of time an individual can be held in ort postorder custody. Six months typically. And then thereafter unless there is a showing that removability is likely. G whether the result of protected appeals or refusal of a country to accept them back, this decision accounts for somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 betwe convicted criminal alien releases in recent years. That number has dropped significantly over time and thiy remain a key objective to keep that number going down. I mentioned one aspect of our interior enforcement including the transfer of undocumented immigrants from state and local custody. We use our Priority Enforcement Program or p. E. P. To expand our access to these dangerous criminals. The United States government th faces daily criticism for not ts being flexible. P. E. P. Is an example where we are flexible. Its an approach that works with state and local governments, something very important to me when i was in dallas working with 100 counties and 100 sheriffs that we have a Good Relationship with state and ork local Law Enforcement and that we tailor or program to ement Community Safety needs and to iy develop process to fit the needs of that specific jurisdiction ensuring that we remove as many convicted criminals as we can without Damaging Trust with c local communities. Maging this trust is critical, so communities feel secure reporting crimes. Thereby making everyone safer. Ms i do have good numbers with respect to the First Six Months of p. E. P. , the number of f jurisdictions who had previously not cooperated with us who are doing so now, its over 50 at this point. And each day our objective is to conduct interior enforcement strategy in a way that supports Community Policing. Rategy i think its an encouraging sign that for example counties like los angeles which the deputy and i personally work very hard to a speak to their local electedl e of officials and try to get them back to the table have done so. A state that with texas has so many undocumented immigrants. P. E. P. Is allowing ice to reestablish these crucial local relationships that are so important. Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify. You have my commitment to work with each member of your lationh committee to forge a strong and productive relationship currently and in the future. Fog i appreciate it. P before i ask questions, i want to announce that after i ask my questions, senator sessions is going to take over and then i was told i could go ahead without a Ranking Member being here but if any of you have the responsibility of speaking as a Ranking Member, id be glad to defer to you before i ask questions. Go ahead. Okay. On june the 29th of this year, n the department requested a reprogramming of 113 million from your agency for Immigration Enforcement to the dhs. And by the way, thats what this questions about, but i have an introduction before i ask you this specific question. Yet less than a month later youh testified before this committeee about how i. C. E. Employees must every day exercise prosecutorial discretion and focus the l agencys limited resources and the words limited resources were yours in order to ensure the deportation of of of removals of im sorry here. Just a minute. Well, anyway, we have the removals of criminal aliens for fiscal year 2015 were down 22 from fiscal year 2014 and down 38 from fiscal year 2012. And then removals of criminal aliens from the interior of ther country as opposed to the border for fiscal year 2015 were down 27 for 2014 and down 53 for 2012. And yet you willingly gave away 100 million despite your repeated complaints about how 1m youre doing the best you can with limited resources. Pe so, my question is how do you justify this reprogramming and how many additional criminal aliens could have been taken off the american streets with 113 million that you dont now have in your budget . Yo [ inaudible ] mike. Yeah. Im sorry. Thank you. Yeah. Thats i think the number you stated is out of our six plus billion dollar budget. We can always use resources. We im not familiar specifically with i think these are dollars that went to the department. Stayed within our department and its overall Border Security and wi Public Safety mission. But as you know, our bed numbers which have been typically been holding at 34, 35,000 in prior years were down this past year. And as a result we had some excess dollars. And mind you its not our effort at i appreciate every dollar we get. Our effort with respect to our Mission Overall is removal. It is not detention or Holding People unnecessarily. We make these decisions on filling the beds. We made our decisions throughout the year as judiciously as decin possible and we still ended up e with some excess money. W and the department has an excess overall Public Safety mission and Border Security mission that could have used that, and i trust did wisely. Going back to your testimony before this committee in july, you said that your agency welcomes, quote, welcomes any 287g partners, end of quote. You then conceded that there had indeed been an increase in 287g participation but you said, quote, its not because the u. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement not wanting that partnership, its because jurisdictions have either withdrawn or not coming to the table anymore, end of quote. And yet in response to a question for the record on this subject, the department revealed that there are ten jurisdictions in seven states with applications that have been pending for years. One has been pending since 2008. Seven have been pending since 2010 or 2011. 2010 and two have been pending since 2012. How can you say, then, that the decrease in 287g Program Participation is, quote, because jurisdictions have either withdrawn or not coming to the t table anymore, end of quote, when there are ten jurisdictions whose applications have been pending for years . You know, senator that the io secretary having mike. Pending third times the charm. Ill do it next time. You know, senator that the secretary looked from the first day that he came on board has been looking at every aspect of our Immigration Enforcement efforts. And 287g is one of them. We had this whole upheaval with respect to secure communities, lots of litigation. Got bogged down in things and we needed to move forward, thats why we came up with p. E. P. Withd respect to those jurisdictions that werent coming back to the table. But we are currently considerine whether or not it makes sense at this point now that we have six months under our belts of p. E. P. To expand 287g and the secretary and i will be discussing that further. Okay. Well, then, when would you plan to adjudicate along the lines of what you just said youre lan to looking at and that will be my last question . Were actually in the midst of it now. I think the senator from minnesota was here before you were. Senator from minnesota . And then im going to turn it over to senator sessions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director saldana, welcome and thank you for coming today. Ks before i turn to my questions, id like to draw your attention to two letters that i have sent to i. C. E. And to dhs. One joined by 18 of my colleagues on the question of whether i. C. E. Is interfering with the ability of mothers and children held in family g Detention Centers to access legal representation. Many of us have argued that ther administration should end the presumptive detention of these families who are fleeing violence in their own countries counas and seeking asylum here. But on the other hand its absolutely necessary that i. C. E. Not hinder families from receiving pro bono counsel. Ive yet to receive a response to these letters. Will you commit to me today that youll take a look into this matter and provide me the requested information . Of course. May i share with you a couple of points in that regard right now absolutely. And we have, like, 500 congressional inquiries any given year. Thats not an excuse, but i ye apologize for any delay. And we are actually improving ir our turnaround time and were going to keep working at that. You are familiar im sure with k the California District Court ye decision, judge gees decision, in the flores case, which has significantly impacted our dealing with, processing undocumented immigrants particularly family units. Children and unaccompanied children. We are appealing that decision,r but in the interim the judge gave us until october 23rd to de come into compliance with its principal elements and it overall. Ash gi and we have done so. What it has impacted us most is we are now from the time a person is booked in to the timee we with respect to family meh units, the judge has imposed more or less a 20day ly u requirement as long as were a y dealing expeditiously we might have to take longer than that, but we are actually meeting that. We have essentially turned the family detention as a result oft that decision, once again, we are appealing it, because we believe it has impacted our flexibility we need in enforcing our Immigration Laws. But we are complying with that decision and it essentially has turned us from detention with respect to family units into tuu essentially processing folks, to getting the biometric data and getting them physical to examinations, getting them medical examinations, getting ex them off in an orderly manner and that turnaround is about 20 days. It had averaged before this decision about 60 days. Although there were some that is 2 were much longer than that. Before that i had issued a directive in may of several things i wanted done this was my fifth month on the job. And i directed our field officee directors and everybody out there and assured the American Public that we were doing some things to take a close look at family detention. Again, judge gees order has at impacted that to some degree bur i was asking for more reviews of why people were staying in ng fr custody beyond 90 days and periodic reviews thereafter. Thats not happening anymore under judge gees decision. I set up a family advocacy, advisory group, a member of whom of which is here with us today, mr. Rosenbloom, and it is a starstudded list of people i the area of detention and familn units and social services and wi enforcement a crosssection of those, i keep getting complimented on the people represented there who are goingt to be helping us in an advisoryo capacity as we move along family detention issues top to bottom g including legal access. Im a lawyer. As a prosecutor i much referrede having a lawyer on the other side than having a pro bono representation because we could get along and move the case forward. I believe than p a pro bono representation are lawyers, i mean no, thats what im saying. So i prefer to have a lawyer even in this context. Our lawyers prefer to have lawyers on the other side. And i want to ensure legal o access to our folks, and weve done some things already, including including additional space, making sure everybody understands the rules of the road, and working in constant communication with oure working groups so we have an Advocacy Working Group including the aclu and ala who are talking to us about what they need more with respect to legal access. So, yes, i look forward to withl pulling your letter and making sure we get you a more timely response but i least wanted to make those points to you. Imely okay, well, thank you. But i my time has expired, but i appreciate your getting back reading those and getting back to me on them, okay . Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, new mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator cornyn, i yield to you, whip, and will yield to senator durbin next if you need to go, you got a short period of time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary saldana, thanks for being here, and you know of my regard for you and for your professionalism and the way saa youve discharged your responsibilities as United States attorney, youre right, i did warn you before you took this job that not only was it very difficult, the complexity involved, but you would be instructed by your superiors on the basis of politics what laws to enforce and which laws not to enforce. And so i have some sympathy wito your challenge, but no sympathya for thE Administrations failure to enforce the law. Sanctuary cities where all were asking for local Law Enforcement to do is to share information and to honor federal detainers and the like, an effort to reform that situation in light n of the kate steinly case out in San Francisco was blocked by our friends across the aisle. Something i think was a big, big mistake to do. You alluded to the detention policies with regard particularly to the unaccompanied minors and the c or those who were with the single adult. And i know you are constrained by some of the litigation thate gone on, but the fact is, as ive discussed with secretary johnson and you, that if theres no consequences associated with entering the United States ing illegally and you will be simply processed as you said youre doing now and then released, then there is no deterrence andn people will not return for theid Court Ordered removal hearing. So, as i think a number of us have tried to communicate both to you and secretary johnson and to the president himself, this failure to this perception that the president is not dedicated to enforcing the lawst that congress has passed as perhaps most egregiously evidenced by the executive ce by action he took, has undermined Public Confidence in the federal governments ability to enforce or willingness to enforce our Immigration Laws on the books. He and what it has done is to undermine our ability to actually fix what i think you and i both would agree is broken in our Immigration Laws. Because Public Confidence has dissipated. Gree is but i just want to give you give you ask you one question about unaccompanied minors. Were starting to see another uptick from Central America and we realize the circumstances under which those children and their families are fleeing. And i previously commented i think that its hard to imagine how bad things must be before aa mother or a father would put a minor child in the hands of Transnational Criminal Organizations and be smuggled li from Central America up on the back of the beast through mexico and into the United States. Many of whom would be assaulted, robbed, killed, or injured perhaps fatally. F but i think one of the things that concerns me the most aboutn the Current Situation is there is no comprehensive background check for the sponsors for these unaccompanied minors. And we found out as a result ofn whistleblowers coming forward that some of these children are being put not only in custody of noncitizens but people with criminal records, some of which are evidence involvement in trafficking and other crimes and potentially subjecting these children to exploitation or worse. And i know i think i know you as a person of strong conscienc and very professional as i said earlier. But doesnt that bother you, that the u. S. Government would y be placing children in the handi of people with criminal records and people who have not been ao adequately screened and who may, in fact, be continuing the exploitation of these children that we know are supported by some of these Transnational Criminal Organizations that are engaged in illegal smuggling and Human Trafficking . D of course, senator. Tr of course, it bothers me. I have learned, as you i have read, as you have learned, aboun those allegations that are being made. I do remind you, if youre soliciting my opinion, ive given it to you, but i do remind you that i. C. E. Is not in the children placement business. We turn over any children we to health and Human Services. To health and Human Services. They are the ones who place the children and have the policies with respect to that. Im going to look further into this just because i am at least interested as an american citizen and ask questions about that and see if theres anything we could do to help. But it is its more these questions and what can be done about it are more appropriately i think directed towards the department of health and Human Services. Y well, you happen to be the witness, so im asking you. Ou ae i understand health and Human Services role in all of this but i dont think its very heio satisfactory to the american tio people to have federal officials, whether they be politicians or whether they be appointed officials, say thats not my job and im not going to have any im not responsiblei so, i do appreciate your willingness to look into this further, and i hope we can have more of a conversation about this and how do we get to the i bottom of this. But to me it demonstrates, justt like the sanctuary cities situation, where many of the criminals who are not removed al a result of sanctuary cities policies, in fact, prey on and exploit the very minority communities that we say were trying to protect. We try and here these children are being exploited and preyed upon perhaps by human traffickers and others who would exploit them as a result of policies that we the view perhaps some people view as beneficent or helpful to them, in fact, trapping them in an unspeakable situation. So, i look forward to our continued conversation. Hemnspea thank you. Would thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you very much for your testimony. The june 27th, 2013, on the floor of the United States he senate we passed a comprehensive Immigration Reform bill with 68 votes bipartisan bill. Senator flake and i sat for months working on the details of that bill. The i thank him for that. And i thank him for our effort to pass this bill. Many of the people who are critical of this Administration Today voted against that bill. Voted against comprehensive Immigration Reform. One of the requirements under our bill was for those who are undocumented in the United States who wish to continue to reside here and work here come o forward and face a criminal background check. Would that help us root out the criminals who are among the wita undocumented population so they could be deported . You need to turn on your microphone again. Orted it makes imminent sense, senator. As i said, as a United States attorney i enforce 3 ,000 laws. D heres the compendium of laws which bind us by our process to engage in. Its extraordinary even with a s lawyer of 30 Years Experience that i am, that i have. So, i would hope that despite Public Communications that ive heard that we still go forth and forward with Immigration Reform because this is hearing a bit here and a bit there is just not going to get us there. And clearly with an estimated 11 million undocumented illion comprehensive Immigration Reform required them to come forward and face a criminal background e check in order to continue to reside in this country and to work in this country. And i hear your testimony that that would have been a real step forward in making america safer. Rktr it was opposed by many of thosea who are questioning you today on this panel. It also would have made a dramatic new investment in Border Security between the United States and mexico. Some of us thought it was excessive. Ment i we voted for it in order to get a bipartisan majority. Were spending roughly now 3. 6 billion a year on Border Security. Immigr the Immigration Reform bill that was opposed by several members o of this panel would have increased that to 46 billion from 3. 6 billion. It would have increased the number of Border Patrol agents from the current 20,000 to 38,000. Border patrol agents. A we wouldnt have had to build mr. Trumps wall. We were basically going to achieve with that bill ld verification of the background of people in the United States, th criminal background, and we would have had a much stronger Border Security. And yet many of those who are criticizing you today voted against that which is very difficult to understand. Nst that let me ask you this question, if i can, theres going to be testimony from a witness in the next panel suggesting that the number of people being deportedg by your agency has gone down upt though the evidence of crime has gone up. How do you respond to that . Has o as i said in my opening, that is true. About twothirds of our people in our national docket, sir, pot come from cbp apprehensions, those at the border and ports of entry. About twothirds of them. They are down significantly wait a minute, let me stop you. Po why are they down significantly . Well, i would you know, i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder but i would say its because of effective enforcement and the fact that we sent a message that you should not cross the border. Fewer people are trying to cross the border, is that what youre saying . Yes. If the number of apprehensions which i believe is a rational a argument represents is t proportionate to the number are trying to come across are reflective of the number trying to come across, yes, they are down and i trust our message has gotten across. So, twothirds of those wotd deported are apprehended at or near the border and youre saying fewer are coming across the border so there are fewer being deported . Yes, i think the cbp number is down dramatically. Fewe i have a minute left. When secretary johnson asked for my vote of department of i Homeland Security i said not unless you promise youll come to broadview, illinois, on any friday morning. He did. Brought his son with him. I wanted him to meet with those th about to be deported and their families and im telling you no among those are some people that should have been deported no question, but among them as well were families being broken up er because the mother was ndocum undocumented and the rest of the household were american citizens. When you have young people who yo were apprehended and deported with no criminal record whatsoever that to me was a atsr waste of our resources. Tell me where your focus is in terms of i. C. E. Deportation when it comes to distinguishing between criminals and children o between felons and families. The secretarys priority make announcement of november 20th last year make very clear what and reflect what the president has talked about, and that is, not breaking up families. T ot bre what is more effective for fami Immigration Enforcement, the removal of a mother and two children who are causing no hare to a community or a convicted en child molester . That is where were focused and thats what were continuing to do and im pleased with the numbers even though theyre overall the removals are down, again, the reasons for it i en e believe, but im pleased with the numbers of the percentage of apprehensions of and removals of criminals. Thank you. Thank you. Well, to rehash the bill, i would just note that the Association Head and the i. C. E. Head Officers Association chris clane and on the customs and Immigration Service council of l law officers said this about that bill abou this is an antiPublic Safety bill and an antiLaw Enforcement bill. We urge all lawmakers to opposei final cloture and vote today to oppose the bill. They issued that statement on. The day it came up for vote. To they went on to say, i. C. E. Officers and uscis adjudications officers have pleaded with the lawmakers not to adopt this bill but to work with us on real, he effective reforms for the American People. H thats who we represent. Fo the American People. They go on to say, quote, the proposal will make americans less safe, will assure more illegal immigration, especially visa overstays and so forth. It goes on further. I just would say that this was not a solution. We hear the talking points aboun the comprehensive bill, but when you read the details, these officers were correct. And i would note that as a result of the denial of the i. C. E. Officers rights and duties to enforce the law effectively, they sued your predecessor mr. Morton in federal court for denying them the right to conduct lawful activities. T to c and theyve also been reported i they have the lowest morale of any agency in the federal government. Sir, theyve lost that at the fifth circuit i know for sure and i dont think its gotten much further. Well, its a very unusual lawsuit, ive never heard one, where law officers sue their supervisors for claiming they block them from doing their duty. H it just shows how badly the situation is and how little enforcement. T with regard to the budget, you made reference to turning back 113 million that you did not spend. With the under the fy15 budget, do you know how much i. C. E. Received for detention removal and transportation of aliens . I cant give you the number off the top of my head. Not its 34,000 beds. 3,431,000,000 according to the numbers i have. I would just know that its my t understanding that the 113 million came from that specific account, which was for detention, removal, and transportation of aliens. According to the information weve obtained in 2011 your heln agency, i. C. E. , removed 150,000n criminal aliens from the interior. F in 12 fiscal year 12 it in1 dropped to 135,000, in fiscal year 13 it dropped to 110,000 and in fiscal year 15, this year, we believe the number is only around 63,000. Do you agree with that . Those numbers . [ inaudible ] of criminal removals they sound about right. Well, thats a dramatic reduction by far more than half. So, youre actually removing half less than half as many criminal aliens as you were in l just 2011. And as i turning back money that you were given for that very purpose. Return well, sir, a big portion of that is detention, which doesnt necessarily get us to removal every time. But as i said earlier, i am heartened i would like my hands on every criminal alien whos in the country illegally and to be able to remove them. This is what i have done as a prosecutor and this is what i did as a United States attorney. Neither i nor the women and men who work for i. C. E. Would let go of a criminal alien if they had a basis for it, a final order of removal and the ability to remove them so did you make the decision what kind of criminal offenses qualify for removal or was that made before you or above you . Thats in the statute, sir. The senate the congress you are using discretion to i say there have to be more than two misdemeanors or a felony fy before you basically remove people. Other people that are here that commit major traffic offenses and so forth if theyre here illegally are not being removed, isnt that right . The removal the only thing i was saying with respect to the statute, the group of people that can be removed are defined there. Yes, the secretary and myself now as the director of i. C. E. Are focusing on those in the november 20th memorandum, those three priorities i mentioned in my Opening Statement, which are mostly criminals. And, again, sir, once again 59 of all of those that were removed were criminal aliens. That is a recordbreaking percentage of the people that we removed. Forgive me if that doesnt make me feel good because the numbers are dropping dramatically. Ecause so, youre dropping down on other removals and youre defining upward what you other consider to be criminal and youre saying it makes up a nsir larger percentage of the very i much smaller pie, isnt that correct . Yes, sir. Pi but all i ask you to do is give the American Public some perspective here. The were talking about apprehensions being down substantially. Ension i would like to think and i believe truly that that is a reflection of effective enforcement, that people trying to cross the border are going se down. So, if the numbers are going down, it also reflects the number of apprehensions and the largest part of our apprehensions are from border and well, a number of years we forced a good bit more expense and hired a good number of morew agents, and i trust we have seen a reduction of attempts. We made it somewhat harder. But the difficulty as senator h cornyn said is when you accept ha people other than mexicans and allow them to be released in the country, pending some sort of r deporting situation, then youre encouraging there. I really worry about that. My time is up. I believe its senator klobuchar. