Of aqap. I know that was before your watch. The boston bomber sthapdthat happened when i was at the department of defense. I am familiar with the case. Youre not going to take i was at the dod. Al. You were not in charge of tsa when he got through wearing a bomb i was not charge of tsa in december 25th a 2009. Fordt. Hood, some choose to refer to that as workplace violence. When someone is yelling indicating hes doing it in the name of allah, that doesnt seem to be exactly a right wing radical evangelical christian. I know theres been a lot of discussion about Francisco Sanchez in San Francisco. And i know as a former judge, an ongoing problem, one goyuy i sentenced him i think he got nine duis before he got to me. Six months later hes back in my court. He said he was deported 30 days or so after i sent him to prison. I come back and thats what keeps bringing me back to Francisco Sanchez. He was deported five times. Have you analyzed each of those deportations, where they occurred and where sanchez may have reentered the country . I have looked at the a very detailed timeline of each of the five removals. I dont sitting here recall, exactly where he was removed from what point from what station. We dont know for obvious reasons how and when he reentered the United States. At least i dont know. Maybe in a guilty plea or something he acknowledged how and when he did it. I dont know where he reentered across the border each of those five times sir. Wouldnt that seem to be important to know where somebody reenters five times . Absolutely. I would encourage you i would like to find out from somebody in your department where those five reentries were. Were they all down in south texas or some in arizona area . Were they california . It doesnt seem like well ever be able to get a grip of dealing with reentries by people that come in illegally if we dont know where theyre reentering. The fellow i mentioned that i had dealt with when he was back in my court, i asked how he came back in, and he said, well, they took him to the border and watched him walk across and then after the officials took him to the border drove off, then he came back across and ended up back in our county. So it seems like that ought to be where the focus is. Is there any indication that if mr. Sanchez had been given amnesty somewhere between the first illegal entry and the fifth that he would not have shot Kathryn Steinle . Any indications that amnesty would have prevented this . Im not sure i understand your question . I think its a pretty basic question. The white house is saying that the fault for the shooting of this beautiful young lady in San Francisco was because republicans have not passed comprehensive Immigration Reform. And we know we pass laws, we appropriated money to build a fence, to build a virtual fence, things that have not been done. Im wondering if we can figure out what the white house is thinking. Because, obviously, when amnesty was going to be part of a comprehensive Immigration Reform im just wondering if we all of a sudden declared mr. Sanchez as being legally here if that would have kept him from pulling a gun and killing ms. Steinle. I cant find any correlation to that. Im just trying to figure out what in the heck the white house thinks would have occurred differently if this man had been granted amnesty . I cant see that it would have prevented her shooting. Well to be honest i do prefer you be honest thank you. I am interested in promating cooperation with local Law Enforcement so we can effectively get at people like this individual. So if there were an amnesty i dont see how that particularly helps you just declare everybody legal then i dont see that it makes a difference. But i realize time is running out. Is dhs still shipping people to different parts of the country after they enter illegally . Depending on where they have family or where they ask to be shipped . I dont know that thats our policy, sir. Are you saying dhs has not done that . I dont know that thats our policy as you stated. Some people i didnt state it was a policy. Im just saying youve done it. Some people are able to make bond, some people are put in our alternatives to detention programs, sir. So the question was are you still sending people to different parts of the country after they enter illegally . The gentlemans time is expired. The secretary may answer if he wants to. I dont know logistically where we send people or how they are placed. I do know a large number of people are making bond and a large number of people are being placed in alternatives to that would be a yes youre shipping around the country . The chair will recognize mr. Labrador. Thank you for being here today. Ever since Kate Steinles murder dhs and San Francisco have been pointing fingers of blame at each other. Several people on the other side were saying it wasnt the fault of ice that sanchez was released. We had a telephone Conference Last Week with a dhs official. My Congressional Staff asked last tuesday that even if dop had released mr. Sanchez to ice. Ices answer was likely ice likely would have released him to San Francisco. Because of the outstanding criminal warrant despite San Francisco being a known sanctuary city. That does not comply with the detainers and rueleases hardened criminal ailen. Does that make sense that will never return him to you for deportation purposes . No. How often does ice release them to sanctuary cities . I dont know but no to your first question. If it doesnt make sense why is ice saying he would i was not part of the conversation with your Congressional Staff, sir. But