John kelly will be speaking. This will be the first public address that secretary kelly has given since his swearingin. We are honored to have chosen washington for this venue. We are ranked as the most politically engaged body in the nation. Our students are actively ,nvolved in dollar dialogue and i am delighted a number of hours due to its rb are able a number of our students are able to be here today. Veteransad supporting actively for a number of years now. Currently we have 1800 veterans and dependence being educated here. On the topic of todays conversation, i want to talk about our longterm involvement in Homeland Security issues. Kellysecretary predecessors have visited our campus them and the speeches from people like secretary kelly highlight the work we do in this field. The faculty at George Washington has been working since before september 11. Director mention the of the George Washington center for cyber and Homeland Security. To have him introduce secretary kelly. I know you will enjoy his presentation today. Thank you. [applause] thank you, and before i interviewed secretary kelly, let me thank steve for his tenure as president of George Washington university. It ably and has been a proponent of research, academia, and the marriage between policy and research and academia. Thank you. He will be stepping down at the end of july. It is a distinct privilege to be able to host general kelly today. Leaders in the Homeland Security space in the audience are today, at as the president had mentioned, we had the opportunity to host all of his predecessors, but in this case we have the first secretary with operational experience. All i have to say is he is a marine. What else do you need . He served ably for 40plus years. 1970, went back to get his degree, and came back to the marines as an officer. He has moved up the ranks and served in so many various leadership roles, including command roles and staff roles, as well as educational roles. Really excited to hear from general kelly. He is a patriots fan. I will not hold that against him. And a red sox fan. Im thrilled to have general kelly for us today. So to be able to hear more in terms of the Strategic Vision of the department and the priorities he is setting for the men and women who are charged with the awesome responsibilities of protecting our homeland day in and day out. It is important to provide context, and ultimately we are a university, but we want to make sure we are empowering and arming our men and women with knowledge to be able to fulfill that objective. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to host general kelly. He is the fifth secretary of es aland security, overseas workforce of 200,000 people. He is here to recognize that Homeland Security starts overseas. We had a number of executives, coding ambassadors. I see the japanese executives, elgin ambassadors, who have been able to join us today. Secretary kelly, the floor is yours. We look forward to engaging in a. Ur comments and the q secretary kelly thanks very much, frank, and thanks for the kind words. G. W. For hosting this event today. When i retired my biggest fear was to be offered another inltime job, particularly the government. I did not want to go up and down the beltway that i did so many other times. Did not like the bureaucracy, but here i am today. Make my way up 95, the first thing i read is the clips that are taken out of areas publications around the country, and i read about frankly what i do or what i have done, what i have said, and i read about my people. It is one of the first things i do every day, and the other one is to read the daily intelligence briefing. Read about my people, my institution, and above me, occasionally, but more importantly, i read in the intel what we are actually accomplishing during the course of the day. Theres a big cap between the two, what is reported in the press and the media, and i mean no disrespect. Prouder to serve alongside the men and women of Homeland Security, and we as a nation oh then a debt of owe then a debt of gratitude. When you are having your morning coffee, the coast guard is pulling a fisherman out of his boat, capsized in pretty heavy seas, and while you are deciding what you want for lunch, the Training Center is teaching Law Enforcement officers how to respond to an active shooter. When you are scrolling through are poll facebook, we figuring out how to defeat ares, or investigators closing in on a child predator. Stopping ag madman who is local state and politicians read or listen to partial and oftentimes inaccurate media reporting on some alleged incident at an courthouse, and assumed the men and women at dhs are intentionally abusing innocent individuals while they break or ignore or while my people break and ignore u. S. Law. They make the assumption that my people are doing it wrong, as opposed to making the assumption that my people are doing it the law,rking within based on their training and just who they are as americans. That is the ordinary day and one that does not make the paper. Every day in a million different ways, dhs employees are making our country more secure, standing guard against all the hazards we face, and forcing the Laws Congress has passed because we are lucky enough to live in a nation of laws. We do our job so you can live your peaceful life, a safe life, in a free country. Make no mistake, we are in fact a nation under attack. Were under attack from criminals who think their greed justifies raping young girls at knife point, dealing poison to our youth, or killing some of us for fun. We are under attack from people who hate us, hate our freedoms, laws, values, hate the way we live our lives. We are under attack from failed states, smugglers, and radicals. Were under attack every single day. The threats against us are relentless. When people think about dhs, they think about how we respond to terrorism, and that is fair. This is our Foundation Given our