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you, ms. Saldana, for very difficult work and your hard work. Im a former prosecutor and i worked with Law Enforcement for eight years in that job, and obviously we had cases where we worked with federal authorities on deportation. And could you talk about the Priority Enforcement Program in terms of the coordination with Law Enforcement, where do you think the strength are, where do you think could be changed to make it better . Well, it is and let me make sure we understand. We work with about 3,000 jurisdictions across the nationn we have identified, oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300plus who had at the beginning of this Priority Enforcement Program not been cooperating with immigration and Customs Enforcement in connection with apprehensions of individuals from different jurisdictions around the country. Yes, undocumented immigrants there. Uhhuh. So we have set out, everyone, top to bottom, the secretary has assured and charged us with a mission to set out to work with those state and local noncooperating jurisdictions. S and as i said earlier, weve made tremendous progress. We have about 56 of those jurisdictions have now come back to the table. That represents about 76 i think of all our previously declined detainers. Thats tremendous progress, and thats six months. Over what period . In six months. Uhhuh. T were going to keep going at that. Were going to keep going at that, even with those we jurisdictions that have not come forward were going to continue working towards that objective. But as i said earlier, it is essential to our mission, not only our immigration mission, i but lets not forget i have Homeland Security investigations as well, hsi, on the investigative efforts there. We need good, sound relationships. We dont need to be at loggerheads with one another. Thats what were working forward. I always said victims of crimes and their families didnt sa care who handled the case whether it was local or state oe federal, they just wanted us to get the job done and i think the fe worst thing is when people are fighting with each other over whose jurisdiction it is, i appreciate that. Senator durbin touched on this e but i keep hearkening back to the comprehensive reform and the money we had in there as he the pointed out for much more Law Enforcement at the border and their help in adjudicating cases and other things. That was a major piece of the bill, in addition to having an orderly process for a very, very lengthy path to citizenship as well as making it more straightforward for legal immigrants. We have a huge in our state,n as senator franken knows, well have a case where someone will come in legally to work at a dairy and they want to bring their spouse in, theyre allowea to, but then their spouse cant work for seven years in a town where the Unemployment Rate is 1 . So, could you go through on the immigration side in terms of your jurisdictions just how more particularly than when senator durbin asked the question, just how this would help you to do your job if we were to pass a comprehensive bill. Well, ive mentioned some of the obstacles that we have to our enforcement. We cannot have removals of the people were focused on without a final order of removal. Weve got courts that are have very few judges compared to a two million plus docket, national docket, there are two million plus undocumented immigrants on that docket and very few courts to handle it. We have a current state of laws that is just very difficult to work with, and truly takes an expert to navigate, never mind k persons who have lack the sophistication. So, its just essential to have all these jurisdictions working with us. Portant and as i said and i think, by the way, senator, i should apologize, i think i reversed the percentages on what k i saw there was action behind you. They are very angry with me back there. There was a flurry of action. So what is the correct percentage so we can make them happy and get it on the record and not be subject to Washington Post fact checker . Of those 300plus jurisdictions, about 76 in terms of raw numbers of jurisdictions have come to the table, and that have come to the table to work with you on these priorities on getting people into your jurisdictions . It translates into numbers of 56 of those previously declined are now being honored. Right. In some form or fashion. And 76 of the jurisdictions. Got it. Is that correct . Okay, good. Jur theres a lot of head nodding. Thank you very much. Very at odds with what you said earlier. Im joking. Yeah, hes kidding. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thanks, ms. Saldana. In a hearing earlier this year, in july i believe, you testified that the Law Enforcement notification system had been deployed in 11 states. You expressed confidence that it could be deployed in all states by the end of the year. Where do we stand now . Senator flake, thank you so much for asking me that question. Were at 100 . We got every all 50 jurisdictions on board and were communicating with those dates on a daily basis. How is that going . How have they received it . Well, of course, they would like us to the local sheriffs would like us to communicate directly with them. But this is really the process by going through a central database with the state proc government, we rely on them then to notify the local a jurisdictions like counties and cities. Right. As you know, we had the case in arizona, mr. Altamarino, where he was released, and then s murdered somebody soon after his release. He posted 10,000 bond after his immigration hearing, which meanr that he became obligated to report to i. C. E. Upon demand. At that time his most recent att criminal offense hadnt nt c triggered his obligation to report that demand is the problem there. He was released from i. C. E. Custody on january 7th, 2013, he was arrested for murder, took ea place on january 22nd of this year. During that time he received two injunctions against him. But there was no communication apparently between the agencies here. On may 28th of this year in response to a letter that i along with chairman grassley wrote, you stated theres no systematic process for state and local authorities to notify gr i. C. E. With an injunction or an order of protection that is served. If i. C. E. Had been aware of so f those two civil injunctions against this man, would i. C. E. Have taken any action . Every decision we make, sir, is based on all the facts and circumstances. Cis bas those are material facts. L the and if we had known that, it tel might have altered the decision. I cant tell you looking back e now whether it would have or not, that would be speculation,l but it would be something we very much would have taken into account. Is there a way you obtain this information if somebody has injunctions against them . It doesnt go the other way. It goes from federal with d respect to our releases to state and locals. So we have no way right now unless there is an effort at the local level to inform you. Well, also i have asked all our people and i will tell you that was part of the disturbing facts that got my t s attention on this matter. Is but ive asked all our field office directors, i got them all on the video telephone fie conference, and i said let us look at every flag, every nd possibility, in this case we didnt know about these th injunctions, but i want you to run down, where you have a question. Because i think the offense there he was convicted of was facilitation of burglary which t is a wobbler offense and could have been reduced to a misdemeanor. So, we said i have told them any flag that you see, take the time to run it down. And lets get all the information we can. To run its well continue to work with local jurisdictions to try thedo better. Get so, theres nothing preventing you from putting such a notification system in place where the information goes the other way, could that be whe required of i. C. E. Or would you need enabling legislation to require that kind of thing . To we to require state and locals to report to us . We have criminal databases. R what we dont have is these these orders necessarily which y are, you know, Family Matters as opposed to criminal data. Criminl in july you stated youd followup with us. We asked the number of denied doca requests that have resulted in deportations. My office has not received any. Of these numbers that your office or you said that you would give. Se do you have any of those numbers today . Yo i do not, senator. I that was july . Yes. We ill just ill have to pull that and get that. Thats probably going to be a manual search. I thate its already begun. I will get you a status on that as soon as we can. I would appreciate that. If theres a reason we cant gel these numbers, please let us know. But otherwise wed like to get those. Yes, sir. Weve not received those yet. You mentioned that effective ir enforcement is the key to oned reducing Border Apprehensions. I think we all recognize that. One such program thats been very effective in arizona is operation streamline particularly in the yuma sector the zero tolerance approach. But we hear that doj and i. C. E. Is pulling back on implementation of that program. How does that square with the recognition that effective enforcement actually helps in this regard, but when we have something that has been by all accounts effective an effective deterrent to apprehensions or border crossings, yet were pulling back on it . Well, operation stream line involves a streamline prosecution. Right. And thats obviously the u. S. Attorneys and the department of justice who have control over h that. You know, im not sure what the departments formal stance is on that, but as i understand it, i dont think operation streamline at least as of years past, did not distinguish on the status of the immigrant or the h facts or circumstances related to that person. So, if it doesnt meet our s and priorities, that would probably not not be in our view an effective measure. Ugh again, sir with the focus being on criminals and serious prior offenders, dangers to the a d community, reflection of dangers that represent dangers to Public Safety, if operation streamline in a particular area, i dont know how it operated in yuma, but if it just included any mom or pop, i think without distinguishing further, i think under our current priorities that would not be included. It thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks, mr. Chairman. Welcome, director saldana. I know youre familiar with the john jacques case. And i hope that your able staffr has informed you about some of the questions i have regarding john jacques. As you know, he is alleged to dd have murdered a 25yearold young woman in norwich, connecticut, Casey Chadwick, after his release from prison, having served 15 years for attempted murder. Having i. C. E. Failed to deport him as it should have done. Him ive asked for an investigation i the Inspector General. I hope that you will support and cooperate with an investigation. Absolutely. I understand Inspector General roth has you sent that referral to him. I have written to Inspector General roth along with two of my colleagues, senator murphy and congressman courtney, asking for an ig investigation. To my knowledge, i have not received a response. But i hope for your support and cooperation. Absolutely. We will do that. I will just say, just like any of these situations where you have somebody assaulted or injured or murdered, worse, its tremendously disturbing. I mentioned earlier, senator, and i think we briefed you, weve had at least some briefings with your staff on this particular matter. As disturbing as it is, this is one of the consequences of that decision where we cannot detain someone without end. The sabidas decision requires us in postcustody, postorder situation to release a person if theres no legitimate basis for believing somebody will be able to be removed. Without