i will stand by my answer. Youre standing by your answer but thats not your policy. Its great to come here and give us an answer when the policy of the administration is to release these people to the sanctuary cities. Like i said, it does not make sense to in response to your question release somebody. So what are you going to do about it . As i said earlier i think we need to evaluate whether greater discretion needs to be built into a situation where there is a choice or there are theres a jurisdiction that wants the individual on an arrest warrant and an immigration detainer. I think there should be some discretion built into what is the best course for purposes of Public Safety. It took this young ladys death to actually get to that determination when its not the first time this has happened. You keep telling the American People they are safe, that we are stopping illegal aliens. The only way we knew he was here was because he killed somebody. Hes been deported five times were not stopping him from entering the United States. We keep catching him committing crimes once hes here. I dont know how we can say that america is safe when people like this continue to come into the United States. Im going to turn the time over to im going to give the rest of my time to the chairman. Thank you gentleman from idaho. I think mr. Labradors point im sure given your background as a Law Enforcement officer and prosecutor im sure you can feel and understand the frustration. Weve kicked him out five times. He comes back. He reoffends when he comes back. We put him in prison. He violates supervisory release. We put him back in prison. He is released to a city where we knew ahead of time this was going to happen. It would be one thing to release someone to a jurisdiction for a murder charge. Sexual assault. Serious, serious drug offense. It would be one thing to do that so they can prosecute him and particularly if theres a victim involved thats what you would want to do. But this is an old drug case. If they were going to dismiss it, why didnt they dismiss it when he was in prison . Why did it require his presence in San Francisco to decide to dismiss a case . He wasnt going to be a witness anyway. You get the frustration . I think its being directed to you because we perceive youre in a position to change that. I know you say cooperation you are trying to pursue cooperation. I think that maybe this week last week when you were talking to some folks on judiciary, if im wrong, correct me. There are five municipalities that told you theyre not going to cooperate with you. What do we do with them . If they really are refusing to cooperate, surely we have to have something more than just going back to them and talking to them again. You work for the United States of america. How in the hell can a city tell you no . First of all, i intend to reattack on the five. That was prior to San Francisco. I am not giving up on the five. The overwhelming majority have said yes they are interested. So were going to continue to push at this. And, sir, i agree totally with the spirit of your question. And i want to evaluate whether some discretion can be built into the process so that when were faced with a choice like that, we are able to make the best choice for reasons of Public Safety. I dont want to argue with you there, sir. Im not going to pick on somebody who used to be a prosecutor. Because i know you spent a lot of your career standing up for victims. But i swear when i hear the term sanctuary city the only sanctuary it ought to be is for law abiding citizens. If were going to have a sanctuary, it ought to be for them. And when a young woman is shot walking with her father, with somebody with this resume, either you got to do something or we got to do something or maybe we can do it together. With that i would recognize the gentleman from georgeia, mr. Collins. I share the chairmans frustration and other frustrations. Because at a certain point in time, you say, again, that they just dont want to cooperate. Five cities are not going to cooperate y. Cooperate. I was looking at the dhs website. I want to get ahead of the game y. Was in legislature and i think cities and states are struggling financially. They have as youve used the term which i do not agree with this is a resources issue, one of the things is Cyber Security that you deal with and you enforce Cyber Security laws. You work on the local and state level to do that. When if they say were not going to enforce that. Were not going to cooperate with you. Would you have an opinion on that . Absolutely. We would engage we would encourage them to do otherwise yes, sir. Interesting thing. You said to mr. Smith earlier theres other things from economic security. You said you had no opinion on sanctuary cities. Yet to the chairman just now you said you agree with the spirit of his question. Yes. What is it . Do you have an opinion, do you have an spirit . Do you have a sudden moving internally internally . What do you feel about this issue . Why can we not have the United States government pass law and then you have an opinion. You have an opinion, you dont have an aopinion. The American People, this is hard to understand here. Let me make this clear. I believe that the most effective way to address and enhance Public Safety is to work cooperatively with state and local Law Enforcement. As a result of our let me stop right there. The supremacy clause is optional . Ill let you answer. May i finish my sentence . Go ahead. I believe as a result of the prior policy, we were inhibited in our ability to promote Public Safety. With