Cause of the surge. What i want this hearing to date to talk about and the incentives we create in this country and in our laws for people to come to this country legally. We are a nation of immigrants. We need to recognize the fact that people that come into the this country by and large are coming for the exact reasons our ancestors came. They are seeking the opportunity this country offers people. We need to understand that to a certain extent we need to respect that if it is done legally. We cannot tolerate an unsecure border and a policy of immigration that is based on illegal immigration. We have to look at the law and the incentives for immigration. I would look at defered action of childhood arrivals as an incentive that creates this problem. That is what i want to gleam from the testimony and questions we are ask. Peoples lives are put at risk because of these incentives. The other point i want to make is the difficulty in getting the information to solve this problem. Part of the problem there is we have three different departments with five different component agencies dealing with this and these children are passed from one department and agency to the other. We dont keep a record and each agency is charged with a certain responsibility in the process and there is no overall coordination of everybodys effort and i dont believe we are truly enforcing the laws the way we were meant to. As a result we continue to incentvise illegal immigration. I will tun it over to Ranking Member carper. Thank you for joining us. Good to see you today. Thank you for joining us for your testimony today. One of the things i think most of us here rather democrat or republican, it is important we address the young problems and the root causes underlying causes of the contribute to those problems. As the chairman said there is no one single reason why all of these people decided to come up to our country in droves the last couple of years. But i would suggest that one of the reasons why they want to come up here is because for a number of years they have lived horrible lives that we contributed directed to. We buy a lot of Illegal Drugs up here coming from honduras guatemala and salvador. The gangs make money off the guns stole here. The environment for job creation in those three countries is not good because of it the lack of rule of law. When we deport people we dont always deport unaccompanied minors or families with children. But adults particularly adult males with a criminal record we send them right back down there and what do they do . They go to work. And the work they go to work on creates a more dangerous environment. So keep that in mind. We contribute directly to the very difficult lives in those countries and we have obligation to do something about that. As the gentlemen says a year ago, we faced a crisis at the southern border. Tens of thousands of women and children were turning themselves in seeking protection after a grueling trip from south america. Our shelters do house these children and families. Our government swung into action and sought to comply with the 2007 laws signed by former president jeb bush we setup emergency shelters, had agents border areas and worked to find safe homes for the children. We work would the governments of the three countries to launch what i call the true campaign. Letting the people know about the dangers of a trip to the north; to the u. S. And we collaborated with the government of mexico so they might strengthen their southern border and it has. And other support to local communities and faith leaders. One year later, we no longer have a crisis of the proportion we had a year ago. The numbers are down by a little more than half. In fact, while it is an improvement, is that enough improvement . No it is not. The crisis is over but we responsibilities to protect the children in our custody and have a moral obligation to treat them fairly. We must do this as they try to return to their own countries those that dont have the grounds to remain here. I look forward to hearing from witnesses on how they Work Together to process and care for many children. Our borders are better equipped today, to handle another influx of immigrants but triaz there is a lot of progress that needs to be made. I would like to focus on the Immigration Court system. As we know they were badly understaffed even before the surge, but with tens of thousands of new cases wait times are much worse and some immigrants were informed they might not getting a hearing until november of 2019. That is why i wrote to it Senate Appropriation committee to fund the urge of the new 55 judge teams and i am pleased to say they have been appointed. They will not solve the problem entirely but will be a help. We know the cases advance more efficiently when accompanied minors have a lawyer. Not surprisingly most of the minors cannot afford one. That is why in delaware and many other areas lawyers stepped up to offer probono services. I could not be prouder to the attorneys in my state but still children all over are looking attorney. Insuring efficient Border Patrol system is in place is important. But we must not lose sight of why so many folks feel the need to flee their country. If we dont realize the border integrity we need to work the honduras guatemala, and salvador and columbia and mexico and churches, nonprofits to help root out the causes of violence and poverty in the northern triangle while we do the other stuff we are doing. Not that many years we faced a similar challenge in columbia and most agree our support, along with others helped turned the country around with implementing