a travel document to haiti, this person would not have been able to be removed. Your questions have been directed to what efforts did we make. And we did make some efforts. Well, if i may if i may just interrupt. Number one, i have been totally dissatisfied with the briefings that weve received. The information has been completely inadequate. It has changed over time. And even now i feel that we have not received the full story, which is why i asked for the ig investigation. But number two, it isnt a question of whether he had to be released. Its a question of what was done to deport him. And why he is not back in haiti and Casey Chadwick still alive. Thats the real question here. And i accept your statement that some efforts were made, but they were abysmally and abhorrently inadequate and much more could have been done in my view and i believe the Inspector General investigation will demonstrate factually that much more should and could have been done. And i also want to know what broader problems this particular failing may have reflect. As i said, sir, we will cooperate with that investigation. I know it leaves you dissatisfied, the explanation. I think your concern is scoont o you have gone to the country an. Tried to make some efforts there locally. Ers. We did try to find family members this person, we could cd not locate him. T he was picked up on a boat coming from haiti. Is that correct . Su that may be, sir. Im not sure how he was apprehended. And without meaning to aompare the two, thE Administration has said that information is gleaned from various sources about refugees coming into this country, and i accept that representation, thar there are means to verify the origins of a person without the necessarily some document in that persons hands. And that could have been done here. And it you know, i wont argue with you on how much more could have been done. I will tell you that we have to rely on the country to accept those travel documents and to il put them in a form that they will accept their national back. Thats the frustration we have, is that there are a whole bunch of countries with which we have been trying to work to turn them around on this issue, to get usr travel documents for these people. Haiti does not have apparently the interest, the resources to s dosist us in doing that. And so we cant just drop them off without the country being in a position to accept them. A and thats what i am as frustrated as you are with somes of these countries that we havef these difficulties with. Apart from what haiti is or is not willing to do, i maintain, and i think the Inspector General investigation will affirm, that much more could have been done by i. C. E. . But if thats a problem, why havent you come to the f congress . Why havent you gone to the he state department . Haiti receives a lot of aid from this country and it has to be held accountable. Per ive personally been to the state department and met with te one of our the representatives there that helpe us with respect to these recalcitrant countries. We are making all kinds of efforts. The state department can be most helpful in this and im hopeful we can turn around some of these other countries. Which other countries have failed to cooperate . Theres a bunch of them, sir. China comes to mind. India. Can you give me some o examples . China comes to mind. T india. Theres quite a few. At the list is long. You can probably imagine some ol them. Hose those that have very unstable governments, those that have o cold relationships with us, many of those countries are not cooperating with us well but i can certainly provide you a current list. I would appreciate a list. And i would appreciate an answer as to what efforts have been made with those countries in tha first instance by i. C. E. And also by any other agency of our government to change those practices that resist taking back criminals who commit murder in our communities or other crimes. Because they have no business being here. And they give a bad name to all of the programs that you e. Administer. They undermine the credibility and legitimacy of our entire immigration effort. So, i look forward to the Investigation Report from the inspecter general. I want to thank you for being e here and answering my questions. I know that youre newer to this agency, and i commend your efforts in texas as a law enforcer and your efforts here to improve the performance of i. C. E. , so i want to thank you for being here today. Nk thank you, senator. Umenth thank you, senator blumenthal, it was a very excellent line of quefing. Ation i remember our former colleague, senator specter, introduced legislation both whe he was a republican and democrat, i believe, and his proposal was we stop admitting first, we stop w ofmitting any government officials other than the ador ambassador as long as they refuse to take back all people. We cut off aid. We could if its an essentiam part of immigration system i worldwide that nations work together. So, it cannot be accepted that nations refuse to take back ha criminals that have left their. Country after theyve been convicted. Of thats a part of basic and if they refuse to do that, then wei have the ability to push back. So, i would think i would appreciate it if you would consider, as senator blumenthal suggested, legislation, if e thats needed. And i believe, frankly, that you have plenty of powers that couly move the needle on this anyway. And finally, this is a longterm problem. And its costing us hundreds of millions of dollars, wouldnt you agree, ms. Saldana . Yes, sir, and it has been and agents and time and and efforts to go forward with thisn so, i think it is something tha we need to fix. And i appreciate you raising it and, mr. Chairman, if i can just add, i make these points as a longtime and passionate me pas supporter of Immigration Reform, providing a path to earned p citizenship for the 11 million r people who are now in the shadows, providing more h1b s visas as well as eliminating the abuses in that program, h2b visas, agricultural workers. I helped lead the of the in the sessions previously when we successfully advocated for longterm Immigration Reform in the United States senate, and there was an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority in favor of it and unfortunately it was never voted on in the house. But we can disagree even on this panel as to overall immigrationr reform, but this kind of glarins gap in enforcement and protection of our citizens i e think deserves immediate attention. And i continue to be an advocate of comprehensive Immigration Reform. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. And, ms. Saldana, is it not true that this refusal to take people back also raises the sabidas question, puts you in a position where you have to release people because you cant hold them anyb longer . Ec thats right. And that is the case here. So, its a big issue. You need you need to go to the cabinet member, mr. Johnson. And mr. Johnson needs to go to his boss, the president of the United States, and say, we nacc cant this is unacceptable e and were going to have to come up with a policy to deal with these countries, in my opinion. Thats my suggestion. And let us know if you need you have legislation youd like to see proposed. I appreciate that. Now, thE Administration has claimed that congress only appropriates enough resources to remove the approximately 4 av 00,000 aliens in the fiscal year, in one fiscal year. Yet in 2014, i. C. E. Removed only 315,000. That includes interior removalsl and border protection, border r patrol removals after they are a apprehended near the border. In fiscal year 2015, the number of removals was only 235,000. Of which only 63,000, as we o noted before, were criminal bliens, people who committed crimes, like in San Francisco, kate steinle and senator blumenthals example. Thats thats a dramatic drop from the 150,000 criminals removed in 2011. So and do you know what the your budget for removal and detention was in 2011 . B i have the number. Back in 2011, nope, i dont, sir. 2. 6 million billion. U billion. And what about this year . Its gone up to 3 . 4 billion ase as we noticed. Even though inflation is up and budget deficits are high, Congress Found considerable amount of extra money for you. You didnt spend it all. And you removed far fewer persons. So, my question to you is, not what happened at the border, not whats happening there, but our focus today is primarily on removal of criminal aliens. And there still remains Something Like 11 million here illegally, people enter the country illegally every day and illegal those undocumented aliens here in our country are committing crimes every day. It seems to me thats an unacceptable decline in prosecutions and removals. As i said earlier, sir, again, were were were affected by the apprehensions at the border and ports of entry. Thats a substantial number. But were also affected by changing demographics. The fact that we have increase in these in these families. There are all kinds of levels of due process that are afforded them by the statute, by the courts, and that tend to delay removals. And we and thats why were working so hard on this p. E. P. Effort to try to make sure that were reaching as many jurisdictions as we can, even though the number is large right now, we want them all. Well, i thought your answer to senator flakes excellent question about operation streamline was not adequate. And i also believe your answers to senator grassleys questions. About 287g, this drop from 71 agreements with local law agrercement to 31, is very troubling and unacceptable and we have to have better cooperation with local law la enforcement, and we need to see what works at the border. The American People want they want they are tired of trying arguing over means and problems. They want to see some actions and some positive results. Sitive senator cruz, i yield to you. Lda thank you, senator sessions. , ms. Saldana, welcome. The last hearing we had that yot testified we discussed in 2013 s how the Obama Administration had released over 104,000 criminal illegal aliens. At that hearing you misstated that number by a factor over two. Ber by and indeed in 2013, we discusse. How the Obama Administration released 193 illegal aliens with homicide convictions, 426 Sexual Assault convictions, 1,075 03 aggravated assault convictions,8 9,187 dangerous drug convictions, 16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions, and 303 flight escaped convictions. At that hearing i asked you how many murderers and rapists here illegally was the Obama Administration releasing. And you did not know. A i think you asked me for the day before . Yes. Yes. I did not know that specific number for the day before. So, let me ask you, in the several months since that last hearing, how many murderers . Here illegally has thE Administration released. Well, you missed the part, sir, earlier, when i discussed the fact when you say the Obama Administration released, and i presume youre talking about i. C. E. And the agency that enforces the Immigration Laws. You missed my testimony earlier where i discussed that twothirds of these releases for 2015 were not within the control of i. C. E. The immigration courts, we dont play in this sand box alone. The immigration courts are a big part of that. Ms. Saldana, i asked a specific question. How many murderers has thE Administration released . In the last year, let me give it to you by fiscal year, 15, i believe they are homicide related, thats not just murder, thats negligent homicide, et cetera, there are about 197. 