the new policy, i believe well be in a much better position to work effectively and cooperatively with Law Enforcement. I do not believe that federal legislation mandating the behavior of a lot of sheriffs and Police Chiefs is the way to go. I believe it will lead to more litigation, more controversy and it will be counterproductive. The supremacy clause question you never answered. You dont believe that mandating what Law Enforcement does from a congressional perspective were the only ones that congress does the law writing. They can pick and choose what they want to just i do not believe that the federal government and the u. S. Congress should mandate the behavior of state and local Law Enforcement. Civil rights could be optional . The most effective way to do this is cooperatively with the new program. I believe it is going to yield very positive results. In the spirit of your question civil rights are optional to enforce . I dont believe its a way to go so the civil rights was counterproductive . My Public Safety efforts in this regard. I want to go back to what youre saying. It youre saying the civil Rights Action was overreach . When does it become whole sale abandonment of prosecutorial discretion . What youre saying if you just take a whole class off the table. The earned income tax credit, folks are eligible the decisions you have affect other issues than simply saying were going to hold somebody or not. Were going to address the earned income tax issue. It has more to do with what do we pick and choose to enforce . Im not sure, still, what your opinion is because youve, again, not answered it. You said well work with them. My question is, before you come back next year whenever it is if we have this hearing again, is what if some of these agencies decided they didnt want to enforce something you thought they should . Where is the screaming and outrage . When should Congress Pass anything if there is no supremacy clause, if there is no work that what we do to protect civil rights and other things . When does each department get to decide theyre not going to enforce their federal jurisdiction on states and localities who simply say, you know were not going to do it right now . May i answer . I stopped and its ask a question, thats your response time, yes. All right. I have two seconds. The chairman will give you all the time you need. I want to enforce the law may i chairman . Yes, sir you may answer the question. I want to if force the law in a way that maximized Public Safety. That means going after the criminals. A big problem with doing that are the number of jurisdictions i dont know what label you want to put on them. That have elected laws and policies that inhibit cooperating with Immigration Enforcement. In my judgment and the judgment of a lot of other Border SecurityImmigration Enforcement experts, the way to most effectively work with these jurisdictions again is a cooperative one, not by hitting them over the head with federal legislation that will engender a lot more litigation. I believe were on the path mr. Secretary i respect that opinion. What you have opened up is a pandoras box on other things they dont want to enforce because of other reasons theyll come up with. Because this is a political issue for this administration they will let it go. You open up a pandoras box. Thats not what the average person learns about black letter law. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you mr. Secretary for being here. Once again thank you for coming to houston. I appreciate your personal involvement. And fema doing an excellent job during the floods of may as i refer to them. Ill direct some questions about foreign fighters. Not only from the United States going to help isis, but foreign fighters in other countries. We know that isis uses social media, twitter others, to recruit, to raise money, and to spread their propaganda. What is dhs doing to counteract that . A number of things sir. To deal with the foreign fighter issue, one of the things we did last year was to add information to the Electronic System for travel authorization so that we know more about people who want to travel to the United States from countries from which we do not require a visa. We have always developed and are developing an additional set of security assurances that we can get from visa waiver countries. Because a large number of foreign fighters as you know im sure are coming from and returning to countries for which we do not require a visa. And so i want to see us enhance the security assurances we get from these countries with respect to people who travel from those countries to this country. Additionally on the International Level weve done a lot. I sat in on and represented the u. S. And the Un Security Council session in may on the issue of foreign fighters. And in terms of our efforts here at home, one of the things that were spending a lot of time on that im spending a lot of time on are what refer to cv engage engagement. I had a good session in houston on the same visit where you and i were together at your middle school. And in my view, enhancing and refining our cbe efforts in this country which dhs participants in and the fbi participants in and other Law Enforcement agencies along with state and local Law Enforcement is a priority. Given how the global terrorist threat is evolving. The other thing i want to discuss with you is repatriation. And what the law is currently in the United States and how its being implemented, if it is. We have this problem that a person comes to this country, commits a crime, goes to federal pris