larger story, and critical to what we do. But our jobs are to score the nation from the threats we face from all hazards. But one of the greatest hazard is from transnational criminal organizations. Inflictrorists, tcos butality and regularly ehead their victims. They exploit desperate people for their own purposes. They destroy their own communities and bring great shame on their countries of origin. They are utterly without laws, conscience, or respect for human life. Their business dealings and violent practices for the sophisticated networks move anything and everything across our borders including human beings. We have set out to stop that movement to the greatest degree we can. Take thousands of dollars from desperate people , people trying to escape a lack of Economic Opportunity in many s and send them on a course north on a network that rivals dantes journey into hell. The smugglers make a few here and hes and they offer no make few guarantees. Not every person moving along these networks is an economic refugee or trying to escape poverty we face real threats from socalled special interest aliens that move at great expense from fast distances outside the western sphere into the United States. The special interests, if from part of the world where nt, aresm is prese hostile to the united takes. These individuals take huge sums of money to transport them from the middle east, through south and central america. Do not get to vet them. You do not know their intentions. Do not know why they are here. They sent it to our country and noticed living among us. You are blind to what they are tcos do isdamage only part of the story. They move fast images of cocaine and heroin, methamphetamines. They move these tonnage is across tonnages across our borders. Protections,and onlyimmigrations, ice, and homeland investigations are witness to the vast quantity of drugs that are trafficked into the United States every day with devastating consequences. Recent data,most over 52,000 deaths from these drugs in the United States caused by these overdoses. It is the highest number of deaths our country has ever seen. More deaths than the peak of the aids epidemic. In a single year we have lost as Many Americans as we lost in entire world war i. Its almost we have lost in the 12 years of fighting in vietnam. That is just overdosed deaths. That number says nothing about the longterm health damaged our citizens who survived. To say nothing about the human misery, the families ripped apart, and the extremes of crime and violence inherent in the illegal drug enterprise. Let me be clear about marijuana. It is a potentially dangerous that frequently leads to the use of harder drugs. Science tells us it is not only psychologically addictive, but can have profound negative impacts on the still developing minds of teens and people up to their mid20s. The on that come its use and possession is against beyond that, its use and position is against the law. We are sworn to uphold all the laws that are on the books. Dhs personnel will continue to investigate marijuana illegal pathways along the network into the United States. We will arrest those involved in the drug trade according to federal law. Customs professionals who continue to search for marijuana at the, air, and land ports of appropriateake actions. When marijuana is found at airports, tsa personnel will take action. As will use convictions essential elements as they build their deportation, removal, apprehension packages for targeted operations against illegal aliens. They have done this in the past, are doing it today, and will continue in the future. Have asm tcos devastating effect on our homeland. The other aspect of the threat is terrorism. For a brief moment after the 9 11 attacks, we came together as a country and stood shoulder to shoulder against this horrible threat. But the years have passed and we have grown accustomed to it and now question all the security, all of the issues that we have put in place to secure the nation. It is a little bit of an inconvenience at an airport or as you pass on to an airplane. The threat to our nation, our american way of life, has not diminished. The threat has metastasized and decentralized him and the risk is threatening us today in a way that is worse than we experienced 16 years ago. As i speak these words, the fbi has opened terrorism investigations and all of our 50 states. Since 2013, there have been 37 ourlinked plot to attack country. This is bad news, but it gets worse. Experts estimate 10,000 citizens of europe have joined the caliphate fight in syria and in a iraqi. Houses more from nations in asia, africa, the western hemisphere have also joined that fight. I have learned how to make ieds, employed drones to drop ance. Againstlition, we are what is best described against conventional formations in the caliph i. The expectation that many of will holy warriors survive, come back to their home countries, where they will wreak , and theeurope, asia United States. Because many are citizens of countries in our visa waived programs, they can easily travel to the United States, which makes us and continues to make us a prime terrorist target. Homegrown terrorism is a difficult challenge. Few of the challenges we face from a terrorism point of view article. T we have seen an unprecedented spike in homegrown terrorism. The past 12 months, to have been 36 homegrown terrorist cases opened. These are the cases we know about. Homegrown terrorism is difficult to predict an almost impossible to control. What is feeding the violence . Typically, it is the internet. From anywhere across the world, organizations are sharing hateful propaganda with impressionable people. They published revolting howto manuals, teaching their followers how to build bombs and kill innocent people. These you may they trade pictures of people being stoned to death. If you are a terrorist within in internet connection, you can recruit soldiers, you can