197 in the last year. How about Sexual Assaults . Sexual assaults, we have a chart broken down by crimes, sir. I dont have that chart with me. But we can certainly provide it to you. And does that include drunk driving . Do you know how many drunk driving . Yes, it does. Well, since the hearing last july, thE Administration has released information that indicates its even worse than what we discussed in july. In particular senator sessions and i along with several other senators on this committee sent a letter to secretary johnson asking about i. C. E. s socalled Priority Enforcement Program. Response, a letter that without objection i would like to introduce into the record. Without objection. In that letter, the Administration Made a number of rather stunning admissions. That letter indicated that at the end of fiscal year 2015, there are 918,369 nondetained illegal aliens who are present in the United States or on their own recognizance, have been ordered to leave the country by a final order of removal, but havent done so. That means there are essentially 1 million illegal aliens who have been ordered to leave, havent done so, and are living freely here. Why is i. C. E. Not deporting those 1 million illegal aliens . Senator, that part of my answer before, when i talked about this issue, we have a number of obstacles in our way to remove people. We cant remove people without a final order of removal. All of those have final orders of removal. May i finish . Im just pointing out that the first obstacle you list is not relevant to the 918,369 that have final orders of removal. May i finish . Please do. Final order of removal and appropriate travel documents. I just do not believe, sir, youre from the great state of texas, where we understand the real world, and i cant believe you would think that either i myself who has spent ten years, even before i came here, as a United States attorney and assistant United States attorney in texas, running down every criminal i could and putting them in prison for as long as i could, based on the justification of the crime, that you would think that the women and men of i. C. E. Or myself urne would turn their backs on the deportation of a criminal alien who needed to be removed. Needed we are removing every one we ca under the law. This law provides for a lot of l due process and a lot of avenuet for requesting relief. Every decision we make can be looked at by an immigration judge and reversed or enhanced or decreased. It is not just ms. Saldana, with respect, what you are saying there consists of non sequiturs. Your First Response was you needed a final order of deportation, which we have over 900,000 that have already received that. I will tell you, i speak over and over again to i. C. E. Agents, to Border Patrol officers, who are demoralized, who are disspirited, by the Political Leadership of the Obama Administration that doesnt let them do their jobs, over and ami over again, in the state of texas. In in i speak to brave men and women that are risking their lives to keep us safe. Men we lets look further. You said we should not impugn the willingness to enforce the law. There are roughly 1 million illegal aliens that have orders of deportation that you have not deported. Its not just that. T. Beyond that, of the 36,007 the criminal illegal aliens that i. C. E. Freed from custody in fiscal year 2013, 1,000 of themm have gone on to commit new new so tes. So these are criminal illegal aliens, released from custody, that have committed new crimes. Of those 1,000, how many of those have been deported . I dont have that number rim. Readily at hand. I can run that down, sir, and get it to you. Between fiscal year 2009 andr fiscal year 2015, the Obama Administration released 6,151 criminal aliens who were specifically convicted of a e tw sexual offense. Why is i. C. E. Releasing any illegal aliens who have been convicted of a sexual offense . En sir, you missed that part of my testimony earlier. You m before your arrival here, i explained clearly that about ea twothirds of the folks who have been released, you keep referring to the obama the folk administration releasing them. Fn that is really a mischaracterization and is misleading to the public. About twothirds of those were thther under the United States Supreme Court decision which wed cannot we follow the law, ant the Supreme Court, and excuse me a second. You said you follow the law. Help me understand then why president obama has issued executive amnesty refusing to follow the law. Which one is it . Does thE Administration follow the law or if the president disagrees with the law, does he say he will ignore it . You and i have a disagreement with respect to that constitutionality. You know that the department of justice has issued an opinion with respect to that. And ill tell you this, sir. You also missed my testimony ny that there is a complex act here that does not leave us a whole lot of room for i mean, room every probably every illegal alien could be removed, but lien thats 12 Million People or 15 million, depending on what estimate you look at. I dont think anybody who thinks i do we can go around rounding up people, as grateful as i am for our budget, believes that we can go and do that under that budget. There are reasons to make wise and smart and effective immigration priorities which thd secretary announced last november 20th. Were going about it in a smart way. A we are not sacrificing children when we can remove a criminal alien. Remove any criminal alien that has not been removed, i feel fairly confident there is a very good a explanation that comes under this very statute that the ther senate and the house has left us with. I have called for and will hat continue until i leave, the day i leave this office, to ask, bew you all to consider comprehensive Immigration Reform, may i just finish ms. Saldana, i recognize that politically thE Administration supports amnesty for people who are here illegally. The American People dont agree with thE Administration on that. You are charged with following the law. Ee on the law that congress has actually passed, not the policy views of president obama that os contradicts the law. P now, you mentioned a minute ago that i. C. E. Could deport the 12 Million People here illegally. N why is it not doing so . I havent run the numbers, sir, but i believe the congressional budget offices has. Ngressio and were talking about billionc and billions of dollars to do that. That is not practical and that is, quite frankly, not very smart. Okay. Its not smart to enforce federal law that requires those here illegally to be deported. Youre playing games with words, senator cruz. And im trying to help the American Public and this committee understand my job. Wori am you are not helping the American Public by ignoring the law. Let me ask you a question, ms. Saldana. The you said its not very smart and its impractical to enforce the law. Thats not what i said. How many aliens did the bills Clinton Administration deport . I dont know, sir. I didnt work with that e. Administration. Let me answer the question for you. In eight years the bill Clinton Administration deported 12,290,905. Is it the position of the Obama Administration that the bill Clinton Administration was not very smart because it deported 12 Million People . T is it the position are you serious about this question . You just said its not very smart to use i. C. E. s resources to deport aliens. To fo you are misrepresenting my testimony. You tell me what was not very smart. Just as a United States attorney i could not enforce 3,000 laws, including migratory fowl act, with 100 attorneys covering 1,000 square miles. I had to make tough decisions. Did i want every person who had broken one of those 3,000 laws . Yes, i did. Ingly if the Clinton Administration could enforce the laws and deport over 12 Million People with a smaller budget than yours budget, why is the Obama Administration unable or unwilling to enforce the law and do the same . I big to differ with you, sir. But thiS Administration is enforcing the law. I and its enforcing in a very smart way with respect to the resources that we have. Aw, w and ms. Saldana, if thiS Administration is enforcing the law, what should president obama say to Kate Steinles parents, to Kate Steinles father, who held his daughter in his arms and heard her last words, help me, daddy . I dont know what the obama S Administration would do. But i met with jim and brad ene, steinle, i met with them and wam extraordinarily impressed by them. Their they expressed their views and o feelings to me. I listened. What i admired their stamina and their ability to in their moments of mourning and grief, to be able to articulate to me what a beautiful person she was and how they would like to see e some changes, which is exactly l how i opened this testimony. Ikes i would like to see changes to the entire immigration system w code, which is supports a system that is broken and that just is not effective. Just yet we dont seem to be getting that from congress. Ms. Saldana, when you met with the steinle family, did yo apologize to them on behalf of the president for his supporting policies that have created es ta sanctuary cities across this country that led directly to the murder of their daughter . At ledt i disagree with you that thats a statement of fact, sirr and i did not express that. I did t that a you did not apologize . I did express my condolences for their loss. D but condolences are one thing. A apologizing for the direct consequences of the failures of the Obama Administration apoloi policies are another. The obam im curious, after meeting with Kate Steinles family, do you now support kates law, the he s legislation i introduced to prevent another young woman like kate steinle from being murdered by an aggravated felon felo reentering this country over and over again and being welcomed into a sanctuary city like san d francisco . I support a whole restructuring of this statute, sir. Thats what i support. I do not believe that piecemealt efforts here and there, bandaids placed on this massive problem, is going to do it without comprehensive this Immigration Reform. To i would like to see you supportr that. Ms. Saldana, i want to understand your testimony correctly. Are you saying no, you do not support kates law . I have you also missed my testimony as to why i cannot support an effort to i believe thats the one that increases the e thats it is a mandatory minimum ofa five years for an aggravated felon who illegally reenters ia this country, just like the murderer who murdered kate steinle. Last time i checked there was very close to a majority of illegal aliens in our current hh prisons. And i think youre very much aware of the state of our current prisons and the fact that theyre busting at the seams. I do not believe your position is enalty i do not believe that increasing the minimum penalty is going to be the most effective thing. The most effective thing to do with our Immigration Laws is to reform the entire code. So i want to make sure that i understand the answer to your question. Understa your answer, if i understand it correctly, is no, you do not support kates law; is that correct . I dont support just putting a bandaid on the issue. On the i think we ought to have the backbone ms. Saldana, youre a very experienced lawyer. You know how to answer a question. Im asking a very simple yes or no. Sir. Do you support kates law . Ive already answered, sir. Is your answer no . Y ive already answered, sir. All right. You want to play games, thats fine. I will say an administration that refuses to follow the law, that releases murderers, rapists, violent criminals, that has roughly 1 million illegal aliens subject to orders of deportation, and yet you say yon cant enforce the law, there is a reason the American People are so frustrated with Law Enforcement officials that are charged with protecting them, who refuse to do their duty. And i will say on behalf of thousands of i. C. E. Officers and agents and on behalf of thousands of Border Patrol agents who are frustrated out of their minds at a political ut of administration that will not let them enforce the laws, the American People are ready for leaders that takes seriously the obligation to protect this country. Mr. Chairman, i came at the beginning of and i had my five minutes. And i just feel that we just had 13minute question and answer that i think in some ways was a kind of a little bit of a display. And i was wondering if i could have some time to do some other questioning. Do absolutely. G. As a matter of fact, we indicated you didnt desire to ask any questions, but no, i did. Thats all right. I did. My time was up, when my time wa up i yielded, because my time was up. But i would just say, i thought it was a very, very a effective elucidation of facts. And if the witness had answered directly, it wouldnt have gone on so long. So i recognize the senator. I guess i would just ask, the event in San Francisco was a tragedy, and we have a system wh that if we read all this testimony, there are limited ths resources. I will check on this 12 million statistic from the Clinton Administration. Im not sure i dont know where the senator got that. Im hes leaving now because hes had his time here. But it doesnt seem like thatss an accurate statistic. And so thats why i was saying it was a bit of a display. Can we get some kind of where that statistic came from . I mean, i know he, senator cruz, knows where he pulled that statistic from, but is there t anybody on your staff here t but the point is were going to hear testimony after this, in the second panel, about the use of resources and about the challenges that you have. We were talking about, when we a did the sentencing, about, you know, retroactive sentence reduction. Senator cruz did the same kind s of things, where he said that one of these people is going toa be released and murder somebodye and youll have blood on your hands. And its a tactic that basicallc says that in this country that we have, where awful tragedies happen, and choices are made with the resources we have, and sanctuary cities are sanctuary cities for a reason, because they believe that when people that when people in the community feel like they can say go to the police and sayn something without fear of them themselves being deported, that it makes the community safer. So, you know, you might ask, just as well ask senator cruz, do you apologize to someone who is in a city that isnt a cinctuary city where people dont come safe to come forward and therefore criminals are running on the street and they a murder somebody . There are real choices that are made here. Ody. And it just seems really an unfair tactic to take an event that was incredibly tragic and take it so out of context. So were going to have other witnesses. I dont want to ask you to speak to what we just saw, unless you witnd like to. Well, i would. As i said, i spent ten years ifl Law Enforcement before i arrive. At this agency. And i dont know which persons is spoken to. But everywhere ive been, and ive been to quite a few cities, weve got 26 essentially communities out there with area of