Congressional Budget Office testify before the Senate Subcommittee on physical response ability and Economic Growth. Thank you all for participating. I think it will be good. Im sorry we cannot have it in a more, what to say, a more kind of formal setting because it may have been better because im not sure if there is any hearing we have that was more important than this. Our Witnesses Today will be philip schlagel, director of the congressional Budget Office and jean todaro who is the comptroller general of the United States and head of the u. S. Government accountability office. With that i will make my Opening Statement and then turned to maggie, my Ranking Member, and then Ranking Member wyden for the entire committee has a statement he would like to make as well. Again, thank you all for being here and im grateful to all who are there during us by internet. Todays hearing will address the topic that was shied away from Syrian Refugees and when it comes to our health we make choice
We are creating the candidate pool doing selections from the candidate pool and bringing those staff in and selecting who we are going to offer employment to. Final category being staff that has been on boarded. That number is 84. That includes people and this number is much larger than it was two weeks ago. That including people who have either been offered a job and accepted and we have at least tentative start work date for people who have already started work. These are positions that have been onboarded from december 2022 to the present. Those 84 positions have started or will start work scheduled in january or february. We are pleased with that progress that we are seeing some movement in getting selections made and staff on boarded. As you can see from that middle column we have a large amount of work to do over the next 60 days to make those selections and get people onboarded in the system. I will pause and turn this over to dr. Cummings to answer specifically your questions a
We are creating the candidate pool doing selections from the candidate pool and bringing those staff in and selecting who we are going to offer employment to. Final category being staff that has been on boarded. That number is 84. That includes people and this number is much larger than it was two weeks ago. That including people who have either been offered a job and accepted and we have at least tentative start work date for people who have already started work. These are positions that have been onboarded from december 2022 to the present. Those 84 positions have started or will start work scheduled in january or february. We are pleased with that progress that we are seeing some movement in getting selections made and staff on boarded. As you can see from that middle column we have a large amount of work to do over the next 60 days to make those selections and get people onboarded in the system. I will pause and turn this over to dr. Cummings to answer specifically your questions a
These issues i have mentioned lead me to introduce the Refugee Program Integrity Restoration act of 2017. Into place that where it should be in Congress Also the states and localities should have a true state whether theyn can resettle refugees to detect fraud or reduce National Security concerns. I know this past tuesday marked thees end of the suspension of executive order. And i know that department of against screening with refugee applicants with that adjudication m process but that Previous Administration said in response to any security related questions the serb refugees were the mostriue vetted but even after never understood by the administration thought simply because they were the most vetted that it was sufficient but it seems within months of taking over they have identified several areas in which it could be improved and i appreciate the attention to security concerns and the steps taken i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and i yield back the of balance of
Next the House Homeland Security committee holds its first open meeting to examine these up security procedures and what can be done to strengthen prevention of a terrorist entering the us. We hear testimony from several federal agencies including customs and Border Protection and the state department. This is an hour and a half. The Committee Tax course on denying terrorist entering the eye states will come to order. The test for submitting to examine a visa process and the Visa Waiver Program. I recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I welcome back our expert witnesses to the capital and thank you for being here and doing double duty. I look forward to following up on some of the broader themes for the briefing. In order to inform the American People of the security of the visa process and Visa Waiver Program. I want to thank chairman mccall for prioritizing this task force in its commission. Last congress on combating terrorist and foreign fighter travel was not only successful