plan columbia. We be the economic advantage in that country help. Violence has spiked and young people are vulnerable to Gang Violence. The governments must take the lead on this and they are. These three countries are already joined together in nonprecedental actions to improve the lives of their systems. Home depot says you can do it we can help. And they can do it we can help. Senate appropriation will take up the request for new infusion of federal aid to Central America and i hope the appropriates will head the call and by doing so new seeds of open prosperity that benefit generations of children to come. Needles in hay stacks. We are trying to pick out the needles. They are families trying to get through, drug owners human traffickers all trying to get through. The hay stack is huge and we need to make it smaller and to do that we need to support the administrations proposal like the new version of plan columbia. Plan columbia worked and i think this will work as well. We have to do a whole lot of other stuff in the mean time. Thank you, senator carper. I am all into cause analysis. I would agree. If you look at what is causing the unsecure border i would say the root cause is our demand for drugs. If you want a metric showing how unsecure our border is it is how much of the drugs we are taking. It is about five to ten percent. The agency is spending 25 million on the war on drugs, however. I agree that is the root cause. But within that overall root cause of the overall problem there are individual situations and this is unaccompanyied children coming in. I think it is called deferred arrivals. It the tradition to swear in all people testifying. Do you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god . Thank you. Our first witness is juan osuna. Mr. Osuna served as the associate Deputy Attorney general at the doj from june 2010december 2010. From may 2009june 2010 he was the Deputy Assistant in the Civil Division office of immigration and litigation. Prior to this he water chairman of the board of graigszimmigration appeals. Mr. Osuna . If i could ask a favor. I am not real good at acronyms. Dhs, ice, but in reading your testimony you use a lot of acronym acronyms and if you continue to that you will lose me. So try to show some carefulness there. Good morning, thank you for the opportunity to speak about the mission of the departments of executive office of immigration review. Our role with the border surge and work we continue to do with our federal officers. We are looking at cases of kids that violated the laws and deciding which should be deported and which are eligible to stay. Our all of our cases start when the department of Homeland Security files the charging document with one of the Immigration Courts. The largest problem is the growing pending cases load. There are more than 450,000 cases pending around the country. By far the most we have ever had. Despite during the budget cuts when the agency was unable to fire judges and staff those and replace those who left. We continued to receive new cases resulting in backlog. The Court Received more than 80,000 cases from july 14th 20 2014 and july of this year. We added 18 Immigration Judges and now there are 247 Immigration Judges around the country and more are at the various stages of the hiring process. We responded to the border surge by adding new priorities for existing priorities for detained cases. We added unaccompanied children and adults who arrive with children. We deare processing the cases consistently as possible consistent with due process. When we identified the new priorities the focus on the cases has had an impact on the noncontained cases awaiting jud. Overall 40 of case completions have been in priority categories meaning individuals detained by ice and those who cross the border since last year. The numbers provide insight into the work the Immigration Courts are doing. From july 18 2014 to june 30th of this year the Immigration Courts received approximately 35,000 cases that were identified as unaccompanied children. It is important to note the cases may not be pending before the court because the children are receiving relief from the removal which requires work by the Immigration Services that you will hear from a little later which has initial jurisdiction over the cases. The pending cases of unaccompanied children is 23,000. With the goal holding the hearing within 21 days after receivinging the case i can report more than 27,000 cases had an initial hearing scheduled by the date that passed and Immigration Judges have issued 6,800 orders of removal. The orders result from failure to appear for scheduled hearing when ice established the person is removal. Orders of removal has been issued in 5900 cases. Children who appear in Immigration Court proceedings without an adult may require special care and modifications to normal procedures. We have a place guidance for cases where the respondant is an unaccompanied child and there may be special dockets for childrens case. 39 courts have current active juvenile dockets. Immigration judges received specialized training regarding juvenile cases. We recognize that is presence of a representative can increase Immigration Court efficiency especially with children. We have taken steps to encourage probono representation and we are assure the undocumented children are aware of the resources when they appear. We offer Legal Orientation Program for child custodians and they are helped out with the rules and responsibilities. We launched a Program Operating in 24 Immigration Courts to provide direct representation to unaccompanied children. Last