responsibility that cover the entire country, and i see people who are at their desk, hard at work, and who appreciate being h able to go after the worst of the worst under the current priorities, and who dont complain about what they cant p do and are very pleased for what they can do. I am here to do a job. And i am very disappointed, not that it matters, that we are here rather than trying to makee my agency better, more effective, i want to work with anyone on either side of the aisle who has ideas to help us to do so, but that was not helpful. And thats what im here to do. I would invite senator sessionsi senator cornyn, senator flake i know has spent many hours on this. Consheyve got something constructive to suggest, im all ears. Well, we do have something to suggest. Lets forget all the other actions of thE Administration t not to enforce law that has s nt demoralized the i. C. E. Officers that you lead. Theres no doubt about that. They sued mr. Morton because they said his policies were blocking them from doing their d duty. Him ive never heard of anything m such as that. So when we have the situation of kate steinle, that shouldnt have happened. And this information should have been on San Francisco or found out if they committed any erroro in that happening, just like senator blumenthals example. Y when a person comes in, he committees an attempted murder, and serves 15 years in jail, ha. No roots in this country, you as ought to be sure hes deported. The law gives you that authority. And thats your responsibility. Ms. Saldana, you just cant sit. Here in this office and pretend that you dont control events. Youre going to have to assert yourself and make sure these countries take back these counr people. E on t youre going to have to make sure your officers are on top of these cities who are not cooperating. Im not sure in senator blumenthals case whether there was any problem with the locals cooperating or not. You have to be sure why didnt somebody pick this up and deport this person. Thats all im saying to you. Weve seen this. That weve seen that criminal deportations have dropped 58 over a few years, while all others have been dropping too, but you said this is our priority. Hers hav they dropped roughly 90,000, more than half, while your ping budget has gone up. Han so people are not happy about ho this. We want some productivity. Let me ask you one final question. This i think gets to the heart f of some of the issues we have here and the frustrations that we have here. The president has issued two executive amnesties in 2012 andh 2014 under both these programs, illegal immigrants, people are undocumented in the country improperly, can obtain work permits, photo i. D. s, Social Security numbers. Lets say we have an open job e. For a Forklift Operator in alabama, and it pays 15 an hour. Two applicants apply. The first is an american two apl citizen. The Second Applicant entered the country illegally and has received a president ial i. D. And work permit. Sives a p who has more right to that job . The american citizen, or the person who entered the country unlawfully . Well, once a person is given lawful status, sir, i leave it to the employer to decide who vt has more right to that job based on their qualifications. So the president then declares that those people have the same right. And do you support that . I support the employer having the right to make a decision between people who are lawfullyg in the country, whether a deci citizen or by other lawful means, to be able to make the t decision on who to select and get that job. And are you aware of that the immigration act, i. N. A. , says if people are not lawfully able to work in america . Im familiar with that provision, sir. In general. So the president just declares, despite the law, you t have the same right to work, will he be sued, or the employer says i want to hire the citizent i dont want to hire a foreign person that came to the countrye illegally despite what the president says, does he have idt that right . Sir, were mixing apples and oranges. You are assuming there is no re lawful status. I think youve already referred or the senator referred to it, s senator cruz, as amnesty. We have a fundamental disagreement with respect to that. I dont know that it serves you support the president s power to declare people without lawful work status, lawful . Even though the court has so far ruled otherwise . As the lower court, the District Court . Yes. Yes. And i think you understand, sir, because youve certainly had familiarity with this, there art avenues of appeal. H we are appealing that decision. Desupport the president , and i support the department of justice opinion, lengthy and su thorough and complete, that said that what he did was lawful and what the secretary did last november 20th was lawful. The judge, in a very long opinion, did not agree with that. We do need to go to the next panel. Thank you for your patience. I would just say the reason this is important is because this is a National Issue of importance to the American People. Youre at the center of this. Youre getting directions from above, i know that. S from but we expect the highest e. Performance out of your office and your supervisors. And quite frankly, sir, im f working every day, very long hours, to do that. Thank you very much. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . Thank you. Ation first, jessica vaughn. 199 she served as a Foreign Service officer with the state department. Next ms. Vaughn, do you want to do your Opening Statement now . Thank you for your contribution to these discussions. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to testify. N this is certainly an area that t is ripe for congressional oversight, because the obama ovh trministration is truly causing harm with its relentless effortn to undermine immigration rele enforcement, with the result that literally hundreds of en thousands of criminal aliens remain here in defiance of the law and in a position to harm en others. I just today want to summarize some of the latest statistics on Immigration Enforcement and removals and then discuss some of the reasons for these trends and also what this means for Public Safety in our communities. Ld diu to put it bluntly, right now pus Immigration Enforcement is in a state of collapse. Total deportations from the j,hs interior, and thats factoring o out the cvp apprehensions, have drastically declined and now are onethird of what they were jusd three years ago. Go. Thats the Border Patrol at the border . R patrthe bo yes. And also the legal ports of entry, they catch people sometimes coming in as imposters and so on. Thats down to about 72,000 in 2015. Criminal deportations, which as you noted are supposed to be the highest priority, and have been the near exclusive enforcement focus of the obama of administration, have also dropped by about half since adi 2012. Has dr last year i. C. E. Managed to bid deport just over 63,000 criminat aliens from the interior out of an estimated criminal alien lie population of more than 2 million. Estima arrests of gang members, and were talking about illegal aliens involved in gangs like ms13, again, something that is supposed to be a top priority, these arrests have dropped by more than half, from 4600 in 2012 to 1600 in 2014. What is the reason for this decline . Its not for lack of funds, as weve discussed. Congress has been responsive toe the public support for enforcement and provided a reasonable amount of funding, especially for programs to t remove criminal aliens. O its not because there are fewe. Criminal aliens to arrest. The size of the illegal immigrant population has not e o declined, and actually seems to seemncreasing. I. C. E. Has estimated there are about 2 million criminal aliens living in the country today. Its not because criminal aliens are hard to find. Ot this decline has occurred at a time when i. C. E. Has more decli resources and better systems to identify criminal aliens than ever before, including the universal interoperability with the National Fingerprint sharinp system known as secure communities. In recent years agents have been encountering record numbers of criminal aliens. Have the decline in criminal alien deportations can be traced to a series of policies that have ne been implemented by the Obama Administration with the specific goal of dismantling a fairly effective system of Immigration Enforcement so that only the most egregious criminals and immigration scofflaws are ws are subject to Immigration Enforcement, the socalled worst of the worst. The problem is that this overprioritization allows a lot of the worst to stay in our communities and continue causing problems. Enforcement has been suppressed in several ways. First of all, the prioritization scheme that restricts i. C. E. Officers in who they can process for deportation and when, and allows exemptions for a long list of things like having family members here, and the latest iteration of this is the p. E. P. Program that has drawn sn much criticism from Law Enforcement agencies. Wn so second, theyve suppressed the use of important tools like detainers, the accelerated forms of due process that avoid the need for long, drawnout proceedings in the immigration courts, and partnerships with o local Law Enforcement agencies. The result of these policies is that i. C. E. Officers end up ignoring perhaps as many as half of the criminal aliens that they encounter, or more. For example, one sheriff up in the northeast gave me a list of all the illegal aliens that have been booked into his jail sincet the beginning of 2014. There are 62 of them on this list. These 62 criminal aliens racked up 225 criminal charges, anywhere between one and 11 to c charges apiece. 225 about twothirds of them were c violent. Were not talking about traffics offenders or, you know, people who fail to appear for some kind of civil court thing. Were talking about attempted murder, rape, aggravated assault and so on. 20 of them had committed sex crimes of some kind. And this sheriff sends a letter to i. C. E. Every time an illegal alien is booked into his jail. And of course i. C. E. Would get the secure communities alert. But in the last two years, i. C. E. Has only issued detainers on five out of these 62 offenders. He says, we have to beg the federal government to do its job. Thats a local sheriff, begging the federal government to come take custody of criminals in his jails who are deportable. This is happening all over the country. ThE Administrations narrow prioritization policies have led i. C. E. To release criminal aliens at an alarming rate. The cumulative number of released criminal aliens that were once in i. C. E. Custody but who are now at large is up to 357,000. And meanwhile, the resources that congress has provided for their removal are going unused. Congress has given i. C. E. The resources to maintain a daily detention capacity of 34,000. But thE Administration has let almost onefifth of this capacity go unused, even as it releases criminal aliens every day. ThE Administration has declined to take action against the sanctuary jurisdictions that have set free more than 10,000 criminal aliens that i. C. E. Was seeking to deport last year. It allows other countries to refuse to take back its criminal deportees. And now under p. E. P. , it is allowing local governments to dictate when i. C. E. Will issue detainers and which types of criminal aliens will be targeted, creating a patchwork of hundreds of different deportation policies around the country. This is deliberate abdication oe the federal governments responsibility to enforce Immigration Laws and one that subjects American Communities to unnecessary harm from criminals who should not be here to beginr with and could be removed but are instead allowed to remain and victimize more people. Thank you, ms. Vaughn. Next we have johnathan thompsonf executive director of the National Sheriffs association, a national chairman. He previously served as director of external affairs for the department of homeland usly securitys federal emergency rvd management answering. Also previously served as Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member rankin. Ut into i hope my complete statement will be put into the record. I am johnathan thompson. As you said, i am executive vice director of the National Associ sheriffs association. We represent more than 3,000 sheriffs nationwide, from the smallest rural parish to the largest urban county. In my conversations with me sheriffs across the country, ad its become clear thE Administrations criminal alien removal policies are putting sheriffs in an untenable position, and in the words of deputy chief henry of pinal county, arizona, the current policies are institutionalizing systemic National Security defense issues. In light of these words, let me be clear about one thing. Sheriffs support the goal of removing criminal aliens from this country, and they stand ready to assist our federal partners in preserving our National Security. But sheriffs will not act outside the bounds of the constitution. Nor will they ignore their oathn of office. Any policy advanced by this E Administration must be unquestionably legal and within both those contexts, constitutional. Otherwise i must ask this. Which law do you want sheriffs to break . Unfortunately, the constitutionality of the key element of Priority Enforcement