upload a video calling for a jihad with a few clicks. Thanks to encryption devices and security medication techniques, these individuals are becoming harder and harder, and i predict impossible to detect. Until community leaders, teachers, Law Enforcement, and their are more aware of options to prevent that message from taking hold, our youth are afraid to these predators. Prey to are these predators. These people despise the United States because we are a nation of rights, of laws, and of freedoms. They have a single mission, and that is our instruction. I tell youggeration, they tried to carry out this mission each and every day, each and every night. They are relentless. They cannot be stopped. Like thoseand women that serve at dhs, military, and Law Enforcement are ever visit. And they are. Cyber, not just bombs and guns are threats against him, and other type of conflict is taking place in the computer networks. We are under constant attack by a wide range of adversaries with an even wider range of capabilities in this realm. There are nationstate actors with sophisticated tools. There are global criminal organizations that operate like a legitimate is this right down to Customer Service support. There are lone wolves that buy now where on the internet. Sometimes they just want to create havoc. They target our government networks, Critical Infrastructure systems throughout america, which is being bombarded on an hourly basis. These attackers steal intellectual property, personal data, and health information. Y are thieves, seven tours saboteurs, and enemies of democracy. We rely on technology for everything. From our coffeemakers to running global corporations. But this reliance and perhaps overreliance brings risks. What would happen to our country if the stock market did not trades . What would happen to the transportation if the navigation satellites suddenly went dead . What happen if a major city lost power . Cyber threats present a tremendous danger to our way of life, which are no less see if significant from the regular world. It is a big job, this department. We are up against criminal organizations, cyber attacks, assassins, pandemics, hurricanes, and oil spills. The danger israel real, but so is our dedication, professionalism, and expertise. These risks that is why we do what we do. 16 times in my life i have raised my right hand and swore before my god that i would support and defend the constitution of the United States. Our nation is unique in that we swear our allegiance to a piece of paper, a constitution, to law, not to a king, a joint president , to a party, or the but the supreme law of the land. We vowed to uphold the law and to operate within it. Ise a sacred duty, and that the continuation of the United States as we know it. To protect our way of life and Exceptional People we are. Every day we take a stand against the forces that endeavor to take exceptionalism away from us. Say with help from our International Interagency and private sector partners, state and local partners, we are standing strong and winning the battle. We must win the battle on hundred percent of the time every day. 100 of the time every day. Our adversaries only need to succeed occasionally to make a point. Of the newirst week administration, we have been securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws. Not only is this our right, it is our responsibility to ensure the safety of the american people. People who illegally cross our borders do not respect the laws of our nation. We want to get the lawbreakers out of our country. Being serious about our borders is not good for the american people, but will also save lives. In 2016, customs and Border Protection save nearly 4000 yeardebt individuals who found themselves abandoned by the coyotes in the desert and nearly died. 4000 saved. Much has been made up our efforts to discourage women from endangering themselves and their children at the hands of these human smugglers. It is working. 16,000 familyn units were apprehended in december, only 1100 were apprehended in march. This is a phenomenal drop in movements. Every one of them that did not come did not subject themselves to the dangers of the network and the abuse of that network. Fewer people are crossing the border illegally means fewer deaths, fewer people submitting themselves to that terrible network experience. And iothing more know i speak for the attorney general nothing more that we would like to do than put these human smugglers out of business, and we would do anything, our departments, to do just that within the law. The drop in illegal immigration is really remarkable. The germanic reduction traumatic reduction is evident along the southwest border. It is 64 lower than this time last. The numbers are lower because we are serious about Border Security and enforcing our immigration laws. Catch and release and focus on prosecuting and convicting the traffickers on the coyotes themselves. We have not done that before. Detainers foring deportation and have arrested more criminal aliens. We will continue to expand the prosecution of anyone, including family members, pay the traffickers, especially when they paid the traffickers to move children up that terrible network. Our dhs personnel will enforce ice, know, primarily they have a job to do an art job to to do it have a do and are trained to do it. These indicated men and women have the resources and they know they have an administration and a department and a secretary that have their back. While we have seen a drop in human smuggling, agencies across our department continued to seize vast amounts of dangerous drugs. At the midpoint of this fiscal year, the coast guard is combating a sharp uptick in cocaine flow and has removed nearly 243 thousand pounds that were headed to the United States. Cdp has reported a 39 increase seizures, 43,000 pounds. They have seen an increase in heroin and methamphetamine seizures, and it is only