years surge caused issues for all federal agencies including ours. We did dock lit adjustments, reprioritizing certain cases and rescheduling processes. We are focused on continuing to improve the collective handling of the challenging cases. Thank you and i am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you mr. Osuna. Our next witness is mr. Mark greenberg who is the acting secretary for children and families at the u. S. Department of health and Human Services hhs. We got that one right, rights . I like your acronyms. He is the Principle Deputy and secretary and administer for children, youth and families. He directed the center on inequality and Public Policy before serving in this currents position. Mr. Greenberg . Sorry. Chairman johnson, Ranking Member carper, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I will be describing the responsibilities of the department of health and Human Services in relation to compunaccompanied children. When they are referred to usficially they they are initially put in a shelter. When they arrive at a shelter a child is provided with a complete medical examineation within 48 hours and screenings are determined to see if the child was a victim of abuse, a crime or human trafficking. Children in care receive medical, dental Mental Health services education, access to legal and religion services and Case Management and counseling. While the children are in care at the shelters we have a responsibility to place them in the least restrictive setting in the best interest of the child taking into consideration the risk of harm to themselves or to the community or risk of flight. Initially we seek the place children with a parent or a close relative or if that is not possible a more distant relative or family friend. If we cant identify an appropriate sponsor and the child doesnt get attain immigration relief the children will remain in hhs care until he or she turns 18 and then they will remand the 18yearold to the custody of the department of Homeland Security. We seek to insure sponsorships are safety and appropriate. We require sponsors identity and relationship to the child. The potential sponsor must undergo a background check and complete an assessment identifying risk factors and other concerns and in a set of cases case workers provide home studies as an additional safety measure. As part of the placement process, potential sponsors must agree they will insure that the child appears at Court Proceedings and must agree to inform the department of justice and the department of Homeland Security of any change of address and in addition when we release the child to the sponsor, we provide the address information to the department of justice and department of Homeland Security. I want to now highlight Key Developments since last years hearings. As you noted, last year it was the highest number of children in the history of the unaccompanied Children Program. This year the numbers are down significantly though still high in historic terms. Last year we received over 57,000 referrals from the department of Homeland Security in the first eight months of this year we received fewer than 18,000. Last year the president directed the secretary of Homeland Security to establish an interagency group, the unified coordination group, to insure unity of effort across the administration. The ucg continues to operate with an ongoing role to facilitate requests from the department of Homeland Security or hhs if needed and this can include request for additional capability, operational coordination, planning support, situational assessment, critical transportation capabilities. For us operating the unaccompanied Children Program presents multiple challenges because of uncertainty of how many children will arrive and when. Incorporating lessons from last summer we developed the dead capacity framework to insure we have enough yearround standard beds with the ability to quickly add temporary beds when there are seasoninal flux seasonal flux. Since 2011 we reduced the mount of time children stay in shelters from 72 days to a little more than 30 days. The average this year has been 34 days. We know sometimes a child may develop concerns about his or her placement and in april we expanded our help line in order to receive calls from children who are in distress circumstances. In addition starting this month, hhs is beginning to offer posterly services to a child and sponsor in the First Six Months after release if a placement has been disrupted or at risk of disruption. In december of last year we published our interim final rules that outlined safeguards at all of our facilities have to implement to protect children in custody from sexual abuse. Last september we provided funds to to two grantees to expand legal representation and on june 15th we issued a proposal for contractors to further expand the provision of legal services. We welcome working with the committee in congress in efforts to improve the program. Thank you and i am happy to answer any questions. Thank you, mr. Greenberg. Our next guest is phillip miller. He is the director of ice and mr. Miller served in a variety of positions. Ice is good. We know that one. Mr. Miller served in a variety of positions beginning as an immigration inspector in 1996 and becoming a deportation officer in 1997. Field Office Director of the new Orleans Field Office in 2009. Mr. Miller thank you and good morning. Chairman johnson, Ranking Member carper, and members of the committee, tong thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I currently serve as the assistant director for Field Operations for ice, en