Program is at best unclear. There have been no legal opinions from the department of justice nor from any state attorneys generals. Disagreement has come from across the political spectrum. Attorneys all over the country d have taken different interpretations leading to a patchwork of local ordinances, state laws, and policy directives. Sheriffs are left with few options in responding to p. E. P. O each with significant risks to Public Safety and serious liability questions. This is unacceptable. Sheriffs have one simple request. The president should instruct the attorney general to put forth a written legal opinion on the constitutional questions surrounding p. E. P. E to continue ignoring the ques question only furthers the view of some that the president does not support state and local Law Enforcement. It is also imperative that the congress continue its act of oversight at the department of justice to ensure that legal opinion is issued. In the meantime, i would like to call to your attention specifically the davis oliver act, introduced by you, mr. Chairman, and congressman gowdy of the house. The bill would strengthen inform information sharing between dhs and the fbis National Crime dt Information Center database by requiring the inclusion of immigration violators, give state and local Law Enforcement some immigration powers, while also requiring them to share apl biological, biometric, and other information about violators with federal authorities, and create clear guidelines for criminal aliens custody transfer from ae state or local agency to the rn. Federal government. Senator, we commend you and for congressman gowdy for the introduction of this bill, we thank you very much. It the bill does not negate, however, that Immigration Enforcement is a federal responsibility, not a state one, not a local one. Ali too few criminal aliens are deported each year, and the priorities for deportation are simply too narrow. Even worse, some criminal alienr otherwise subject to removal end up back into our communities for lack of travel documentation or bureaucratic excuses. In august of this year, the Arizona Sheriffs Association issued a statement highlighting three violent criminal aliens released by i. C. E. In the state despite convictions of crimes including aggravated assault, kidnapping, and murder. These are Violent Crimes and violent criminals who should be deported, not allowed to terrorize our neighborhoods. Im critical of the policies pud forward by thiS Administration. But i want to emphasize that the many employees at d. H. S. And i. C. E. And cvp and elsewhere are committed to this mission of removing criminal aliens. Hampe i and the sheriffs in this country recognize those individuals are equally hampered by these policies and i applaud the work of local field offices. That collaborate with sheriffs. If the sheriff from iowa were here, he would tell you it is thE Administrations responsibility to help sheriffs better identify potentially dangerous aliens to ensure detention and removal processes are consistent and to establish policies that do not unduly burden our local jails or endanger our communities. I again encourage this committee and the congress to take meaningful steps. I am gratified to be here to help you in that process and we stand ready to do so, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Dr. Mark rosenblum, Deputy Director of u. S. Immigration program at the migration policy institute. Hes also associate professor ie Political Science at the Un University of new orleans. Usly previously dr. Rosenblum workedl at the Congressional Research service and as a Counsel Council of Foreign Relations fellow. He served on president obamas policy team in 2009. Dr. Rosenblum, we would be glad to hear your Opening Statement. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I will also summarize my th comments and request that my full statement be included in the record. It will be. D thank you. The United States has rce of m implemented increasingly forceful measures to combat illegal immigration since the y mid1980s, mostly by tighteningr Border Security, but also with programs to identify, dane, and deport unauthorized immigrants from within the United States. Recently these investments have paid off, as the u. S. As unauthorized population has declined by more than a Million People since 2007. As director saldana described, interior enforcement presents a number of challenges, because unauthorized immigrants are dispersed and therefore hard to locate, unlike at the border, there is no controlled space to conduct enforcement and agents have more limited authority. Enr interior enforcement is also expensive because it is laborintensive and time consuming. In light of these challenges, congress and successive president s have for decades sought to target enforcement resources on certain groups of removable noncitizens identified as High Priorities for for deportation. In authorizing legislation and appropriations bills, and in formal and informal executive branch policies, congress and president s of both parties have consistently focused on the samc basic list of priorities, s National Security threats, d convicted criminals, border cros crossers, and repeat crossers. Even with clearly articulated enforcement priorities, dhs faces tradeoffs in designing itt interior enforcement strategy. Sb most importantly, there is a ity fundamental tension between the quantity and the quality of deportations. Te with finite resources, i. C. E. Can target unauthorized immigrants who are easy to locate and deport, but this means less focus on others who may be difficult to locate but who are enforcement priorities for naturally security, Public Safety, or other reasons. The costs for deportation across deo different i. C. E. Programs illustrate this tension. Th the National Fugitive Operations Program is the most targeted, as it sends teams of agents into the community to pursue specific high priority cases. Its also the most expensive interior enforcement program, g averaging over 4,000 per arrest compared to 1,000 per arrest for the less focused criminal alien program. Tougher interior enforcement also must be weighed against e potential Public Safety tradeoffs. Many Law Enforcement agencies have actively cooperated with i. C. E. Due to the perceived Public Safety benefits of such cooperation. But hundreds of other communities have limited their role in Immigration Enforcementt because it reduces Community Trust in the police and takes resources away from core law sii enforcement responsibilities. My organization estimates that more than 5. 9 million unauthorized immigrants, 53 ofh the unauthorized population, dio live in such jurisdictions. Is this is the main reason the he Current Administration ended the secure Communities Program and redesigned its approach to federal and local cooperation through the enforcement program. Stricter immigration control can also inflict damage on American Families and communities as many unauthorized immigrants are deeply immigrated within the s. United states. Grants h 79 of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the u. S. At least 5 years, and 39 have children l here, most of whom are u. S. Licy citizens. Policymakers therefore must mu weigh how to best pursue their e Enforcement Mission while also limiting potential harms to the wellbeing of immigrant workplaces and neighborhoods. They also must ensure that civig and Constitutional Rights of all u. S. Residents are protected. There is little debate whether dhs or any Law Enforcement agency should set enforcement priorities or even about which t unauthorized immigrants should be the highest priorities. But real disagreements exist about these deeper tradeoffs. How important is it to maximize the total number of removals and re the number of interior removals in particular versus focusing resources on high priority cases and exercising discretion in other cases . Deportation data from the last decade shows that even as thiS Administration continues to rev remove immigrants in record numbers, dhss answer to this question has changed over time. O deportations increased especially rapidly between 2003 and 2009, but a shrinking share of deportees had criminal convictions and a rising share fell completely outside of dhs. Core enforcement priorities. 47 of interior removal cases in 2008 had no criminal record at all. Recently enforcement has focused more narrowly on high priority cases. Terior r although interior removals fell by 50,000 between 2009 and 2013 the number of criminals deported increased by 10,000. By 2013, this is the last year th that we have detailed records for but i can talk about more recent years as well, by 2013, serious criminals accounted for 68 of interior removals and noncriminals, just 13 . Border removals, another top priority, increased by 100,000 in these years. As a result, 99 of all removall in 2013 fell within one of dhss enforcement priorities. In closing, dhs has not only established more specific enforcement priorities, it has by and large been successful in implementing its goals. Thank you again, and i would be happy to answer any questions. All right. Do you want to go first . You can go first, mr. Chairman. Y youre the chairman. You decide. Fir thank you. Youve been very patient, senator franken, i appreciate that. I admire the chair. I know you care about these issues and i appreciate your e attention to them. Mr. Thompson, what ms. Vaughn said strikes me as being very troubling for your members. Yes, sir. When she says this individual had 62 situations of aliens being arrested for 225 charges, many of them violent charges and so forth, and only five of those would they accept, i. C. E. Would accept for removal. Isnt it true that, as you understand the law, that they must deport criminal aliens . And do you feel like that if the federal government is going to take over immigration, which apparently it is and has a legal right to do, it ought to follow through and follow the law . Absolutely, sir. The answer to your first question is yes, i do have that belief. The trick on this one is that someone is arrested and put inty a county jail, theyre fingerprinted, those fingerprints are shuttled off to the great divide in washington or elsewhere, a hit comes back saying that person is here, detain them. An electronic document is forwarded to a sheriffs office, in many places its just a fax. It says, please detain this person, we have reason to of the believe he falls into one of these categories. , sir, as you know all too well, that is a clear violation of what the Supreme Court said we d have to do, or we can do. A sheriff cannot, cannot violate the constitution by saying, okay, well hold that person until you either come and get sd him or until you send us a federal warrant. This is a terrible situation for our nation to be in. Personallyr politically naive, ignorance or just incompetence but i do believe is it is the political calculus i really do believe that. As i listen to to the director ever shake and. Every day there are dozens and dozens if not hundreds or thousands of these request that same old this person and they cannot in good faith for coated must release them. And yet we still have more money going to i. C. E. , of officers whose unions are tied and that communities are risk. The simple question. So what happens if the person is reckless driving as the officer approaches to find out the individual is illegally in the country . What happens . That the town hall people say turn them over to the feds for deportation Security Officer say they will not even Pay Attention unless there is multiple offenses. That is absolutely the case. If he is doing his duty. Thats correct. But to protect those local citizens they will not come get them. Correct. How would you comment on this situation . Have you given any thought to that . I have. First, the code of federal regulation is very clear and says was the local Law Enforcement officer receives a dictator from i. C. E. They shall maintain custody for no more than 48 hours the is but there is the expectation to maintain custody. Congress has given i. C. E. The authority to issue the detainers and the expectation is they should be complied with and more than 90 percent of the sheriffs and the country want to comply even the police chief in the selfdescribed sanctuary jurisdictions have testified they comply fully with all i. C. E. Detainers better issued so it isnt a question to be illegal or unconstitutional. They are an accepted lawful instrument for i. C. E. To use for those to pursue with deportation so the problem is the Obama Administration has introduced confusion by changing decades of the interpretation of the regulations that they have for congress now all of a sudden said this is just a request would be for there always considered obligatory of course, a sheriff would always honor a detailed request from the u. S. Marshals, where u. S. Military police or the appropriation office if one of those agencies issued a request there would not think twice but just the fact is Immigration Enforcement that makes it controversial. ThE Administrations policy was done without any bagel foundation over the objections over there very senior career people at that agency. To the extent there is any confusion in my opinion they have instigated that confusion with thE Administration with the goal to the goal action and it could have been solved with a sanctuary bill that you wrote and introduced. That is the answer. 287g officers have of unity that could be offered to any Law Enforcement officer receives the detainer from ice. That is something we need to solve. I. C. E. Issues that before theyre released that are they willing to turn the person over . Oftentimes they do provide the detail her before they are due to be released. Eight can solve part of problem. But the biggest problem is after that timeline over 90 percent of the time there is no i. C. E. Officer to collect the individual or customs our Border Patrol and the sheriff can no longer hold the individual they must be released. Thank you. Dr. Of a bike tuesday on the tradeoff that you mentioned the relationship with enforcement and Public Safety one of the main differences with the Priority Enforcement Program as of predecessor is that pep in the mitt certain forms of cooperation between dhs and local Law Enforcement agencies. How does the pep program work with this . How does it enhance Public Safety . Thank you. The program relies on the exact same information sharing and to identify potentially removable noncitizens who are arrested. It tries to respond to two different problems that secure communities a majority of the people deported never committed a crime or a minor offenses that was the first career four years of the program that is was generated such a broad backlash and not just San Francisco or new york there are hundreds of cities and towns around the country atlanta, a wichita kansas kansas, led the maintained that pep does you all may take custody of those to come through the criminaljustice system if they have committed a serious crime. Instead of someone who was pulled over because that is what generated the backlash. It allows communities to negotiate because Many Police Chiefs that represent all large city police and many other organizations have argued to have those mandates to compromise the efforts of those departments that have strong relationships with their communities to do policing so they cannot report crimes or cooperate so many a jurisdictions have found there rather have more limited cooperation. Is there any data about Public Safety or a certain approach . We dont have data on pep it is only in existence six months but there are some big studies of the security to secure committee as it was rolled out it had no discernible impact it is always ben Immigration Enforcement program. I just met century cities forces and on and the whole point is to build trust with the committee and on a macro level what effect has that had is any data regarding that . Record i have not seen that data. Some of my colleagues have argued that i. C. E. Removals we have recently season seed is supporting fewer people but what accounts for these removal numbers and what does it say of the overall state of enforcement . If you look at the overall numbers there remain at record high levels 1 2 to eight dash four the year 2014 there were four more removals thE Administration has removed over 400,000 every year since 2010 and every year thE Administration there has been more removals then in the year of Prior Administration but now we see a sharp increase suborder removal of border removal they have been shifted to respond to the Child Migration surge with the big increase coming from Central America almost all of those in the formal removal proceedings so also there are resources to combat the smugglers better at the heart of the flows but looking at the numbers to evaluate security unauthorized immigrants are down by 1 million it is a sustained drop the first time we have seen a drop after 40 years of increases now a seven your drop and border applicants also had a sustained drop looking at traditional and authorized immigrants for those apprehended at the border but then the numbers continue to drop. Increase still see pure apprehensions. I am out of time may ask your indulgence . I think it is a short answer. Senator cruz cited 12 million deportations during the Clinton Administration. You just said there were more deportations in each of the gears of the Obama Administration than previously. My math says it does not compute. That is pretty good man math. I did not go to m. I. T. But i was good at math. 12 million over eight years even i can understand that. I think senator cruz was talking about border returns with the your years we had huge volumes of border apprehension because the security is not as good as it is now an 95 or more were turned around so with the Clinton Administration there probably were 12 million maybe not that high but there were Border Apprehensions not quite that high a probably a little off but the number of removals of formal return to deportations over the course of the full eight years were probably between 400,000. So the numbers he was doing apples and oranges. Yes. Formal removal of verses turned away at the border. Yes. Prior to the Bush Administration and the highest removal ever was and below 100,000. When he brought that up i knew something was not right. Thank you for your indulgence and all of you for your service. What did happen with the number began to plummet as part of their removal it was a misrepresentation to hide behind the weakness that was occurring. But they ask for enough money but yet in 2014 the only removed 315,000 and 2015 only 235,000 and only 63 were criminal. Them guessing they are counting border removal numbers can you briefly comment . First of on the issue of the Chilling Effect there are some excellent studies done rather radical operation of agencies compromises Community Policing and it is clear that isnt supported by the data or the surveys of the Actual Experience so there is a lot of reformation available but with deportation they were talking about anyone deported by i. C. E. Or Border Patrol. He was counting apples and oranges against the apples and oranges count hundred the Obama Administration i believe it is entirely consistent with the office of immigration statistics has reported in the annual your book. I think it is pretty accurate but the Obama Administration did differently but they started to take Border Patrol cases that formerly was counted as a return to process as a removal so that would bring up artificially the number city or not counting all deportations. If mexicans cross the border on lawfully then they can be stopped at the border and immediately sent back . The accelerated way is through expedited removal. But when people come from Central America, they can claim asylum, they cannot immediately be sent back to mexico so theyre in the United States. And what i hear is they turn themselves to the officers to say take care of that and what happens frequently . Yes. From what i hear is they turn themselves in and Border Patrol is required under current interpretation to turn the families and children over to Refugee Resettlement to process as unaccompanied minor of the familys offer the opportunity to apply for asylum and then to appear at a Court Hearing in the future so it is a generous for multiprocessor they could get that to expedited removal like any other crops are but the choice is made to allow them to have a hearing rather than use expedited removal. Defect. Normally the asylum claim comes later. Mike understanding is when we have the huge flow increase which you are sending a message to Central America you have to turn yourself in. They claim they were running advertisements in Central America but they didnt change the policy. Now were having another surge as the top officers stated you normally see a decline at this time of the year but it is still increasing. So what is your opinion with regard to the necessity to have a clear immigration policy . Before somebody leaves their home to put themselves at risk tollgate need to know there will be apprehended and they will be deported . Or we could have a plummeting of the attempt. What theyre telling the Border Patrol is they came because they knew they would be allowed to stay so we need to change that incentive to change the policy they get Text Messages on facebook with pictures of the notice to appear to send back to friends and family in their home country so people are coming because they know they are allowed to stay and unless it changes they will keep coming. They dont Pay Attention to the law on the books they are worried about what will happen in under the current circumstances they will be turned over to Law Enforcement for a secure place for family members or others. Are you familiar with the 287g . I am. I remember when that got started you were to the Bush Administration and they were a little slow they get nervous so they have to have a big Training Program they can arrest the mayor of the town but not somebody who was a legal in the country but anyway. And the bill was passed and they added 287g contracts which is essentially taught the local Law Enforcement what they could do and how to cooperate in identify criminals. It has declined by more than half certainly it should have been nationwide in almost every jurisdiction. It is staggering because that number will go even lower. There are two principal problems in particular for the sheriffs to participate in 287g. It is an exorbitant cost to the jail operations because they have to convert the facilities and as you know, that is an enormous financial burden on a few dipodies was that originally the situation . Get was not. Alabama was one of the first dates to be approved. That cost can be staggering if you look at the border counties texas to california with the exception of san diego county, the cost to be compliant with bankrupt that sheriff. Talking about new facilities, a close, beds, a Security Camera systems, of the training alone for the deputy to understand the programs requires 14 days away from the office to be compliant in the i. C. E. Training procedures it is a staggering cost in the 287g program there are very limited funds to reimburse when they have to pay their own expense. Absolutely. was sitting here looking up that discussion my head almost exploded given directly to the sheriff will put a right into the requirements we would be glad to help the federal government. Fabulous. Now if there is an incentive if you have a bad person you want him removed from the country but i thought the federal government could spend more money without that was awfully long. Is 14 business days. Five weeks. A think thats right. It is staggering. And learn how to handle yourself. In eight i was in arizona one of the most remote counties in the country and the highest transit point for illegal immigration. 16 sheriffs deputies if they participated in the 287g behalf to be out of the office to meet the training requirements that cost is borne by the county not i. C. E. They may tie it one dash paid lodging or the air fare but the deputies are not doing their job but now our training so the share fast to pay overtime to cover. So if it is a financial backbreaking exercise. We met last week and this is an issue we have to fix and there is a solution there. We will work with you for whatever it takes but 113 million is returned and reprogrammed because they didnt spend it when sheriffs and counties are going broke, send us the money directly dont give it to the governor sent it to west. I think that is good advice. With 2 million criminal aliens in the country, it seems to me thE Administration utilized the expanded 287g to identify any of those and now they commit to other crimes on a regular basis is that a concern . Most definitely. About half of those are at large and that is an estimate that i. C. E. Came up with when the program got rolling. It isnt so much finding criminal aliens because they get the alert when the fingerprint is taken if they match but the problem is also that many of those illegal aliens are not known yet because as they crossed the border illegally they were not apprehended so there is nothing to match and in some places i was told by a supervisor a few years ago that rand their program said 50 percent of criminal aliens in the jail were not identified through fingerprints. Requires an interview. Some more is required in just matching fingerprints that is why have a problem with this century cities blocking access because now nobody has any idea of who these people are or where they are from or if they are removable. If they are released than they have the ability to go about their criminal activity and i. C. E. Officials will tell you 50 percent of criminal aliens released for one reason or another will go on to real friend. Thank you it is an important issue but were deliberately undermining with the Immigration Law as it encourages people to come to america of lawfully to make up mockery of those two patients the way to, denying the American People to select people by lot to improve if they serve the National Interest and it is very bad and the president has no right the legislation he wanted did not pass to carry over in this fashion and i think it demonstrated today the failure of our system in that one area promised would be pursued with criminal aliens. So there is nothing working but thank you for testifying have record will remain open for one week. We are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] if [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations